ground turkey and spring greens meatballs

When my son and his wife (and most important:  Baby Max!) visited last week they brought a wonderful salad mix I'd never had - it's organic, from Earthbound Farm, and is a delicious mix of baby spinach, greens, radicchio, and arugula. After they left, I realized we'd barely eaten half the box, so I made up these meatballs.  Not little ones, big, ice-cream scoop size, all this packing is making me hungry!  They were so good I stood at the counter eating them warm from the skillet - so much for good manners:)

While sorting through the freezer I discovered I had five bags of frozen cranberries - 5 bags!  Ever since the year there was a shortage of cranberries, I tend to panic in the Fall and stash extras in the freezer for my cranberry muffins, but five is a little excessive.  So I added a cup of berries to a saucepan and cooked them just until they started popping, then served them as a side. I loved the tang of the berries with the fairly mild turkey mixture, but that leaves me with 4 1/2 bags to go!

Once the meatballs are made, cooking time is short - I cooked them for 18 minutes, covered, until there was no pink when I cut them with the fork.



Ground Turkey and Spring Greens meatballs

1 package of ground turkey , mine was 20 oz.
1/3 teaspoon kosher salt
a few grindings of pepper
1/2 cup finely minced greens (about two handfuls)
2 T. finely minced onion (one small onion)
1/2 teaspoon whole thyme
1 heaping tablespoon Panko crumbs (optional)
dash hot pepper sauce or Worcestershire sauce (or both)

1 cup frozen cranberries

Mince the greens in a food processor, scrape out into a dish, then mince a small onion - no need to wash the container after the greens, since they are dry.

Place turkey into a bowl and break up with a spoon, then add the greens and onion, the thyme, salt, pepper, Panko, and sauce, if wished.  Form into large meatballs with your very clean hands, or use an ice cream scoop.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil in a skillet, add the meatballs, and cook five minutes.  Turn the meatballs then turn the heat to medium-low and cover.   Cook another 13 minutes, then remove from heat and uncover pan. 

In a small saucepan, cover the cranberries with water and bring to a boil, uncovered.  When the cranberries begin to pop, remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Serve unsweetened cranberry sauce on the side with the meatballs - and dig in!


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A tiny sprinkle of rain a few minutes ago - we haven't had rain in weeks!  As you see, the front garden is doing well.  And I have 21 boxes packed for the Big Minneapolis Move, now about a month and a half away.