Recipe: Italian Casserole

We had this for dinner last night at it was absolutely delicious! The recipe assumes you will still be having some sort of veggie on the side. Between the olives and olive oil you still might need a little more fat for the meal, too. Feel free to add even more olives and other veggies. I think this would be great with mushrooms, zucchinis and the rest of that bag of spinach used below.

The first thing to do is make the meatballs! My meatballs were 1/3 ground pork and 2/3 grass fed ground beef. But, you can make whatever Italian flavored meatball you want. I'll attempt to make this again in the future with a chicken or turkey meatball, and I'll post that recipe. I first made my own mix of pork sausage and then mixed that with the ground beef and other meatball ingredients to make the actual meatballs. You can of course just buy a pre-made Italian sausage.

Set oven to 350.

Sausage:

1 pound ground pork

0.5 tsp black pepper

1 tsp Italian seasoning (or a mix of oregano and basil)

0.25 tsp garlic powder

0.5 tsp crushed (use your muscles) fennel seeds or anise seeds

0.25 tsp paprika

0.25 tsp dried minced onion or onion powder

1 tsp sea salt

Mix all the seasonings in with your ground pork using your hands. Use a large bowl so you can make the meatballs in the same one!

Meatballs:

1 pound pork sausage

2 pounds ground beef

1/4 cup of lightly sauteed onion (yellow, sweet, white, etc.)

2 cloves of minced garlic lightly sauteed

1/4 cup almond meal

1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley (or 1 Tbsp of dried parsley)

0.5 tsp sea salt

0.5 tsp Italian seasoning (or a mix of oregano and basil)

0.5 tsp garlic powder

0.25 tsp black pepper

0.25 tsp paprika

0.25 tsp dried minced onion or onion powder

3 eggs

Add a little olive oil to a pan, heat and do a quick saute of the onion and garlic. Using your hands, mix the beef and pork sausage together thoroughly. Then, add the sauteed onion and garlic, almond meal, parsley, spices and eggs to the mixture. Mix together really well. Make golf ball sized meatballs and place them about an inch apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes. The pork in the meatballs needs to reach 145 degrees. My first batch came out at 153 degrees and my second at 143 degrees. They will still cook a little after being removed, but I can tell you the ten degrees makes a difference and the second batch was juicier.

While the meatballs are in the oven get started on your sauce.

Sauce:

One jar of a paleo friendly marinara sauce (from the store or homemade)

3/4 cup sweet peppers, cut into 1" strips

1/2 cup of diced red onion

1/4 cup of fresh parsley, chopped

Half bag of spinach, chopped

Small can of diced black olives

1 tbsp olive oil

Two roma tomatoes, sliced

In a pan heat the olive oil up to just below medium heat and add the sweet peppers. Allow to cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the red onion and allow to cook for another 1-2 minutes (until the onions start to become translucent). Add the parsley and spinach. Stir and cook for about 30 seconds or until the spinach is looses the raw look and starts to turn that deep green. Immediately add your sauce and black olives. Stir together and lower the heat to a medium-low heat. You want to warm the sauce, but you doing want to burn anything.

Assuming your meatballs are out of the oven, quarter a little more than half of them (I put 20 meatballs in the casserole and saved 15 for snacks) and throw in a 9 x 13 baking dish. Add your warm sauce mixture over the top of the quartered meatballs and mix everything together. Place the tomato slices on top, cover with aluminum foil and put in the same 350 oven for 5-10 minutes. Everything is already warm, but this just gives the dish a chance to mix the flavors of the sauce with the juice of the meatballs.

Makes 4 servings.