Delicious Barbecue Meatballs

Baked

Barbecue

Meatballs

I love that these are baked and smothered in a homemade barbecue sauce. These are great as an appetizer too! 

Here I am, on this wonderful Sunday, the day before my 25th birthday I might add, and all I want to do is cook something. Well and recover from the beer last night, which with Advil and water isn't too hard to do. Although now there's a bottle of vodka sitting on my counter trying to entice me. Maybe later. For now I'll settle for trying to think of something to make for dinner. Maybe I'll do spaghetti and meat sauce...with ground turkey instead of ground beef? Hmmm decisions, decisions...there's also a pineapple beef stir-fry I've been dying to try out. I'll mull it over and make my way to the grocery store later this afternoon.

My birthday is tomorrow, at work when it's one of the kids' birthdays they bring in a special birthday snack. Most often it's cookies of some sort. So the kids know my birthday is tomorrow and they spent all last week asking me if I'm bringing birthday snack. So I'm going to whip up some chocolate chip cookies later tonight as well. Hopefully my foot isn't giving me too much trouble in the kitchen. Yeah it's still bruised from a couple weeks ago when I came down on it wrong in dance class. Genius Kendra, bruise your foot. I danced on Thursday and it was so hard to take it easy on my foot, I just wanted to leap!

So onto this entry...I may have mentioned in my Happy New Year post. If I didn't, well there's at least a picture of these meatballs in that entry. I think my favorite thing about these is the homemade barbecue sauce. I love barbecue sauce, I think we have 4 or 5 different kinds the fridge right now. Why you ask? Well that's because you need different types of BBQ sauce for different moods. Hot n Spicy, Sweet n Spicy, original, honey sweet...then there's different brands! Ahhh so many choices!! Then there's making your own, it's always fun! So let's get these started!

Here's what you need for the meat balls

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 can (5 oz) evaporated milk

1 cup quick-cooking oats

1 small onion, chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoons chili powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon dried parsley

1-1/2 lbs ground beef

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Grab a large bowl and combine the egg, evaporated milk, oats, onion, salt, and spices. Pretty much everything but the meat. Mix it all up with a spoon...

Now you're going to take your ground beef and crumble it over the oat mix. I didn't get a picture of this...I forgot. Oops Anyways, you're going to crumble the beef over this and then mix it really well. I use my hands, which is probably why I don't have a picture. Using my hands really allows me work the oat mix with all the spices and onion into the beef to ensure that all the meatballs will have a good mix of flavor.

I shaped the meat into a rectangle type form so I could hopefully more evenly divide the meat into even sized meatballs. It...sort of worked. Granted, this was another wine night adventure with my buddy, Jazz, so it got to a point where I was enjoying my wine and trying to do 3 things at once. So of course my meatballs weren't all the same size.

Shape them into 1-inch balls and place them on a greased rack in a shallow baking dish. I have a really cool meatball roasting pan with a floating rack that works perfectly. Only problem is...I need 2 of them when I make meatballs because the rack only holds 15-18 meatballs. You want to not have them squished together so you might need to do this in two batches or use another baking dish like I did. All while trying to make Parmesan Potato Wedges at the same time. It was difficult.

Yeah, they're totally not even at all. But pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes. Check them around 15 to see how they're doing. They're done when they are no longer pink. You may need to cut a meatball open to check, that's what I did. While they're baking it's time to get that barbecue sauce going.

1-1/2 cups ketchup

1-1/8 cups packed brown sugar

1/3 cup chopped onion

1 teaspoon liquid smoke

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Once it's boiling reduce the heat and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring the sauce frequently.

Doesn't that look good?!

When the meatballs are done and look like this, you can transfer them to a 13x9 baking dish, or something a little smaller. My original recipe says this makes 4 dozen meatballs...yeah I got closer to around 2 and a half...I made bigger meatballs apparently.

 You have them in your baking dish, now it's time to cover them in that delicious barbecue sauce you made! Oh but we're not done yet...you need to put them back in the oven for another 10-12 minutes...

Yep there they are, baking away. Again my dish is really messy...I blame the wine. Delicious, delicious wine. So once the meatballs bake in the sauce for 10 or 12 minutes you're now ready to eat them!!

Don't those look sooooooo good?! Now I know this isn't a whole meal. I accompanied my barbecue meatballs with Parmesan potato wedges. You can also add a side salad to really make this meal complete. Gotta love the veggies. I've been trying to make more things with vegetables. I hear they're healthy and good for you. Hmmm healthy, who would have thought?

Well anyways, I hope you enjoy these delicious meatballs. I did and Jazz sure liked them too! I'll probably post the Parmesan Potato Wedges sometime soon, maybe tomorrow? 

I'm excited about my birthday, just because hey, it's my birthday, what's not to be excited about?

One last picture! Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by!

'Til Next Time!!