Two food blogs in a row…shocking! Today I completely outdid myself! Call me Chef Micki. My favorite store, Aldi’s, had ground lamb yesterday. I don’t recall seeing this before. I had to buy. I love anything and everything lamb. Many moons ago, I had a friend of a friend who was Jordanian. In my hometown, there used to be a local sheep farmer. This guy would get fresh lambs and cook them up. For you PETA folks, don’t hate. It was truly done in a respectful fashion. I had opportunity to watch the ceremony at any given time, but my heart couldn’t take it. I would just wait for the finished product. Needless to say, I have been a lamb lover for decades.

I have never cooked lamb myself. I decided to google popular recipes. I came up lamb meatballs with a Greek sauce. This sauce had a yogurt base, but it was not tzatziki sauce. Don’t get confused! I’ll post recipe for meatballs and sauce at the very bottom.

I never follow recipes exactly because I want to make them mine. My concoction was derived from a recipe on Delish.com. I had all of the ingredients at home, except for Greek yogurt and fresh herbs. My dad’s smaller grocery only had fresh basil. I had the other herbs dried so those will have to do. I’m not going to be too picky.

I separately laid out my ingredients for the meatballs and the sauce because that’s just how I roll.

I made the sauce first while the oven was preheating to 425. AND…primarily because mixing meat with my hands is so cold when it is first taken out of the fridge…trying to give a little time to get to room temperature.

If you do not have a mini Ninja food processor, get with the program, folks. I have had this for years and have never been disappointed. This was perfect for my sauce. You need a 1/2 cup mayo (I like Miracle Whip – don’t forget the zip), 1.5 cup plain Greek yogurt, 2 cloves garlic, fresh basil leaves, parsley, oregano, juice of one lemon, salt and pepper. I refuse to tell you exactly how much to add of each of the herbs. Only with baking do I ever measure. Just eyeball it. You can see from my picture, I went heavy on the herbs. Fresh basil leaves…oh my…the aroma is breathtaking!

I tasted the sauce. Yummo! I put in fridge to get cold while I worked on the meatballs.

The meatballs were pretty easy. I had the ingredients ready to roll. I was excited cumin was in here. That is one of my favorite spices to use. It always pairs well with turkey so to use it with lamb just made my heart beat faster.

One lightly beaten egg was the binder. Along with the egg, you need a pound of ground lamb, three gloves of minced garlic, salt and pepper, parsley, cumin, oregano and red pepper flakes. I like a little kick so I probably added a full tablespoon of the red pepper flakes. Again…I don’t measure. I just eyeball.

I rolled them and put them on a foil covered cookie sheet as I loathe cleaning cookie sheets. My meatballs made 11, but I’m sure you could squeeze a couple more out of them. The size was NOT consistent. Drizzle with olive oil. They baked in oven for 20 minutes and came out sizzling hot!

I served these on my finest China (Dixie paper plates), along with my Bud Light. When I indulged into the first one, I said out loud, “Holy crap! These are delicious.” I pat myself on the back as these were probably the best thing I have ever made. I’m pretty proud of myself with this recipe. Since I ate this as my dinner, it makes enough for two servings. I could have easily made this into three servings because I was completely stuffed, but I couldn’t stop eating. There is plenty of sauce, and there will be some leftover, which I will most likely eat with a spoon

Definitely my best recipe yet! Enjoy!

Peace out, Trout!

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Lamb Meatballs and Greek Sauce

Preheat oven to 425. Combine all ingredients, except olive oil. Roll into balls and place on cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes

Blend all in food processor. Chill in fridge until meatballs are ready