Recipe #83: Turkey Meatballs with Tzatziki Sauce

Anyone who is into Twitter will understand there are plenty of accounts you can "follow". One of the accounts I follow is called, "Busy Household" and their entire purpose is to post helpful advice and tips for anything related to the home whether it be cleaning, cooking, hosting a home party, repairing/mending items, etc. One interesting fact I saw the other day was in regards to cutting onions. The post instructed to place an onion in the freezer for 10 minutes before slicing into it. Apparently by freezing the onion it will help control the amount of fumes that are released, which should prevent you from crying. I always cry when I cut onions so I decided to try this and it did help a little bit but I still cried...oh well, at least I got through cutting the onion a lot faster than usual for this recipe.

Originally, I was going to make turkey kabobs after I saw this recipe: http://www.healthfulpursuit.com/2012/08/beef-kebabs-with-chunky-tzatziki/ but unfortunately the bamboo skewers were a little bit more expensive than I was willing to spend on them. On top of that the lean beef was not on sale today. So with a very tight budget I purchased the very lean turkey meat instead this evening. I decided to make turkey meatballs versus the beef kabobs. But this recipe was still very Middle Eastern-inspired and with the tzatziki sauce it tasted very good. Although on hindsight I should have bought the ground chicken instead to at least be a little bit more authentic. I did not have all of the spices and herbs the above recipe called for but the cinnamon and garlic certainly gave the meat that Arabic flavor.

Ingredients:

* 1 lb of Lean Ground Turkey
* 1/2 White Onion
* 1/4 cup of Bread Crumbs
* 1 large Egg
* 2 large Cloves of Garlic
* 1/4 tsp of Cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp of Sea Salt
* 1 container of Tzatziki Sauce





Cooking Directions:

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

On a cutting board, dice the onion very finely and mince the garlic.

In a medium bowl combine the ground turkey, onion, garlic, bread crumbs, egg, cinnamon, and sea salt.

Mix all of the ingredients together with your hands or a mixing spoon.

Generously spray a muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray. 

Roll the mixture into meat balls and place each individually in its own muffin slot.

Place in the oven and cook for 40 minutes.

Remove from the oven and serve with the tzatziki sauce for dipping.