Meatless Meatballs (Clean Eating / Vegetarian)

My meatless meatballs are actually becoming a weekly meal that my family asks me for! My meat loving husband looks forward to these and he is not kidding! So, hopefully this recipe will be fun for you to make (even including your kids because it's simple) and delish for your family to enjoy as we try to eat less meat to increase our health and heal and prevent illnesses, diseases, and disorders.

Note: See below for pictures on how you can use this same meatball mixture to make meatless BURGERS, or even Stuffed Peppers! It's a versatile mixture! Be creative!

MEATLESS MEATBALLS (Clean Eating / Vegetarian)

MooMoo Jackson Style

Ingredients:

2 cups dry Lentils (red or green are tastiest to me)

4 cups water

2 15oz cans Garbanzo Beans (or 2 cups of prepared garbanzo beans from scratch--see my recipe here: Garbanzo Beans From Scratch by MMJ

1/2 Celery stalk chopped (half of the entire bunch)

1 White Onion chopped

5-6 Garlic cloves minced

2 whole eggs

Grapeseed Oil (just a little to lightly fry the meatballs in to brown the outside of them before baking)

1/2 cup Brown Rice Flour (made by grinding raw, dry brown rice in your Vitamix or high tech blender until flour consistency)

Meatball Seasonings (Italian blend):

**You can use a palmfull of McCormick Italian Seasoning Blend for a quicker way to season them OR make your own Italian seasoning with the following seasonings:

1 tbsp Garlic Powder

1 tbsp Onion Powder

2 tsp Basil

2 tsp Oregano

1 tbsp Dried Parsley

Black Pepper to taste

Pink Himalayan Salt to taste

Instructions: PREHEAT OVEN TO 350 degrees

1) Start by cooking your dry lentils (and your garbanzo beans if you're making them from scratch instead of canned). Combine 2 cups dry lentils and 4 cups water in a saucepan. Cover the saucepan half way, leaving a crack open while it cooks. Bring to a boil on high heat, then turn heat to medium once boiling and let all the water cook out of the pan until you're left with softened lentils. You do not need to season them at this point.

2) Let the cooked lentils cool to at least room temperature. While they are cooling, saute the chopped celery, onion, and garlic in a skillet until tender (but not mush).

3) Combine the cooled, cooked lentils, the canned (or prepared from scratch) garbanzo beans, sauteed celery, onion, and garlic, plus the raw eggs, brown rice flour, and Italian Seasonings all together in a bowl blend it together to create your meatless meatball mixture (not to a pureed consistency but more of a chunky texture)!

Note: I have a hand held immersion blender that I use to blend it up but you can use a food processor or high tech blender as well.

4) Using a tablespoon, scoop out equal chunks of the meatball mixture and roll them into balls between your hands. Keep them fairly small, not too large so they cook well and don't fall apart.

5) Fry the meatballs on all sides in a cast iron skillet in a tad bit of grapeseed oil (just enough to coat the bottom of the pan but not to deep fry the meatballs in--you just want to brown the outside of them for a crunchy outer texture) then place them in a baking dish as they come out of the frying pan until they are all done being browned.

6) Bake all the browned meatballs at 350 degrees for approx 20mins just until they are cooked in the center (since there is egg in them).

Serve them with veggie noodles or brown rice noodles with some homemade, clean eating spaghetti sauce, or really any way you wish--mashed potatoes and green beans, etc!

ENJOY!

--MMJ

Here's a pic of my meatless meatballs with my clean eating potato salad made with fat free greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise!

You can use the same meatless meatball mixture to form them into patties and make some clean eating, meatless burgers!

You can ALSO use the same meatless meatball mixture to form them into patties and make some clean eating, meatless stuffed peppers!