Grandma Fuller’s Meatball Recipe

Raylee helped me make Grandma Fullers meatballs for the last potluck at church.  The response was so great that we made them again! And this time took pictures to show how to put them together.

These were a hit!  It is so nice to have the original recipes from my grandmother.  So many times I go looking for a fast and easy meal, and end up with Hamburger Helper.  This is how grandma cooked before there was a processed “fast dinner” alternative.  These meatballs are super simple and very tasty.

Here’s all the “how to”

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

1/2 cup uncooked rice

2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp. celery salt

2 Tb. chopped green pepper

1 Tb. Chopped Onion

1 Clove of chopped garlic

1 egg

Tomato Juice

One reason these were so easy to make was because I had everything on hand to make them.  I didn’t have to buy any special groceries.  That is probably why grandma made these too.  She canned her own juice every summer and ground beef and rice were staples in her freezer and pantry.

If you look close at the top right hand corner of the recipe card, it says that this recipe makes 18 balls.

I made a double recipe, so that is why we have 2 eggs in the picture.  I also get all my meat from Mill Creek Meats in Clarksville Illinois.  The hamburger comes packed in 1 and 2 pound packages like the one shown in the picture.

So here’s the procedure:

1. I would chop my onion and peppers first – This is Raylee’s favorite part, and that is fine with me, I hate chopping onions.  I also used yellow peppers this time instead of green, just because it was what I had.  The same with the red onion, Matthew prefers it to white, so it’s what I buy.

2. In a very large bowl, add the hamburger and the rice, the salt and pepper, the celery salt, and the onion and green pepper.  Then mix it all together with your hands.  And make meatballs.

3.  Arrange them in the pan so they aren’t touching.  I got 20 in the bottom of a 10″ skillet. I had to be inventive when I made the double batch, all the meatballs wouldn’t fit in one pan.   So I put 20 in the skillet and 20 in my dutch oven, then after the meatballs had cooked enough to really hang together, I put all the meatballs in the dutch oven to finish cooking.

4.  Add enough tomato juice to the pan to cover the meatballs.  Add the Worcestershire sauce and garlic to the juice.

5.  Cook the meatballs for 45 minutes, till the rice is done.  As the meatballs cook, the rice cooks out of them a little and the sauce thickens.  The meatballs get a little prickly looking.  That is why my sister and I always called these “Porcupine Balls”

Grandma had some GREAT recipes.  I have a box of them still to come.  Stay Tuned… 🙂