Turkey Bites (Wrapped Turkey Meatballs) by The Careless Cook

When I say Careless Cook, I mean it.  I’ve been making short-and-sweet sweets for a while, mostly for a couple of ladies’ Biblical gatherings.  Cookies, muffins, biscuits, scones, that sort of thing. They’re of a certain age and appreciate it.  But, they expressed the heart felt desire for something besides sweets.  Fine with me. I’d been thinking about moving out of the sweet rut, to offer them some savory treats, and tone down the mournful call of the Wild Sugar Beast.

 

I often find the ladies ask me to field questions, such as, what’s the difference between cookies and biscuits.  I avoid straight answers.  The truth feels so restrictive.  So, I tell them, you bake cookies at night and biscuits in the morning.  But, I don’t bake either one for women who ask too many questions. 

 

Time to stop the prattle and move on to the delightful recipe.  But, as I said, careless means careless.  I’ll give you this scrumptious concoction, but please know as I’ve said many times, do the best you can and that includes improvising, just as The Careless Cook does. Mix and match ingredients and change the amounts to suit your taste.

Turkey Bites

Heat the oven to 350ºF or 180ºC

 

Ingredients

 

½ stick butter, melted (for painting the crusts)

2/3 cup grated onions

1 cup grated cheddar

2 heaping tablespoons of Italian seasoning (My fav is The Spice Lab’s Italian Rustico, available on Amazon)

1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard

About ½ to 2/3 cup of Marinara sauce (I made my own, but use a commercial brand if you must)

About a pound of ground turkey, or a little more (I used 1.3 pounds ‘cause that’s what the package said.)

2 packages of commercial dough cut into approximately three inch squares for wrapping the meatballs (I used rolled out commercial pie dough)

salt and pepper to taste

 

Puttin’ It Together

 

In a large bowl, add all ingredients except for the butter and the dough. 

 

When you add the marinara sauce, remember you are trying to make a mixture that is squishy, but not watery!

 

I used my hands to mix everything together.  Add more of this or that.

 

Scoop up a slightly heaping tablespoon of the mixture and roll it into a ball.  This should come out to about 25 to 30 balls.

 

Put the balls on a four sided baking pan (you don’t want juices to overflow into your oven) and bake for about 15 minutes.  Do not over bake!  They’ll go back in the oven again after you’ve wrapped them with the dough.

 

Put each cooked meatball on a square of dough, fold up the corners of the dough, put them in greased muffin tins, paint them with butter and bake them for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until the tips of the dough are starting to brown.

 

Very tasty morsels for hors d’oeuvres, or to satisfy the non-sugar cravings of ladies of a certain age. 

 

 

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