Turkey Meatballs with Cornmeal instead of bread crumbs

• 1 Pound of finely ground turkey
• 1/4 cup of finely ground cornmeal
• 1 tbsp of herb blend of your choice, in this case i used smoked bacon/maple flavor
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of fresh cracked black pepper
• 2 tsp of your oil of choice for frying, in my case i used peanut oil

In a bowl mix meat, herbs and cornmeal, you should see a texture change when you work the cornmeal in, it should not be sticky once made, if its still sticky, add a scant teaspoon of cornmeal and work it again.  No need for a egg in this recipe as the pate texture of the ground meat does not need it.  Once you have a rolled ball, pinch off a small ball and round it out, approx. a tablespoon and into your preheated frying pan on med heat with the oil in it. Cook till crisp brown, flip and repeat.

Gravy, pan drippings, two cups of water, 1 tsp of veggie broth powder and 1 heaping tsp of corn starch.

To make your gravy, add in the two cups of water into the pan (you can take the meatball out if you want, i had enough room, i did not) or broth, deglaze the pan and if water add your powdered broth to fully blend, then in a small bowl with cool water, mix just enough water and corn starch till smooth and fluid and slowing pour in, stirring the whole time, blend from the middle outward to bring it all together, turn down to a simmer and simmer for two or three min till cooked clear and thick.

Now for the back story..

A few months back one of the local grocery store had family pack sizes of ground pork and ground pork/beef blend on a super sale of 10 dollars.  I sent a note on my shopping that we were looking for the different meat trays at were the ten dollar sale price.

What came home was ground pork, ground pork/beef blend, a package of crazy fine grind chicken and turkey in a bag with five pound logs. While the ground pork was turned into amazing breakfast patties and the blend was made into sandwich meat and or meat pies

The ultra processed ground was harder for me to figure out how to use, the first one i opened and realized it was pate ground fine, i chopped it up from cooking it flat and used it in a sauce and it was ok. I set it to the side and there they have sat in my freezer.

This way of making them into a meatball is very good, the cornmeal is a pantry staple, and with the amount used its economical, don’t have cornmeal, Cream of wheat porridge can be used in the same amounts and create the same silky but firm texture. I expect if you wanted to fine grind oatmeal it would also work very well

I expect that with the price of meat these days that many people are turning to these lower priced bags of ultra ground meat in one pound portions.  Meatballs are a wonderful way to stretch a smaller amount of meat into a more carb heavy dish.

The home grown and canned young green and yellow bean have a delightful sweetness to them, while the potato’s are leftover from a big pot i cooked up and have in the fridge for use in different ways.  We have already finished our potato harvest from 2025 and are now onto store potato and they are med to poor quality even gotten as fresh as you can in the bag.  If they are held in storage, they seem to go bad so fast so in order to help keep food waste down, i am actively cooking or peeling the whole bag as the cooked potatoes last so long in the fridge smart tubs.

Are you finding fresh foods including staples like potato’s are not holding as well as they used to? Are you buying smaller amounts or are you cooking and fridge holding or freezing or home processing to cut down on food waste?

Side Note, Potato peels are cooked and feed to the chickens as household scraps