Meatballs & Minis

October 5, 2018thetipsyhousewife

One of my favorite products to cook with are the Chateau Foods Dumplings. Chateau Dumplings are a traditional Czech dumplings in both bread and potato dumplings. The bread is typically made with a roast pork and served with gravy. The potato dumplings are traditionally large and served with butter and dill. Chateau makes a mini version that I LOVE to keep on hand in the freezer. They are super versatile, and can be eaten on their own. I like to use them in place of pasta, rice or any of my other typical carb components. I can best describe them as a better, more flavorful gnocchi. I didn’t feel like going to the store today for dinner so I decided to do a fridge forage to see what we had on hand. I found a pound of ground pork in the freezer, and a bag of arugula and spinach mix in the fridge. I ALWAYS have potato and bread dumplings on hand. With these three components, the recipe for Meatballs and Minis was born. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

1 lb of Ground Pork
1 C of Powdered Parmesan Cheese
1 T of Dried Italian Spices
1 Egg
1 t of Black Pepper
2 C of Arugula and/or spinach Mix
Olive Oil for cooking
1 Bag of Chateau Dumplings Mini Potato Dumplings

The mini dumplings can be found in the frozen food section of your local grocery in either the bread section or the potato section. If your store does not have them, beg them to get them. If you cannot get your hands on a bag, you can make do with a bag of frozen gnocchi. The steps are as follows:

Steps

In a large bowl combine the pork, cheese, egg, pepper, and Italian spices.
Combine the meat mixture really well and form the balls into two-inch meatballs.
Set a pot of water to boil.
Add some olive oil to a skillet and add your meatballs and brown on all sides.
When the balls are browned, cover the skillet with a lid, set heat to low and let cook for 15 minutes.
Remove the meatballs from the pan after the 15 minutes.
Boil the mini dumplings according to the package.
When the dumplings float to the top, heat your skillet and the leftover oil, meat bits and pork juices up, and with a slotted spoon add the dumplings by the spoonful to the skillet. Reserve some of the water.
Let the dumplings get crispy and turn over slowly so all sides are crispy.
Add the meatballs back to the skillet, the 2 C of the arugula and spinach and about 1/4 C of the dumpling water. Toss slowly together until it is mixed.
Serve and eat! You may want to add some Parmesan cheese to the top.

This is such an easy dish that had so much flavor. I loved the textures of the meatballs and the mini dumplings together. The combination of the cheese in the meatballs and the pork drippings added a great flavor to the dumplings! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!