My Weekend Challenge

After I got home from school, I started looking around the house for something to make for dinner. I found a bunch of tomato sauce and pasta in the pantry, so I asked my mom if she’d like spaghetti for dinner. She said, “Yeah,” and I followed up by asking if using the ground turkey we had was okay. Instead of saying yes, she suggested, “Why don’t you make meatballs instead?” At first, I hesitated. I had never made meatballs before, so I wasn’t sure how they would turn out. But then I thought, “Why not? It’s something new to try.” I told her, “Sure, I’ll give it a shot.” If you know me, you know how much I love cooking. There’s something so satisfying about making a meal from scratch and seeing the reactions of the people eating it. But of course, if the reactions are bad, it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed.

With that, I decided to give it a shot. I headed to the pantry and grabbed the three cans of tomato sauce and my mom sent me a meatball recipe. I figured I’d start by making the sauce, so I began chopping up an onion. As I was cooking, my niece walked into the kitchen and asked if she could help. I was chopping onions at the time and I handed her a small pile and let her cut them into even smaller pieces. Once she finished that, she looked up at me and said, “I want more.” So, I looked around and found a container of mushrooms so i looked at her and gave her a mushroom to chop up. This little system kept going for a while. It turned into a fun little team effort until her little ADHD brain wanted to move on to something else, such as cookies. I laughed as I turned around and saw her grab a pie crust from the fridge, and she started stamping “cookies.” meatball adventure alone. After she did that, I returned to my cutting board and got back to work.

With the sauce simmering on the stove, it was time to move on to the meatballs. I put on some gloves, grabbed a big mixing bowl, and got to work. I put four eggs into the bowl, 2.5 pounds of ground turkey, breadcrumbs, and marinara sauce, and I eyeballed the seasonings. I made sure to combine everything thoroughly until the mixture looked just right. Or so I thought. The tricky thing about meatballs is you can’t taste-test them until they’re fully cooked unless you want salmonella. So, I had to trust that I’d added enough seasoning. Once the mixture was ready, I started rolling it into small, even balls. One by one, I shaped them and set them aside. I cooked some of them in a pan with the sauce and baked the rest in the oven since i ran out of room in the pan. The ones in the oven went onto a baking sheet at 375 degrees. While the meatballs in the stove simmered. I kept a close eye on them, checking to make sure they reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees. Once they were done, I pulled them out of the oven, eager to try one. I grabbed a fork, took a bite, and… disappointment. They were bland. Like, really bland. The texture wasn’t great, either. They were most soggy. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. Maybe I didn’t add enough seasoning, or maybe ground turkey just isn’t the best choice for meatballs. Either way, they didn’t turn out how I’d hoped.

Determined not to give up, we tried to save the dish by smashing the meatballs i cooked in the oven up and mixing them with Italian sausage. But then we made another mistake. We cooked the sausage way too fast while it was still partially frozen. This caused it to turn rubbery. And when I say rubbery, I mean rubbery. It was so tough that even a knife had trouble cutting through it. My dad came in to try since he knows how to cook meats, and he was like, “Did you guys nuke the sausage.” I looked at my mom as she tried to put the blame on me when it was, in fact both our faults, but anyway, at this point, we were hungry and just ate the sauce and pasta as is. Sometimes, no matter how much you love cooking or how hard you try, not every meal turns out perfectly. And that’s okay. The meatballs simmering in the sauce turned out edible since the sauce masked the bland flavor. Even though the meatballs didn’t work out perfectly, it was still fun to try something new and to spend time in the kitchen with my niece and mom. Plus, now I have a funny story to share about my first attempt at making meatballs and a lesson to stick with ground beef next time.