Born from the Paleo craze, but enjoyed by all.

Meatballs again? Okay, show me the goods.

Oh, the Paleo craze. Is it annoying anyone else yet? A client of mine kind of summed it up when she said, “You know, with this stupid Paleo thing you buy a cake for your kid’s birthday party and nobody eats it, so now we have all this cake.”  I mean, I hate cake, but I hated it before Paleo was ever a “thing” so I get a pass right? At least I’ve figured out how to gracefully decline by swearing I had a piece already and it was wonderful, thank you.

Venison recipes: Breakfast Meatballs

As much as the residual diet know-it-alls, books, the people that quibble over cheese and beans being “ok to eat,” and testimonies, (but mostly the diet know-it-alls you know who you are!) annoy the living crap out of me, I think one of the reasons this fad diet has such staying power is because you can make some really really good food while sticking to this plan. It’s like the paleo diet, the “clean eating” hippies, the local farmer’s markets and the food bloggers are all in cahoots together to make it really easy and yummy for people to get excited about this diet. And if it makes you feel better and look better, well, even better.

The nice thing about this recipe is that it is also egg free. Not many people are allergic to eggs, but they are out there. So here you go, a delicious, egg-free, Paleo-approved breakfast meatball.

I know that one look at the ingredient list will have the anti-carbaholics shaking in their skivvies. This recipe makes A LOT of meatballs, so the actual syrup-to-meatball ratio is quite small. If you’re really worried about it though, either leave it out or use maple flavoring instead. It also helps if you have one of those cookie dough ballers, because these are rather loose meatballs.

Breakfast Meatballs

Prep time 30 minutes
Cook time 30 minutes
Total time 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 1lb ground venison
  • 1lb sausage (venison or other, used breakfast sausage)
  • 1 pint white button mushrooms
  • 1 Medium sweet potato (cut into large chunks)
  • 1 Medium onion
  • 3 cloves garlic (minced)
  • 1 heaped tablespoon maple syrup (or more if you accidentally put too much in there like I did)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Optional

  • fresh herbs, whatever you like or have on hand (finely chopped)

Directions

Step 1
Preheat the oven to 400. Chop up the sweet potato in a food processor or good blender (like a Ninja) until it's fluffy, like orange snow. Put into a large bowl with the meat. Do the same with the mushroom and onion (in that order, since the onion is juiciest). Add the maple syrup, minced garlic, fresh herbs and salt and pepper to taste, and mix with your hands really really well. Make sure the sweet potato is fully incorporated.
Step 2
Using a cookie dough scoop or your hands, form the mixture into small-ish balls and place on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for about 30-40 minutes, until cooked all the way through.
Non game substitution: Any sausage plus meat combo will work here. As long as 1/2 of what you are using is sausage you can really do anything from ground beef to ground turkey. If you really really don’t do pork, then add an egg to the mixture.
Posted in Venison
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