THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’

Sorry, Grandma, I’ve tweaked your classic, all-day meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs was the classic dish I ate at Grandma’s house growing up: She had her all-day recipe that filled her creaky house with heady aromas that built anticipation as meatballs simmered in sauce on the stove.

The fact that she was 100 per cent first-generation German — she emigrated at the age of six — never stopped me from making her recipe the benchmark by which every other meatball would be judged.

Tweaking her recipe to lighten it up a bit, and make it weekday-friendly by shortening the cook time, was a task I didn’t take lightly.

And truth to be told: There is a special place in this rush-to-eat food world for the leisurely simmer of small orbs of meat in thick, tangy tomato sauce covered in a fine slick of co-mingled pork and beef fat that has gently floated to the top. But life is busy, and we need to get a healthy dinner on the table and move on. I get it.

These meatballs are for those nights.

First to change: The fatty mix of pork and beef became simply lean (93 per cent) beef. Feel free to mix in turkey, but our family preferred the beef.

The next tweak: I added a half pound (226 g) of mushrooms for every pound (454 g) of beef to stretch the meat out and add in nutrients.

I pulsed the mushrooms in a food processor, and then cooked them with another healthy meat stretcher — onions. (Here, you could add other veggies too: shredded zucchini, carrot and chopped spinach work great.)

I added the mushroom and onion mixture right in with the ground beef, and they added flavour, moisture and bulk, with nary an added calorie (nor a suspicious eye from any of my four kids).

I used one egg white (no yolk) and used oats pulsed into a coarse flour instead of breadcrumbs.

Simmer these meatballs directly in a pot of a high-quality jarred marinara sauce (check for no added sugar) and in 20 minutes, they will be succulent, tender and juicy.

Almost like Grandma’s.