I don’t buy a lot of ground turkey, but I just so happened to have a couple of pounds of it in my freezer from my friend Dallas. He’s the guy I buy my delicious heritage breed turkeys from each year, so I know his meat is flavorful, something that can be a challenge with commercially bred turkeys. But even so, turkey meat is somewhat dry, and to make a moist turkey meatball takes a little finesse. In fact, I also think it needs another meat mixed in with it. Sorry – if I sucked you into this post thinking you’d find a turkey only meatball recipe, I’m just not that crazy about them!But when I get a half hog from my CSA farm each year, I ask for the ground meat as plain ground pork rather than sausage meat. I can make my own sausage easily enough with the ground meat, and this gives me more options of how I use it. It’s the perfect complement, in both flavor and fat content, to the turkey. Together, they make a beautiful meatball. And as Elise pointed out recently, you don’t need to have meatballs only with spaghetti. In fact, we had these with a savory spaghetti squash casserole as a side dish (recipe next week). Or just have a couple for lunch like I did this week – paired with your favorite sauce. I just discovered a jar sauce I actually like that’s from a local Colorado producer, Spinelli’s – the Fra Diavolo with Garlic is really good. Grab a jar of your favorite sauce, make these meatballs, and enjoy the best turkey meatball recipe I’ve ever made – thanks to a bit of the ol’ pig!

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