Italian Meatballs

Celebrating Jubilarians 2012

Franciscan Sister Mary Pat Zangs

60 years as a Franciscan Sister

St. Francis Convent, Little Falls

This is the fourth in a series of recipes shared by jubilarians in the St. Cloud Diocese. A jubilee marks the special anniversary of one’s religious profession.

“It goes way back,” Sister Mary Pat Zangs said when, asked how she developed this recipe for Italian meatballs. “Our family lived near Italians and knew many Italians over the years and we have had a few sisters in our community that were Italian. I also had an uncle who was a chef.  So I worked with the recipe over time until I had what I preferred for a flavor. People like them a lot.”

One of the “ingredients” she always adds to everything she prepares, including these full-flavored meatballs, is something that can’t be purchased at the grocery store or farmers’ market…

“The energy that is inside you goes into the food that you are making,” she said. “So the key to creating any food is to do it with love. I could follow a recipe exactly and if I were angry it would not have the same flavor as when I’ve made it with love. If you cook with love, the energy of that emotion will go into the food and the people who eat it will feel it.” CJK

Italian Meatballs

(Sister Mary Pat Zangs)

2 slices white sandwich bread

1/3 cup milk

1 lb. ground beef

1 lb. ground pork

1 tbsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. black pepper

1 tbsp. fennel seed

2 tbsp. Italian seasoning

3 tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 large eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 cup red wine (optional)

Olive oil for frying meatballs

Tear bread into one-inch pieces and soak in milk. Place meat in a separate bowl and mix together with fork or fingertips. Squeeze milk out of bread until it is just damp. Add the bread to the meat along with the remaining ingredients and mix with a fork or fingertips.

To check seasonings, form one tablespoon of the meat mixture into a patty and fry it in olive oil. Taste it when done and adjust the seasonings as desired.

Form remaining mixture into meatballs. Heat olive oil in large skillet. Fry meatballs in batches. When the meatballs are brown and slightly crisp, remove from the pan and drain on a paper towel.

Yield: About 30 meatballs

A note from Sister Mary Pat: Before you make your meatballs it’s important to sample the meatball mixture. Fry a small one, taste it and see how you like it. Then, adjust the flavor by adding a little more of one ingredient or another.

I love to make spaghetti sauce in the fall with specialty tomatoes, basil, carrots and peppers that are all locally grown — everything is organic. I can it and give it as gifts.

Last year I gave some meatballs and spaghetti sauce to a friend who has a passion for cooking. He later called me and told me they were the best meatballs he had ever eaten and asked me how I made them. I appreciated hearing it from him because he is a wonderful chef.

A note from Carol: Originally from St. Paul, Sister Mary Pat Zangs has been a Franciscan Sister of Little Falls for 60 years. Her ministries include being an RN supervisor, hospital administrator, faculty member of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., administrator of the convent’s motherhouse, and more recently, a wholistic growth director and counselor.

Others featured in this series include Franciscan Sister Mary Joel Bieniek with the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls’ homemade sauerkraut recipe, Poor Clare Mother Mary Matthew Tomsyck and her monastery’s zucchini casserole recipe and Benedictine Sister Ingrid Anderson sharing her anchovy sauce for pasta.