What's For Dinner Tonight? Ostrich Meatballs!

Ostrich meatballs garnished with sage

Last week I made a dinner that was so bad my husband would not eat it! That is something very unusual--as long as the food doesn't have heavy thyme, chicken fat floating on it or contain that really funky cheese that makes him nearly barf. I was trying to use up some of the food that he had purchased while I was on a 5-day Midwest road trip--some ground beef and diced frozen green peppers. I fried, seasoned, and added some mushroom/roasted garlic soup. The peppers gave the concoction a tartness and the ground meat was from a store I don't prefer, but yet, it wasn't terrible. I ate it because it had life-sustaining protein and vitamin C-rich-peppers--and my dutch-ness prevented me from just throwing it all in the trash before it developed mold.

I am at the bottom of my "meat barrel," trying to use up all the packages remaining in the garage freezer in order to make room for the quarter of beef that I have been obsessing about for years. So, yesterday I finally cooked the organic ground ostrich meat that Rebecca shipped to us last spring. I did not want to make two disastrous dinners in one week, so I tried really hard with the ingredients I had on hand to make the ostrich palatable. I was more than a little concerned, although my husband had successfully sampled a portion of ostrich once before at the Carnivore restaurant in Nairobi. We could have made the ostrich into burgers and thrown them on the Weber, which imbues everything with a taste-numbing smokiness, but I wanted to authentically experience this new-to-me and unusual food that would also add one more notch to my bizarre food belt. So, I made giant ostrich meatloaf meatballs. I found a bag of stuffing bread cubes that was not more than a week beyond its expiration date; I grated fresh onion and pressed fresh garlic; I ground sea salt and peppercorns; a dash of poultry seasoning from my stash in the kitchen freezer; some chopped up sun-dried tomatoes; an egg; I think I threw in some grated cheddar; I rolled it into big balls; Then, for the piece de resistance, I fried the meatballs in a generous portion of Land O'Lakes butter! I still wasn't sure all the seasoning would cut the taste of the red ostrich meat (that resembled lean ground beef), so I warmed a bowl of dipping sauce from a gift bottle of barbecue sauce that appeared recently in my kitchen. It was complex, smoky, spicy and DID mask any remaining "fowl" taste. My husband ate two peacock-egg sized ostrich meatballs. They were actually pretty good I thought, even without the sauce.

Thanks (I think) Rebecca, for making me stretch my palate beyond its comfort zone. I am in a bit of a food funk after eating KFC, McChickens and Dairy Queen all the way back on the recent road trip. I returned home to find the husband reverting back to bread and cereal. I also succumbed to temptation all too quickly, trying a bowl of honey bunches of yumminess and almonds, with half and half! I also found Aunt Jemima pancake mix and a box of hamburger helper (horrors) in the cupboard. He didn't use the pancake mix for lack of maple syrup--I guess he forgot about Grandma's famous sugared pancake rollups. Which reminds me--my husband had a great Aunt Jemima (a white Dutch woman) in New Jersey!

One more photo, a closeup of the fun label (pardon the "bad" word) on the bottle (rufusteague.com) of the Sauce That Saved the Ostrich.