Sun Dried Tomato Meatballs #gatherroundgrilling

Summer is the perfect time to get together with friends and family. The days begin to longer and we long for the cool evening to sit with each other and shoot the breeze. I can remember lots of gallons of sweet tea being drunk and many, many watermelons cut and eaten. Summer seems like the perfect time to get outside and make memories. I want my daughter to experience those things. Long summer evenings of playing outside until the crickets croak and the lightning bugs come out. I used to catch June bugs and we would tie string to their legs and watch as they twirled and flew around. I immensely enjoy our garden and the light on my daughters face as she realizes its harvest time and the amazing abundance of tomatoes we have! But even more so I love the sharing out of that abundance. Friends and family come over and I can give to them out of our bounty and my 6ft. tall tomato plants.

I think what I look forward to the most is the laughing, the storytelling, the bickering that will become stories later. We are a very loud, lively family anyone not used to that is usually overwhelmed within moments of being around us. But that usually doesn’t stop us and everyone acclimates and we end up having a good time anyway. Lately one of our favorite ways to get together is to grill out and play games in the yard. I will invite everyone over and we share a meal and some playtime together. This is also my grand opportunity to test out some new recipes on my unsuspecting guests.

Being a food blogger, my family has come to expect me to use them as my guinea pigs. Generally they rise to the challenge and are genuinely interested in what new creation I have come up with and willing to give it a try. I was at Walmart shopping for our latest get together and I picked up some ground beef and decided I wanted to make meatballs on the grill. Yes you heard me right, meatballs on the grill. I picked up the other ingredients I needed and I headed home. I was excited to try this as this was a new culinary adventure.

We are also big Italian lovers in my family so I decided that I would make Sun dried Tomato Pesto Meatball sandwiches. I gathered all my ingredients together and began to mix everything in a bowl. Once mixed, I took an ice cream scooper (that’s spring loaded) and portioned each meatball out accordingly. I then placed my meatballs on the grill over the lowest heat setting. Now the trick here is to cook them slowly but only turning at most twice. Leave them alone on the grill or they will fall apart. Beware that if you cook them too high, too fast they will get a little dark. Now personally I like mine a little charred but that’s just me.

I pulled the meatballs off the grill once they were firm to the touch and placed my hoagie buns on the grill to toast for just long enough to get some grill marks. I assembled the sandwhich with a little Sun dried Tomato basil spread, tomatoes, and cheese. It was delish, and another family food experiment was in the books! I think that they all enjoyed it, at least that’s what I inferred from the empty plate of sandwiches! Head to Walmart and take a look at their beef section and get outside and grill up some good times and memories with your family!

Sun Dried Tomato Meatballs

Ingredients:

1lb. of 80/20 ground beef

3 tbs of sun dried tomato pesto

3 tbs of mayo

1 tbs sriracha sauce

1/3 cup of bread crumbs

2 eggs

1 cup of frozen chopped onions

1 ½ cups of shredded cheese of choice

2 tsp of granulated garlic

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Mix until just combined, be careful not to over mix. Portion meatballs out on a platter or tray. Preheat grill on lowest setting. Place meatballs on grill and cook until firm, turning them only once or twice. This process took about 30 minutes.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Tyson Foods®. The opinions and text are all mine.