I made this tasty dish tonight as meatballs, but you could just as easily make it up as mini patties if that’s easier. This goes together fast and your family will LOVE it, as we did. My husband said “You can fix this again any time!” If you’re not a mushroom fan, leave them out of the sauce. But we thought the mushrooms and parsley just “made” this dish. This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins, Keto diets, and Primal diners. Paleo folks will want to use coconut milk instead of cream and water volume.

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INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. 80%-90% lean grass-fed ground beef

1 large egg

1 small jar pimiento (about 2 T.), with its juice

2 oz. onion, cut into chunks

8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced

1 c. parsley, coarsely chopped

1/8-¼ tsp. black pepper (I like a lot)

1/8 tsp. sea salt

1 c. tap water (or use 2 c. coconut milk and no cream shown below)

1 c. heavy cream

1/8 tsp. xanthan gum or your preferred thickener

5 cups zucchini noodles/ribbons (about four 6-oz. raw squash)

VARIATIONS: Use ground lamb or pork instead of beef. Use 4 slices lightly browned bacon or chopped green onions instead of mushrooms in the sauce.

DIRECTIONS: Place the first 4 ingredients into a food processor and process to chop/blend all smoothly. Remove lid and form mixture into 8 equal meatballs (about 1 3/4″ in diameter). Brown meatballs over medium-high heat in a non-stick skillet. If using 90% lean beef, lightly oil the pan first. They will not be fully done in the center when browned. Add the water to the pan and slightly lower heat. Using a spatula, de-glaze the brown bits form the bottom of the pan to make a light brown liquid. Add the cream, mushrooms and parsley. Add salt and pepper. Simmer on lowest heat for about 10-15 minutes to let flavors mellow and meat to finish cooking done.

While the meat and sauce simmers, cut your zucchini into noodles or ribbons and saute in 2 T. olive oil until just gets limp. Slightly thicken by dusting xanthan gum over sauce surface and stir well as it thickens up. Serve 1 cup zoodles on each of 4 plates, place 2 meatballs on top of each and spoon ½ c. sauce over each serving. this is not intended to be a real saucy dish, but you can certainly double the sauce ingredients if you wish, re-calculating nutritional info if you do. Serve at once.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes four 2-meatball servings, each contains:

552 calories

46.4 g fat

13.4 g carbs, 3.87 g fiber, 9.53 g NET CARBS

26.3 g protein

223 mg sodium