Turkey Meatballs, Fruity Style

So I have this new cookbook which has I think five or six recipes for tapenade, which is like a topping/sauce of chopped veggies or fruit and olive oil, similar to pesto but more chunky and less oily.

I found this recipe called "Tapenade Turkey Meatballs" and it sounded amazingly delicious! And I had all the ingredients! Or so I thought... The recipe called for 1 cup tapenade. I then consulted the tapenade recipes to find that I had only about half the ingredients for any given recipe of tapenade. As you can imagine this disrupted my culinary plans for the evening. Never one to let a little kitchen adversity bring me down I figured I would just wing it and put in something else.

The original recipe called for 1 slice of bread, processed into crumbs. I didn't feel like dirtying my BRAND NEW Manual Food Processor (I FINALLY got that thing! I've been waiting since March! Oh how I love Pampered Chef <3). So I used 1/3 cup Italian style breadcrumbs. At this point I already had 3/4 lb of ground turkey in my mixing bowl with one egg, so it was time to find the flavor that would have been provided by the elusive tapenade. To my fridge I did go to look for that special secret ingredient.

What I found was a variety of dressings, condiments and other unsuitable things that had no place in meatballs. I was perusing our large variety of hot sauces when I saw Spicy Pineapple Rum Sauce (from the Pampered Pantry). It looked to have a similar consistency as the tapenades in the picture so I decided that 1/3 cup of Spicy Pineapple Rum Sauce would be just the thing for these wayward meatballs.

Everything became mixed and then I used my Small Scoop (good for cookies too :D I made those earlier in the day) to make 30 little meatballs and put them into my new Small Ridged Baker (which is the newest piece of stoneware offered by my favorite company, so I have to test it out, right?) The recipe called for me to microwave them for 6-7 minutes and I thought that was a bad idea. I do not like cooking in a microwave, though I am learning how, especially after the never-ending heatwave this summer.

So I instead baked them for 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. They came out moist, not crumbly and best of all not greasy/fatty because all the drippings collected in the ridges of my stoneware. (Which was surprisingly easy to clean, a huge relief after seeing all those ridges for the first time!) And not to forget the most important part of any dish - the flavor! They tasted phenomenal, I had amazed my own taste-buds this time. And my husband has (another) new favorite meal! :D

I paired them with a side dish of sauteed zucchini and squash from our garden, with some chopped vidalia onion, sea salt, coarsely ground black pepper and butter for flavor.