Pork spinach meatballs

I was wandering through Shaws, looking for things to inspire me to cook dinner, and found myself in the meat aisle, looking for deals.  Often you can find cheap deals on meat there, and while I find that pretty darn sketchy, I figure as long as you cook the manager's special stuff that night, you'll probably be fine.  I lucked out twice - thanks to those sketchy manager's special deals, I got a pound of ground pork for $1.10, and four beef bones for $0.60.  Cook that stuff til it's good and dead, eep.  What is wrong with our agricultural system that meat can be that cheap?

Anyway, the ground pork put me in mind of the meatball subs we'd had at the end of a long adventure race in Canada last fall; one of the flavor options had been something about pork, and then I got the idea that I wanted to put spinach in my meatballs.  So, a head of garlic and a pound of frozen spinach later, I was ready to go.

First things first: flavor.  Toasted spices are where it's at.  I think just about anything that imparts flavor is a good start, but I went with fennel seeds, cumin, mustard seeds, and red pepper flakes.

Salt, spices, meat, one egg, one small yellow beet (grated), 10oz of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed, a few cloves of garlic, some bread crumbs... 

Smoosh it all together, with a utensil or your hands.

Make balls.  Heat oven to 350F.

Bake for 15min on an ungreased pan, then flip and bake another 10min.  Eat, or freeze.

Actual quantities: 

1lb ground pork 80% lean

10oz frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

4 cloves garlic

1 yellow beet, peeled and grated (raw)

1/4C bread crumbs

2 tsp kosher salt (you could get away with 1tsp, if you're scared of sodium)

2 tsp fennel seeds

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp mustard seeds

Toast spices in a dry pan.  Grind.  Put everything in a bowl, mix together, make balls, bake for 25min.