Have you ever had a monkeyball sandwich? My guess is you haven’t, considering it’s something I made up myself and I haven’t told anyone about it. So if you have heard of it, that can only mean you own a time machine, you read this post, went back in time, fixed a monkeyball sandwich, and now you’re back here trying to tell me you know what a monkeyball sandwich is. I always knew there was something fishy about you. “Never trust someone with a time machine!” That’s what my mom always told me.
But back to the topic at hand. Odds are your first question is, “What the heck’s a monkeyball?” I’ll give you a hint: only one of those two words describes this food and it isn’t the ‘monkey’ part. In fact, prepare yourself to be let down. It’s just a regular old meatball. Of course, I suppose you could make them out of monkey meat. But that’s probably not legal or certainly not safe, so we’ll just stick with meatballs Nonna would approve of.
And where did the name come from? I have no idea. It just sort of naturally came up one day while I was fixing them. Rachel likes monkeys a lot. Maybe that was it? Mostly, though, I probably just wanted to give it a name to set it apart from normal meatball sandwiches.
Most of us expect meatball sandwiches to be slathered in red sauce and topped with mozzarella cheese and maybe onions or green peppers. The monkeyball sandwich is instead topped with a white, peppered gravy. If you can find it, I highly recommend Pioneer Brand gravy mixes. It’s quick to mix and tastes like rainbows.
Sandwich assembly is simple: take a hoagie bun, put meatballs on it, then cover in sauce. Eat immediately. If you’re concerned about fat and calories, you don’t have to be. The gravy really isn’t bad at all in smallish quantities. A quarter cup only contains fifty calories. You can substitute veggie meatballs, if that’s more your style. And whatever bread makes you happy will work. The real key is the gravy. You need to try this stuff.
In fact, I want you to try it so badly, let’s just have an impromptu giveaway, shall we? Standard blog giveaway rules apply: leave a comment below. I will use random.org to pick a commenter by week’s end. Winner gets not one but two packets of Pioneer Country Gravy!
on January 6, 2009 at 3:59 am
Monkey! Woo hoo!
Gravy! Double woo hoooooo!
on January 6, 2009 at 5:21 am
Meatball Sandwich with white gravy…sounds too yummy for words!
on January 6, 2009 at 5:39 am
I dunno…sounds kind of disgusting to me – better send me some gravy so I can try it for myself!
on January 6, 2009 at 6:09 am
Mm-m-m-m, Monkey Balls. Par-tay!
on January 6, 2009 at 6:26 am
Hmmm…monkeyballs…sounds like its worth a shot!
on January 6, 2009 at 6:28 am
A monkey ball sandwich sounds about right. I wonder if you could toast it like your PB&J?
on January 6, 2009 at 8:11 am
Shelley: Don’t worry! You don’t have to make a monkeyball sandwich with the gravy. You can also use it on other things: potatoes, pizza, Jell-O, etc.
on January 6, 2009 at 8:27 am
What a great idea! My husband would love this sandwich!
on January 6, 2009 at 10:24 am
I don’t need the gravy (note: there is a fat free version that I have found…which is good in potatoe soup mixes), but I just wanted to comment to say how happy I am that it is not, in fact, a post about monkeyballs.
on January 6, 2009 at 10:29 am
For all those people thinking I had a typo in my message, potatoe totally has an “e” on it when you live in Colorado.
It’s true.
Look it up.
on January 6, 2009 at 10:43 am
WooHoo another give away. I’ve never won one so far but maybe this will be my lucky one. (And if I don’t win :o( I’ll just have to look for it in my super market.)
I love gravy and haven’t had it for over a year and a half. Would love to find a gravy that I could enjoy without all the worry about the fat and calories.
Got any suggestions on a low fat/low calorie meatball (oops monkeyball)?
on January 6, 2009 at 11:01 am
I would make the monkey youknowwhat sandwich with sausage meatballs! Then it would taste like sausage gravy! Mmmm I am a genius! I would name it after myself but I don’t have any youknowwhats
on January 6, 2009 at 12:11 pm
OMG, that’s so funny! I love the monkeys at the end parading the gravy!
Since I got one of those pouches in my Christmas box from you, I will have to try it soon!!
on January 6, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Cute monkeys.
I love country gravy…mmm…but I have to make it from a packet because I have not yet mastered preparing it from scratch. I’m awesome at brown gravy, though…
Hmm…maybe I’ll make brown gravy and rice for diner…’cause my left artery doesn’t feel quite clogged enough.
Shade and Sweetwater,
K
on January 6, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I love that pioneer brand gravy!
on January 6, 2009 at 4:39 pm
i would like to take a chance to win free monkeyballs gravy
on January 6, 2009 at 4:42 pm
My husband has never eaten any kind of gravy except giblet (yucky) for Thanksgiving and Au Jus the rest of the year except when I splurge and make homemade hamburger or tomatoe (I added the “e” for you Anne) gravty. That is until about 2 weeks ago when the store was out of Au Jus and I bought a pack of Peppered Gravy. I thought he wouldn’t even try it, but he did. And guess what? Yep, it’s his new favorite. And since I’ve always loved chicken fried steak, I already like it.
We’ve never tried it on a Monkeyball or any other kind of ba…..never mind!!
Great giveaway!!!
Charlie, you wrote:
You can also use it on other things: potatoes, pizza, Jell-O, etc.
I’ll give you the potatoes and jell-o, but pizza??? For real??? I don’t think so!
on January 6, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I know gravy doesn’t have a “t” in it, but unlike Anne, mine IS a typo. I guess I hit both keys at the same time. Sorry to all you spelling police out there!
on January 6, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Dude. All I have to say is that I love Vicki…so much that I really want to type “Vickie.” BUT I WON’T.
on January 6, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Yay! Free stuff and monkies make Nicoles all comment-y, and such.
random.com should conduct relevance scans instead of random picks… you should go to relevancescans.com If you do you will notice that there is nothing there that is relevant to this. That is because I have not created it yet and unless you have a time machine to set forward you will not be able to use relevancescans.com, your mother did always say never trust someone with a time machine…. are you really giving out gravy?
on January 6, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Monkey bread I’ve heard of – Monkey Balls – sounds interesting!
My husband loves country gravy, especially on biscuits!
on January 6, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Vicki, this is Anne. Anne, this is Vicki.
And yes, Nicole, I’m really giving out gravy. (It really was a spur-of-the-moment thought as I reached that last paragraph.) It’s time I got more people to hop on this gravy train.
Oh, and one other thing, Nichole, I like your Ten Blog Fatmandments. Although, I must break Fatmandment IV, because I will never be okay with the size of my rack. (Though I’m okay with my booty.)
🙂
on January 6, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Hmm, gotta say that your monkeyball sandwich sounds delightful. I’ve only had white gravy once or twice but always found it to taste pretty similar to regular gravy. But a gravy mix that tastes like rainbows? I’m interested….
on January 7, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Thank goodness you gave them to me in my x-mas box! Tony wants a monkeyball sandwich – stat!
So don’t count me in your giveaway 😀
on January 7, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Oh, and we like all things monkey!
If we had a pet monkey we would name it Puerto.
on January 8, 2009 at 1:38 pm
[…] brother Charlie posted a recipe for Monkeyball Sandwiches.  As soon as he read that he said “make […]
on January 8, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Oh yay! count me in please! :0)
I’m having a giveaway on my blog this week, too! Check it out, everybody!
on January 9, 2009 at 8:58 am
Monkeyball sandwiches in action here.
on January 10, 2009 at 5:04 am
Do you have to call it Monkeyball Sandwich if we make one. The name alone kind of makes me want to gag. But the recipe sounds yummy.
on January 10, 2009 at 8:03 am
Heh, no… “Meatball Gravy Sandwich” works just fine. 🙂
on January 13, 2009 at 12:03 am
[…] have a winner! I decided to give away two packages of Pioneer country gravy mix last week. I just now went to random.org and asked for a number between 1 and 30 and it gave me 15. So I went […]
on January 16, 2009 at 7:34 am
[…] it in a skillet to warm.  I made the mashed potatoes from a box, with the country gravy my brother gave me for Christmas, and green beans from a can, and biscuits you that were already made that […]