OPINION | FRONT BURNER: Meatballs with a Mediterranean-inspired twist

I love Italian-style meatballs, especially on a bed of spaghetti or smothered in mozzarella and tomato sauce, but sometimes I want something different. Enter these Mediterranean-inspired meatballs.

Made with ground turkey (ground beef or lamb would work too), oregano, thyme, basil and mint, they're flavorful, but also picky-eater friendly. I served them over lemon-spiked rice and topped them with a quick tzatziki-style sauce.

Confession: For years I mistakenly thought tzatziki was German because my host families (all three of them) were so fond of the sauce we ate as often as three times a week when I lived there as a teenager. I was well into adulthood when I learned tzatziki as I knew it was really Greek.

The yogurt and cucumber mixture is remarkably similar to Indian raita and some food historians credit India with introducing the mixture to the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey).