Cranberry Meatballs, Focaccia Bread, and Lentils, Oh MY!

This weekend was tons of fun. Of course, nothing really went as planned, but that's part of what makes a good time just that. We didn't get to try the Crepes, because after visiting the Botanical Garden Festival on Saturday morning, it was still packed come lunchtime - so I imagine they're pretty delicious if folks are willing to wait over an hour for them! We also planned on visiting Bella Vista Ranch in Wimberly, but the highway we needed to take in order to get there was closed. Despite the rain and fluctuating temperature, we still had a good time. It just so happens that on our way to Wimberly we found a really fun country pecan store, where Jose bought some tasty cinnamon covered pecans. I later made a purchase at a nearby antique store, where I found a few old cookbooks from the 50s that I happily adopted. Awhile back, I decided on starting a collection of dusty, yellow paged cookbooks with fun pictures from simpler times when Jell-o and 7 up were the featured ingredients in too many recipes. Though I need to begin sorting through my stuff some time before making the move to Boston, so that I don't pack dustbunny infested nicknacks that haven't seen the sun in years, I can't resist the desire to collect old cookbooks. This time I actually have a good excuse for not putting an end to my silly over-amassment tendencies: cookbooks are actually useful, unlike beanie babies or snow globes or too many Christmas stuffed animals...you get the idea - I have too much stuff :).

But can one ever have too much food? Of course, unhealthy gluttony isn't what I'm talking about, but Jose and I get a certain sense of comfort staring at a fully stocked pantry or refrigerator...oh the possibilities; soooo many things to cook, and too little time! I love walking into a home with the smell of something fabulous simmering on the stove, but it's more fun when you're actually the one making the food! These past couple of weekends I've been a bit more experimental with my cooking than usual. Last weekend I made some lentil soup, using a Key Ingredient recipe for inspiration, since I didn't have the ingredients I normally use to make this hearty meal. This past weekend I made an interesting meatball dish; I used cranberry stuffing to make the meatballs instead of breadcrumbs, and it actually came out quite tasty, despite the fact that it doesn't sound like a mouthwatering combination. There is one small problem, I didn't measure! Sometimes measuring takes the fun away from the experience, plus, it kind of ruins the moment for me...yes, sometimes my habit of not measuring is a bad thing, especially when my taste buds cry out from the occasional salty meal overdose, but it's all a learning experience, and it's always fun!

So here's what went into that meatball dish:
First, I cooked up some colorful veggies; I basically emptied out my veggie drawer:
1 medium sized red bell pepper, chopped
2 medium sized carrots, diced
1 small can black olives
about 1 1/2 cups broccoli
2 small roma tomatoes, chopped
1 small sweet onion, finely chopped

I sauteed these ingredients in olive oil and 1 or 2 tsp of lemon. I added a few spices, along with the expected pinches of salt and pepper. I left the veggies slightly crisp when I removed them from the stove.

The meatballs
1 1lb ground turkey
1 egg
Whole Foods Cranberry Stuffing - I used about a cup (this is great to have on-hand for lazy days! Plus it's delicious and preservative-free)
a bit of onion powder
black pepper
1 tbsp honey (strange ingredient, but it balances out the sourness of the cranberries)

This is what I added to the meatballs when they were almost fully cooked:
about 1/4 cup white cooking wine
1 small can tomato sauce
basil
paprika
parsley
garlic salt
pinch of sugar
red pepper sprinkles

While the meatballs cooked in a few tablespoons of olive oil, I boiled some pasta, adding a tablespoon of butter or two to the noodles after straining them (I used half a regular-sized bag of pasta [hmm...that's vague! But if you make too much, you can always eat the extra pasta with a sprinkle of Parmesan and it'll taste great]). After the meatballs cooked, I added the wine and sauce; I then allowed them to simmer with the wet ingredients and spices until they were fully cooked. The last part is fun and easy: mix everything together and EAT!

If you want to make some focaccia bread and you have a breadmaker, it's easy as pie! I used a basic pizza dough recipe for a breadmaker, I added more olive oil and some savory spices, like rosemary, basil, and an Italian seasoning blend. Be sure to add some garlic salt if you want something that resembles hearty garlic bread. When the breadmaker's finished doing it's magic, just remove the dough, shape it into a square, add some butter, garlic salt, paprika, pepper, cheese, and tomato slivers right on top - I used my fingers but you can use a brush :). Then you can bake it on a cookie sheet for about 20 minutes on 375! Sheesh, didn't measure here either; I got lucky with the focaccia. This was the first time I made it and I think I was a bit too liberal with my "recipe" experiment, considering my inexperience with the carby treat. It was a success, but I did find it needed a bit more salt after the first bite.

Now it's...LENTIL TIME! I didn't have all the ingredients I needed to make my grandma's recipe this last time I made lentils. Normally I'd add spinach and potatoes like she does, but with the KI recipe that I spiced up a little, I added peas and tomato paste instead. It actually came out sweet, so if you don't like the earthy taste of lentils, adding a can of tomato paste to your simmering soup will give it a different taste that you'll probably like - I think the peas contributed to the sweetness as well. Below you'll find my "cloned" Key Ingredient recipe (meaning, I didn't follow the recipe to the T because I added and took away a few of the ingredients/instructions - isn't that a cool term? We actually use it on the KI site!)

Ok...so this was an incredibly long post! I'll end this entry with a question: What is the best soup you've ever had? Come this Fall, we'll be in Boston, so I need to start collecting quite a few soup recipes for the many cold days ahead of us - at least I don't have to worry about packing those :)!

spaghetti with (ground TURKEY!) meatballs in a homemade sauce and Italian bread on the side!

It looks like I only cook pasta, at least this blog would give visitors that impression! But I don't, it is one of my favorite things to make and dress-up, though. I was in the mood for some spaghetti and meatballs today, but I wanted to make a sauce that wouldn't feel like I was just eating, as Jose called it, a bunch of plain noodles lathered in tomato puree. I've gone to quite a few Italian spots, never really finding a place that serves a good and tasty spaghetti and meatball plate. It does seem that most of the sauces are overly-tomato tasting, and it doesn't seem like much thought actually goes into the sauce. I hate boring food, and this is definitely not a plain pasta dish. Pasta and french/garlic bread go perfect together, at least I think they do, so I decided to spice up a baguette I bought at the grocery store just yesterday, giving it a little bit more of a kick with a sauce that isn't just butter and garlic based. So here's the recipe and instructions on how to make this flavorful stuff:

As far as the meatballs go, they alone carry quite a bit of flavor and can definitely be used for meatball sandwiches if any are leftover. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I used ground turkey for the meatballs. My parents used to cook with it a lot when I was growing up, and it was actually my mom who taught me how to make these meatballs from ground turkey. It might sound a little odd if you've never tried it, but ground turkey actually has a much milder taste than beef, so it can showcase/hold the flavor of spices much better, in my opinion. It's also a lot leaner than beef, and you definitely won't have to worry about mad-cow disease if it's your meat of choice for this meatball recipe (by the way, this recipe makes enough servings for about 5 people):
1 pound ground turkey breast (or whatever ground meat you prefer)
1/4 cup chopped sweet white onion
1/2 cup garlic and herb bread crumbs
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 TBSP mustard
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1 egg
All these ingredients can be mixed together in a bowl, then rolled into little 1 inch balls before being placed in an all-purpose pan to lightly fry in some olive oil, I used 1/4 cup and that might sound like a lot, but it actually wasn't since the pan I used was a good size.

As the meatballs cooked for about 25 minutes over a low-medium flame, I got started on the sauce, this is what went into the sauce:
15 oz can of Muir Glen salt-free organic tomato sauce
3/4 tsp garlic and herb spice
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp sugar (to balance out the sourness of the plain tomato sauce)
3 whole bay leaves
1/2 tsp ground sage
1 3/4 tsp parsley
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp vegetable broth powder
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
a pinch of nutmeg (everyone on food network does it, so I figured I should too :)
1/4 cup water (the sauce is kind of thick and will continue to thicken as it cooks)
1 cup portabella mushrooms
So I let this sauce simmer for about 10 minutes before adding it to the meatballs, which should now be browned on the outside. After I added the sauce to the meatballs, I let them simmer together while I cooked the pasta.

As far as the pasta goes, I just used a 12 oz bag of spaghetti. After I cooked it in the boiling water with a little bit of olive oil and garlic salt, I just added about 2 tsp of butter, a few shakes of Parmesan cheese, and a couple of olive oil sprinkles (as you can see, I definitely cook with a lot of this stuff :).

Now here's the Italian bread recipe, it's so fast and easy to make it could be served alone as a snack.
Preheat oven to 375
1/2 small baguette (horizontally halved--basically, it makes enough for 3 people)
1/8 cup melted butter
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
These ingredients can be mixed together in a cup, then drizzled with a teaspoon on the bread right before sprinkling it with about 1/2 cup of fresh spinach and 1/8-1/4 cup of a mozzarella/parmesan cheese blend. The baguette can then be placed in a 375 degree oven for 7-8 minutes. Afterward, you can garnish it with a few sliced roma tomatoes, and slice it into 3 medium-sized pieces, or about 4-5 small ones.

Funny thing about this spaghetti & meatballs plate is that I've actually made it before, but it came out so much better now that I actually measured the ingredients...even though it's my recipe. I don't get it haha! Happy cooking, next time I'll post something non-pasta related ;)!

a summer pasta dish

I made this dish a few weeks ago. It's terribly hot here in Texas, so this is a perfectly light mid-afternoon meal for a sweltering day. Like I mentioned earlier, I am absolutely horrible at remembering to measure things...except for when I'm baking or planning on posting a recipe on here! So I didn't measure at all, but these are the ingredients I used: Italian parsley, olive oil, black olives, 5 slices all-natural ham (diced into bite-size pieces and lightly fried in olive oil with a few sprinkles of brown sugar and half a garlic clove), fresh tomatoes (cooked with the ham), about half a bag of pasta (I do remember it was about 2 cups--a smidgen more or less), a tad bit of butter, Italian seasoning, garlic salt, pepper, diced bell peppers, a couple handfuls of Parmesan cheese, and a pinch of salt here and there. I've seen a few people make something like this on the Food Network, but they use a heavy cream sauce to top it off, and this is definitely much lighter, considering I used seasoned olive oil (with paprika, pepper, basil, and garlic salt) instead of the heavy milk-based sauce; the cheese I mixed in does just enough for me.

Oh yes, another thing I wanted to add...it really does matter what kind of olives you use. I had these wonderful Sicilian Olives at an Italian Deli that I used to frequent when I lived in Los Angeles, then I bought some here in Texas at a local grocery store recently...they definitely did not taste the same at all. I have found some nicely flavored black olives to somewhat replace them. The funny thing is, they can pretty much be found anywhere and they're very affordable. The olive oil I use was also rated the highest, as my fiance informed me--since he always seems to know the ratings of every item we purchase. Anyhow, the olive oil I buy is produced by a simple Mexican brand, and it received higher reviews than some more expensive brands. So I guess you don't always have to spend a pretty penny to get yummy food. I tend to cook with a lot of olive oil, not just because of its health benefits, but because it's so darn good...I've even used it as a pre-seasoning item on top of homemade pizzas, pretty much mixing it with the same ingredients I mentioned above, and it really makes a huge difference in the dough's flavor.

Anyhow, these are my two cheap little kitchen lifesavers, the olive oil and olives:

the godfather meets pancho villa mac and cheese, really!

This is a little bit Italian and a tad bit Mexican. It is very rich, but Jose (my fiance) loves this stuff, and since I'm trying to learn how to make everything "homemade" I decided it would be a good time to experiment with a mac and cheese dish; this one definitely has a fun kick to it. I wanted a different mac and cheese, and this is good enough for me...at least until I think of another idea.

So here it is...there is a tad problem, I seriously have a bad time remembering to actually measure things (I cook every day, but I rarely measure--unless I'm planning on posting a recipe on this blog) so some of this is just what I estimated by eye, though toward the end, I did measure...I just figure, whatever "looks" right for two cups of pasta, that's what I used.

Instructions:
In a medium sized pot, Cook 2 cups (I measured this) of plain macaroni noodles (with about 3 1/2-4 cups water) until they are soft enough to bite, but not soggy and mushy. After straining the pasta, and putting it in a bowl on the counter somewhere...you can start cooking these dairy products on the stove in that same pot you cooked the pasta in (make sure it's cooked over a low flame):

Add about 1/2 cup milk
1 cup shredded colby/jack cheese (I just used the shredded Kraft cheese that comes in the bag)
1/4-1/2 cup shredded Parmesan/mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 TBSP butter
2 1/4 TBSP cream cheese
1 1/2 TBSP olive oil
(I've seen mac and cheese made with eggs, but I don't use 'em)

Stir this mixture until it's all melted together, then you can add these spices:
1/2 TBSP salt free garlic and herb (I use the McCormick brand)
1 TBSP Italian seasoning
1 TSP Onion powder
1/2 TSP black pepper
1 TSP ground paprika
1/2-3/4 TSP chili powder
1/4 cup dried bell pepper (I buy a bell pepper blend at a gourmet grocery store here in TX, aka Central Market; if you can't get your hands on some of the dry bell, then just use 1/3 cup of pre-sauteed [with olive oil] bell pepper; use green, red, and orange.)

Let these ingredients simmer on the stove with the melted cheese/milk blend for about 5 minutes, but make sure you keep stirring it so that the milk mixture stays smooth and creamy, not lumpy. I added about 1/4 cup more of milk as the ingredients all cooked together, because the sauce was thickening more than I wanted it to...anyway, once you can smell that the bell pepper blend has cooked with the other spices, you can add the mac and cheese to the sauce and stir all these ingredients together for the last time before you serve.