Baked Meatballs

I've never baked my meatballs before. I usually put them raw into my sauce and simmer for the day, or add them to the sauce to cook in the crockpot all day, or if in a hurry, I'll pan fry them in a little bit of olive oil.

On a whim last week I decided to bake them.  I really don't have a recipe to share because my meatballs are different every single time depending on what I'm in the mood to add or what I have in stock.

I start with 4 eggs to 2 pounds of ground beef.

A couple cups of bread crumbs.

Grate up some cheese.  I usually use at least 1/2 a block, if not more.

 Sometimes I'll add in mozzarella, too, if I have some.  

Then I chop up some garlic cloves and onion. 

My cutting tool was a flea market find. I love it and it's surprisingly sharp. 

Add in some spices, like oregano, basil or if you house is like ours that loves garlic, a good healthy sprinkling of garlic powder, in addition to the garlic cloves! 

My sister got me this dish in Mexico. I love the colors of it in my kitchen. 

Next remove your rings, roll up your sleeves and get your hands into the beef, to mix it all together. 

Shape into meatballs and place on a foil lined baking sheet. 

Bake for 30 minutes at 350°.  

We then mixed ours with a bit of sauce and had meatball subs. 

Dinner the next night was spaghetti and meatballs. 

This are much bigger than they look.
Hubby said these were about the size of billard balls. 

Most of the time I also add ketchup and mustard to my mixture but opted not to this batch. 

I think I liked them a bit better this way.

 I believe that baking meatballs has become my preferred way to cook them.  

What do you add to your meatballs and how do you cook them? 

Homemade Granola Cereal

We've battled illness, mine, Tink's and Hubby's for almost two weeks now and thankfully the boys have avoided it. I haven't been that sick but with taking care of a high energy child who is just sick enough not to take to her activities, has left me drained of energy or ambition for blogging or anything else. Please don't look too closely at the dusk piling up here!

We are all feeling better now and I had some desire to get back into the kitchen.

The boys bug me to make them more granola as soon as the last batch is gone. They have been less than happy that they have been without for about 3 weeks now.

I have a base formula from Prepared Pantry that I've adapted to my own use.

I always make a double batch because I have monster cookie sheets that came from a friends restaurant, so I have the room to bake that much granola. I'll share my single batch recipe with you.


Granola:

4 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup oat flour*
1/2 cup maple syrup or I make a syrup from 1/2 cup brown sugar and 2-3 tablespoons water
1/4 cup oil (I use melted coconut oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla
shredded coconut

I add in:
1/2 cup 7 grain cereal
1/4 cup wheat bran
1/8 cup flax seed meal

These are optional and you can add in whatever quantity suits you.

 This what how I make it for Hubby who shouldn't be eating nuts.

For the rest of us I add in:
1/2 cup almond slivers
1/2 cup chopped up walnuts


Preheat your oven to 300°

• Mix the dry ingredient together with nuts but not shredded coconut. 
• Mix together syrup, oil and vanilla in separate bowl. 
• Add the liquid into the dry and mix well. 
• Spread out on cookie sheet that is lined with parchment paper. You don't have to use parchment paper, I just prefer it because it keeps the cookie sheet clean.
• Bake for 25 minutes.
• Mix in the shredded coconut. This is also where I swap the cookie sheets in the oven.
• Bake another 12 minutes.
• Cool.
• Store in air tight container.

When I eat this as cereal, I add a couple handfuls of raisins. We have found that raisins don't taste as good after being cooked for so long. 

I love this on yogurt with a little bit of honey. YUM! 

What do you like to add to your granola?

*Oat flour can be made by just putting old fashioned oats into your mixer or food processor and blending to fine dust.  Did you know it's the same stuff those oatmeal bath soothing treatments are made of? I now dump oat flour into our baths to soothe our dried winter skin. 

Soups and Sickness

Tink has been sick this week. Nothing major. Fever and cold symptoms. My way of combating the germs is essential oils around the home and soup. Lots of soup.

This week I roasted a chicken and made my roast chicken soup.

I also made, for the first time, homemade tomato soup. Did you know there's high fructose corn syrup in tomato soup and 480 mg of sodium in one 1/2 cup serving?? If you read my What Motivates Me page, you'll know because of my hubbies health issues, we are low to no sodium in our home now.

My biggest problem with sharing what I create is that I have an issue with recipes.  I rarely follow them.  I throw in some of this and some of that.

This is about a teaspoon

Last night while having left over tomato soup, Hubby says, "This is really delicious." I'm so glad he liked it and I really hope I can recreate it!

I got the base recipe from Taste of Home but didn't follow what they said.

I love my cast iron trivets 

Here's what I did.


Herbed Tomato Soup (my version)

1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes
small can of tomato paste
a palm full of:
onion powder
garlic powder
basil (I think I added 2 palm fulls)
parsley
a dash of cayenne powder
2 cups of milk
4 tbsp flour

Combine tomatoes, onion and garlic powder, basil, parsley and cayenne powder.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally to avoid sticking to pan.

Stir in paste. Mix milk and flour well.  Slowly stir into soup. Stir until thickened.

I served it with grilled cheese the first night and with chicken sandwiches for our leftovers night.

This is a very rich version of tomato soup and large bowls of it are extremely filling.

If you make this, I'd love to hear what changes you make. I'm always looking for new ideas.

More Summer Cravings

Strawberry Soup.

My aunt served this at a lunch once. It was delicious and I've not been able to duplicate it as well.

I almost made it this weekend but then Tink got sick and I got nothing done.

Another page from my cookbook

Strawberry Soup

2 c. hulled and sliced fresh or frozen strawberries
1 c. orange juice
1 c. vanilla yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Whipped cream

Blend all ingredients till smooth and top with a spoonful of whipped cream.

I have frozen raspberries and blueberries in the freezer. I just may have to try it with those instead of strawberries.

Do you make a fruit soup? What kind?

Caving Summer Food

I believe the 60 degree day we had this week, after sub-zero temps, left me craving for summer foods. I had a hard time planning the next two weeks' menu because I wanted grilled chicken or steak, corn on teh cob and some potato salad. Its all I could think about.

My Mema made the best salad and it's such a simple recipe. I guess her's tasted so good because it was flavored with the love she poured into it!

notes I took on her recipe years ago

Mema's Potato Salad

1/2 a sweet onion

6 eggs

5 lbs pototoes

3 stalks of celery

mayo - Mema swore it had to be Helman's Mayo

salt

pepper

paprika on top as garnish

Cut everything up and mix together. I usually add in whatever spices I feel inclined to when I make it, like a bit of celery salt or a pinch of garlic powder.  It's different every time I make it.  

Fried Cheerios

This is a snack I grew up on. My mom used to always make it and there were never any left-overs. It's one of the simplest snacks I make.  It's a good substitue for popcorn, especially with little ones.

You can control how much sugar you put on it too. When I've put on very little sugar, no one seems to really notice.  You can also add spices instead of cinnamon and sugar if you'd like. The possibilities are endless.

Fried Cheerios:

A large skillet (I use my 12 inch cast iron pan)
Stick of butter
cinnamon and sugar
Cheerios

It's really this simple....

Melt the butter. Add in enough Cheerios to soak up all the butter, add a little at a time. You can always add more in but it's hard to take more out if you add too many. Sprinkle on as much cinnamon and sugar as you would like. Keep stirring, on medium heat, till they start to brown. Pour into a bowl and enjoy.


Do you have a quick, easy snack that you'd like to share?

Pizza Night

My family loves pizza night.  We all like different types of pizzas so Pizza Night in our house is not call the local pizzeria and order a plain pizza so as to not offend anyone's taste buds. Mind you, we do order pizza out every couple of months, especially if the kitchen is actually clean.  Pizza Night in our house is a made-to-order event.

I say event because it usually takes 1-1/2 hours or more from start to finish.  We all like a different type of pizza.  Tink likes hers plain with cheese and no spices. Hubby and I have a low sodium, very little cheese, lots of basil, olive oil and tomato slices and chunks, pizza. Duke (as my teen likes to go by, he says the boys at the jazz club call him that. I love that boy's sense of humor) loves pizza heavy in garlic, cheese and no sauce.  Ickis likes a good old fashioned pizza with just sauce and cheese.

This is the crust I use: Pizza crust recipe. It's delicious. There is another one I'll be trying, from Peter Reinhart, and will let you know how it is when I get around to it.

I'm not retyping this recipe because there's not a thing I change. I make extra sometimes and put it in the fridge to make pizzas for lunch. Just let it reach room temp before trying to form it into disks.  It has handled being in the fridge for a few days with no issues.

Duke's favorite pizza so far was the Loaded Bacon Potato Pizza. The recipe is from my Betty Crocker.com cookbook but I'm just going to include how I made it. I didn't use the prepackaged pizza crust, sour cream potato topper, or prepackaged potato slices.

Here is the way I made it. I'm sorry for not having exact measurements. It's my Mema's fault that I've learned to improvise and just throw things together.


Loaded Baked Potato Pizza

Preheat oven, with pizza stone in it if you have one, to 400°F.  You may also make the pizza on the back of a cookie sheet.

Pizza Crust
Sour cream
baked potato
olive oil
pepper
bacon
tomato
shredded cheddar cheese
chives, I used scallions

Spread the sour cream over the pizza crust.  I mixed some dry onion and a little onion powder into it first.
Cut the baked potatoes into thin slices. Potatoes baked the day before and cold from the fridge work the best.  I think mine were actually from dinner a few days before hand!
Mix the potato slices with olive oil, and some pepper. and place over sour cream.
Top with crumbled up bacon, tomato, cheese and chives.

Bake 18-20 minutes or until potatoes are heated and cheese is melted.
Allow to slightly cool a minute or two and enjoy!