Italian Meatballs

I have been baking meatballs in a mini muffin tin after reading Alton Brown's Good Eats. My Sage meatballs came out with nice brown color on the top side only, and I wasn't satisfied with the result. This time, I flipped the meatballs half way through, and they were golden brown on all sides! A regular baking sheet works fine too, but I found a mini muffin tin useful as it keeps meatballs from rolling around.

They are perfect meatballs for spaghetti and meatballs. These types of meatball recipes often call for Parmigiano Reggiano, however you can certainly substitute with Grana Padano. Just like Parmigiano Reggiano, Grana Padano is a hard granular cheese from northern Italy. Grana Padano has a slightly more delicate flavor, and it is less expensive than its counterpart. Also, you can use dried herbs instead of fresh and vice versa. I used fresh parsley since it was available at the grocery store. Generally, you can substitute one teaspoon of dried herbs with one tablespoon of fresh herbs (one to three ratio.)

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Homemade Chili

I'm finally back.

It has been a very busy winter. My husband and I joined a gym at the end of 2010 and have been exercising three times a week. We feel good about our new lifestyle as we always wanted to be more physically active. I also started learning bass guitar with lessons once a week. The workouts and bass practice on top of my full time job (which includes a three hour commute) leaves very little free time.

That being said, I still cook everyday and would love to share the recipes here. In order to do that, I had to develop better time management skills. The first step was to start batch cooking on weekends, and it has been a big time saver. I have been working on my chili recipe for the past few weeks, and it worked out very well since chili is a great meal for cooking in bulk. There are so many ways to enjoy it. It's great with crackers, bread, over the pasta or rice. The meat can be used for deluxe nachos. There are many pre-packed chili powder mixes at the store, but it's fairly easy to make from scratch. We have had so much snow in East Coast this year, and it seems like there is more to come. Take a break from all the shoveling and have a bowl of chili to warm yourself up!

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Indian Sloppy Joes

It was somewhat accidental when I, well, WE came up this Indian style sloppy joe.  I thought I was just making ground beef curry until when my husband sliced up a raisin bun and piled it up with curry then said, "you made Indian sloppy joes."  He scooped out some bread making room for more meat.  Indian sloppy joes... why didn't I think of that?

The raisin buns were, by the way,  homemade too.  I've had the bread baking bug recently (see the bagel post) and have been trying to perfect this raisin bread recipe.  It's still a work in progress.  I'm hoping to post the complete recipe sometime soon.  But it's 90 degrees out side.  Do I really want to use the oven...?  To bake or not to bake...

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Turkey and Sun-Dried Tomato Burger

A hamburger is one of my husband's favorite dishes. I like it, too. Juicy patties on soft buns, served with pickles, ketchup and mustard... To me, a burger is the ultimate American food. We go to Wendy's for a quick bite and sometimes try famous burger places in New York city. However, when I cook a burger at home, I'll put a little... or a lot of twists to it. This time, I packed patties with tons of Mediterranean flavors and finished it off with lemon mayonnaise sauce. To make it healthier, I used 99% fat free ground turkey and sandwiched the patties with Arnold's multi grain Sandwich Thins, which contain only 100 calories per serving. I also replaced french fries with quinoa and the grape fruits salad. This could be the healthiest burger plate on the planet!

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