Spinach Meatballs

In the past, we've made meatballs by frying them in a pan which was messy and somewhat tedious - since we need to be making some sort of marinara at the same time. I then remembered seeing an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown bakes the balls of meat instead of frying them. Why hadn't we tried this before? And you can make more meatballs at the same time as well, and more is always better!

We mixed a little over a pound of ground turkey with 1.5 cups of thawed and well drained spinach. I added about 1/4 c. parmesan, 1/2 tbsp Worchestershire, some dried oregano, basil, S&P and some Penzey's Cajun Seasoning. I mixed that together and added roughly 1/3 c of breadcrumbs until the mixture was no longer gooey. I did not add an egg to this, but in retrospect, that would've bound everything together a bit better.



After forming 1.5inch balls, I placed them on a greased pan and stuck them at 400F for 20 minutes, turned them and cooked for 5 minutes more. After plunking them into the marinara for a few minutes more, we served them up over some whole wheat angel hair pasta.

And what to do with leftovers...meatball sandwiches of course!

Chicken with Olives & Artichokes

A little while ago I purchased an obscene amount of chicken thighs and threw them in the freezer knowing they would work their way into our bellies soon enough. I was having a craving for salty, briny olives and thought how wonderful they would be with those chicken thighs. As with most of our recipes we kinda just invented the recipe as we were doing it, which is the fun of it!

After cutting off excess fat/skin from the thighs, we rinsed and patted them dry and seasoned them just with salt & pepper and a bit of smoked paprika. In our dutch oven, we seared them in batches (don’t want to crowd them!) in some olive oil. After wiping out the excess oil (but keeping some of the brown bits of goodness), we added some fresh olive oil and sauteed one frenched onion and 5 chopped garlic cloves. After cooking for 5 minutes, we added roughly 8oz of sliced mushrooms, and let those cook down.



Now come the stars of the show in my opinion!! About 40 olives (half Kalamata and half giant green ones) are halved and thrown in with ¼ cup of capers, a few sprigs of thyme and a small bunch of oregano.



We then deglazed the pan with about 2 cups of chardonnay, and cooked that for about 5 minutes more. We returned the chicken to the pan with 5 cups of chicken stock. We topped off with 2 16 oz cans of drained quartered artichokes, brought it up to a low boil and threw it into a 350 degree oven for an hour.

We served this delightful Mediterranean dish over some Pecan and garlic couscous, and toasted with a glass of Chardonnay as well! Bon apetit!

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Last year, we made a traditional Irish Lamb Stew for St. Patrick's Day - one of our favorite holidays of the year. This year, we went traditional again - but in a different direction... the traditional Irish-American St. Patrick's Day meal: Corned beef and cabbage (and turnips and carrots and celery and onions...)

We trimmed much of the fat off of a 4lb flat-cut corned beef and then added it to our dutch oven along with alot of water, a 16oz Guinness (yum!), a chopped-up onion, about 5 crushed cloves of garlic, three BIG bay leaves, a handful of whole tellicherry peppercorns, and some kosher salt. After finally coming to a boil, we covered it tight and set it to simmer... and forgot about it for 3.5 hours.

3.5 hours later, we warmed up the oven to ~200 degrees and removed our now-red and tender corned beef from the liquid. We wrapped it in alumninum foil and let it rest in the warm oven in order to boil up our veggies in the corned beef's flavorful broth.



After bringing the broth to a nice boil, we added a turnip, about a dozen carrots, and a bunch of celery ribs - all cleaned, peeled, and chopped to around the same size. Back to a boil and give those guys a head-start, then we finally added a head of cabbage that had been cut into 8 wedges.



20 minutes later and we were eating. The corned beef was SO tender it is hard to describe... it was almost like jelly - although that not the most flattering description, trust us it was good. Along with some dijon mustard, the flavor was delicious. And the veggies had absorbed the wonderful broth left behind by the corned beef. We enjoyed this delicious meal with the last of many, many Guinness pints from the weekend and are looking forward to the leftovers - and sandwiches!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Shrimp Alfredo Pizza

We have pretty much perfected our homemade whole wheat pizza dough - one packet of yeast in 1 cup of very warm (110-degree) water and a drop of honey allowed to "wake up" for about 15 minutes, then into a bowl with 3 cups whole wheat flour, lots of garlic powder, salt, and some basil and oregano, combined and kneaded until doughy and then allowed to rise near the warm oven (covered) for an hour. This recipe makes enough for 2 pizzas, and it freezes well too.

The champion of this particular pizza creation is the bag of frozen shrimp we always have on hand. Whether in fajitas, pasta, or grilled cajun-style over a salad, these frozen wonders are great for easy and quick weeknight cooking.

As usual, we pre-cooked our dough on our stone in a very hot 500-degree oven for 4 minutes. In the meantime, we cooked up the shrimp 2/3 of the way in some olive oil and seasoned them with some garlic powder, oregano, and basil. We removed the dough and topped it with some store-bought alfredo sauce, some big slices of tomato, fresh basil leaves, the shrimpies and topped it with some shredded mozzarella and fresh-grated parmesan. We popped that back in the oven for 7 more minutes, and then we had ourselves a nice creamy shrimp pizza with a divinely thin crispy crust!