Enchiladas Verdes

I had a bunch of left over roast turkey from another recipe I was making for a friend so I decided to try my hand at enchiladas verdes!

Here is the recipe I came up with after reading through several recipes I found on the internet (as mentioned previously on this blog, I tend to Frankenstein recipes together to get the exact recipe I want -- or I just make one up myself!)

 

Sauce:

• 3 cups tomatillos remove husk, rinse, cut them in half or quarters
• 2 TBS minced garlic
• 1” slice of onion optional (or you can remove before blending if someone doesn’t like onions)
• Water or soup stock enough to just cover the tomatillos (I use either stock from the meat or Better Than Bouillon)
• 3-5 serrano peppers discard stems, seeds, and pith (the amount you use depends on pepper size and how spicy you want it)

Throw the first four ingredients into a saucepan. Cook until the tomatillos dull and become somewhat translucent. Add the serranos and blend. Cook a couple minutes more and remove from heat or turn the heat to warm if you will be serving right away.

Filling:

• 4 cups shredded roast meat - chicken, turkey, or pork
• 3-4 TBS olive oil
• 3 TBS minced garlic
• 3-4 bay leaves
• 1 cup water or soup stock  (I use the stock from the meat, or Better Than Bouillon)
• 1 TBS chipotle pepper ground
• I use 3-4 TBS of Badia fajita seasoning, but you can add your own spices. Try this mix:

                1-2 tsp red pepper flakes (depending on how hot you want it)

                1 tsp paprika (can use smoked)

                1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (leave out if you don't want it very spicy)

                2 tsp chili pepper powder

                1/2 tsp cumin

                1/2 tsp onion powder or 1 tsp onion flakes

                1/2 tsp garlic powder or 1 tsp granulated garlic

                1 tsp salt

                *Add more of any of these spices until the meat tastes the way that you want it to!
                  You can add a variety of peppers (eg. poblano/ancho) for a richer flavor.

Add meat to a large, hot skillet. Stir until heated. Add oil. Once oil is heated, add garlic and seasoning (except bay leaves). Cook for a couple minutes stirring to keep from burning. Add stock and bay leaves. Turn down heat to a simmer. Add more water if needed. Simmer on low for 10-15 minutes to set in the flavors.

Assembly:

• White corn tortillas
• Filling
• Sauce
• Chopped cilantro

Heat a pan (preferably cast iron) on high. Put a tortilla on the dry pan for 30 seconds, turn over and cook another 30 seconds. There should be some browning, and even a little scorching is good. They should lose some of their translucence but still be flexible. Remove from heat and throw another tortilla on. Repeat process with all the tortillas you will need.

On one end of the cooked tortilla, spread about 1/8 cup hot filling. Roll. Put on a plate and pour the heated sauce on top. Sprinkle chopped cilantro over the enchilada.

Eat!

Ginger Garlic Wonton Packages

I had some interesting wontons from the local food co-op and knew I had to try to make my own.

Mine were better!

• 1 head nappa cabbage, shredded
• 1 bulb garlic, minced or put through a press
• 2 TBS fresh ginger, minced
• 2 scallions, chopped - use white and green parts
• 1/8 cup chopped carrots
• 1 package wonton wrappers
• 2 cups peanut oil

I threw the first five ingredients into my electric chopper to get it into a fine slaw.

Spoon into wonton wrappers.

Fold the corners to the middle like an envelope and seal together with water. I found that wetting my hands slightly before handling the wrappers helped a lot.

Fry in peanut oil on medium high heat. You want them to cook quickly but not burn.

Serve on their own as they are really flavorful, or you could serve with sweet pepper dipping sauce.

These were easy and quick to make, and DELICIOUS!!

Avocado Margherita

I love avocados, even if I seem to be alone in that love in my household. This recipe is one of my favorite ways to prepare them.

		Avocado - halved and pitted (I also peel mine, but you don't have to) 2TBS diced red onion 1 garlic clove, minced 1/4 cup diced fresh tomato 2 TBS fresh basil, shredded (can substitute 1 tsp dried basil) 2 thin slices of mozzarella 1 TBS olive oil Salt and pepper Oil a small bread pan. Place the avocado halves into the pan and sprinkle with a tiny bit of olive oil. Place the garlic, tomato, onion, and basil into halves. You can pre-mix these first if you want. Cover the avocado halves with the mozzarella slices and bake in a 350F oven until cheese is melted, and golden brown if you like.
		Serve them warm with salt and pepper. They are hearty, tasty and filling!

Morel Cream Sauce

I had my best morel year ever. My son and I usually just saute the mushrooms and eat them as a treat, but I actually had enough to make some kind of a dish with the morels that I found. I wanted to keep it simple and mild, since this was the first time that I was actually cooking them into a dish and wanted to be sure they would hold their own.

So, although I was going to do a stroganoff or an Alfredo, I opted for a simple cream sauce. I basically went out to my garden and pulled what was available.

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1-2 TBS garlic chives, chopped - whites and greens
• 1-2 TBS chives, chopped
• Small leek, chopped - whites and tender greens
• A few rosemary leaves, chopped (or a pinch of ground rosemary)
• 1/3 cup (or more) morel mushrooms, chopped
• 1-2 TBS flour
• 1/2-1 cup cream or half-n-half - enough to get consistency you want
• Sea salt
• Pepper

Saute the chives and leeks.	Add mushrooms and saute until the mushrooms are fully cooked.
Sprinkle in the flour and mix well.	Pour in cream/half-n-half a little at a time and mix well. You want to dissolve all the flour into the liquids.

Add the salt and pepper and cook until thickened.

I used this over egg noodles. It was delicious!!

The sauce was mild enough that the three mushrooms I used easily held their own. If you want to add a little more spice, like thyme or convert it to a stroganoff by adding sour cream, or an Alfredo by adding some Parmesan; I would add more morels. Heck, if I had had them, I would have added more anyway :)

Tunisian Brik

I wanted to add some more appetizers to my repertoire, so when I found a recipe for Tunisian Brik in my appetizer cookbook ("Appetizers, Finger Food, Buffet & Parties", by Bridget Jones) I had to try making it. I did make a few small changes - of course. The following is what I came up with.

• 3 TBS butter, melted
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped
• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 TBS lemon juice
• 2 TBS finely chopped cilantro
• 1-2 eggs, scrambled
• phyllo dough
  

Start by mixing everything but the egg and phyllo dough in a frying pan and cook until meat is thoroughly cooked. Then it is on to phyllo dough!

Let me start by saying that phyllo dough is a mother to work with! It is very thin, tears easily, dries out quickly, and then crumbles. I kept a mister handy to keep the dough moist; but be careful! If you get the dough too moist, it sticks to everything!

	I laid out two sheets. the recipe called for brushing with melted butter, but due to the delicacy of these sheets, I sprayed them with Pam instead.
	The sheets were rather large, so I cut them into sixths.
	Then I folded each of the pieces until they made 3"x3" squares. They don't need to be perfectly even. As you can see, some parts have more layers than others.
	Place a tablespoon of the meat filling in the center of each square and a teaspoon of egg over that. Fold the phyllo corner to corner and seal with a little water. Place the triangles on a greased/oiled baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil.
	Bake at 425F for 8-10 minutes. They should be golden brown.

These were AWESOME! And once you get the hang of handling the phyllo dough, they are amazingly easy to make!

Tomato Lentil Soup/Casserole

I needed to make a quick meal and had been remembering a wonderful minestrone that I had whipped up once, so I decided to try that again. Except I couldn't exactly remember how I had made it, so what I ended up with was different, but equally as wonderful.

I call this a "soup/casserole" since it could really be either. When it was first done cooking it still had a soup consistency, but as it sat, the noodles soaked up most of the remaining liquid and it became a casserole. Either way was very good.

• 3 cloves garlic minced (I used the garlic I grew this year)
  
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped or diced
  
• 3 TBS olive oil
• 1 pint tomato sauce (I used the sauce I canned this fall - YUM!)
• 3 TBS ground Italian seasoning (basil, oregano, thyme, and rosemary mix)
• 1 TSP sea salt
• 2 cups reconstituted lentils (about 1 cup dried - I used two lentils: French and brown)
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 3 medium carrots, sliced (you can leave the skins on)
• 2 handfuls of uncooked pasta (your choice - used egg noodles)
  

The first thing that you want to do is start the lentils reconstituting by placing them in a bowl and pouring near boiling water over them.

Heat the olive oil on medium in a soup pan while you mince the garlic and chop/dice the onion. Saute the garlic and onions in the olive oil while you dice the celery. Saute the celery while you slice the carrots. If you like your carrots firm, hold off placing them in the pot until later.


Dump the tomato sauce into the pot. Add a pint of water and mix in the Italian seasoning. Rinse the lentils and add to pot. Simmer for ten minutes. Add the pasta (and carrots if you didn't do that earlier) and simmer until the pasta is cooked. You may need to add extra water during this process (but make sure that the liquids remain bubbly hot or the pasta will cook pasty - Yuck!)

Salt to taste.

This was quick and easy to make. I really liked this and so did my husband (who isn't a big shelled bean fan). It will make great leftovers for lunch tomorrow as well :)

Moroccan Stuffed Acorn Squash

I had two acorn squash that I had to use up soon since I accidentally tore the stem off while harvesting - Oops! Oh well, my loss is my gain as I found some great recipes for this particular squash, and not your run of the mill "drizzle it in honey" recipes. In fact, I found two really interesting ones and couldn't decide, so I made them both!

The recipe base came from elizadomestica.com. Just like Eliza, I had to make a few changes. The original recipe came from the October 2009 edition Martha Stewart Living magazine if you are interested.

The following is my version of this recipe...

Ingredients

• One medium acorn squash, cut in half and seeded
• 3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 scallion, separate the green and white parts and chop
• 1 slice sweet onion, chopped
  
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup chicken bouillon
• 4 cups water
• 1 cups of veggie burger mix
• 1/2 cup barley
• 1/8 cup raisins, minced
• 3 tablespoons chopped ripe sweet pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped apple
  
• 2 tablespoons of toasted pine nuts
• 1 tablespoons cilantro, minced

Directions

Cut acorn squash lengthwise and remove the seeds. Bake at 350F face down in an oiled baking dish for 30 minutes.

While squash is baking, saute in a medium frying pan white scallion, onion, and garlic in 1 TBS olive oil. Add chicken bouillon and sprinkle in cinnamon and nutmeg. Once the bouillon and seasoning are thoroughly mixed in, add water, veggie burger mix and barley. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the barley is cooked. Add more water during the cooking if necessary to keep it moist.

Near the end of the cooking process, add the raisins, pepper and apple.

Turn the heat up a little, add 1TBS olive oil and allow the mix to dry out so that it holds a form. Add the pine nuts and cilantro and mound into squash halves. Bake for 15 - 30 minutes until squash is soft.

The following are pictures of the squash before and after cooking.












The dark is the Moroccan (the light is the other recipe I tried: Corn Chowder Acorn Squash). This was definitely a great recipe, and, it was even better as leftovers!

Corn Chowder Acorn Squash

I had two acorn squash that I had to use up soon since I accidentally tore the stem off while harvesting - Oops! Oh well, my loss is my gain as I found some great recipes for this particular squash, and not your run of the mill "drizzle it in honey" recipes. In fact, I found two really interesting ones and couldn't decide, so I made them both!

The base recipe came from fredlet.

• 1 acorn squash, cut in half lengthwise and seeded
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup half & half
• 1 egg
• 1 can sweet corn, drained
• 1/3 cup grated Italian cheese (I used Romano and Asiago)
• 2 shallots, minced
• 1 sweet pepper, ripe (orange or red are great) chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1. Turn on your oven to 350F
2. Cut the acorn squash in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon
3. Cook acorn squash cut side down in an oiled baking pan for 30 minutes.
5. Put the corn, shallots, garlic and sweet pepper in a frying pan (I used cast iron) over medium heat. You want to roast these ingredients. A little charring is ideal, just don't burn them.

Mix egg, half & half, cheese in a saucepan. Warm over low heat to melt the cheese.

Add the roasted mix and continue heating until the chowder thickens. Stuff the squash halves with as much of the chowder as they will hold. Bake at 325F for 40-45 minutes.

The following are pictures of the squash before and after cooking.


The light one is the corn chowder squash (the dark is the other recipe I tried: Moroccan Stuffed Acorn Squash). This was definitely a great recipe. My son ate a half of one clean and I froze the other for a quick dinner later.

Cherry Bomb Salsa

I have a bunch of tomatoes ripening in my garden, so I have been canning. I only can high acid foods since I don't have a pressure canner, and I never had experience with one (that may change next year). Most tomatoes are naturally high in acid, so they can be canned using the hot water bath method.

I wanted to make salsa but didn't have enough jalapeños, so I ordered a pound of Cherry Bomb peppers from our local coop. I like these peppers a lot because they have the sweetness of the ripe red sweet pepper but a nice bite of a mild jalapeño.
This makes four quart jars of salsa.

• 1 gallon crushed tomatoes
  
• 1/2 lb Cherry Bomb peppers, tops and seeds removed (leave seeds for more heat)
  
• 1 medium sweet onion, bottom and skin removed
  
• 1 bulb garlic, skins removed
  
• 1 tsp sea salt, or more to taste
  
• 1/4 cup lemon juice (necessary for water-bath canning; you can omit if pressure canning)
  
• 2 TBS brown sugar (it cuts down on the harshness of the acidity necessary for water-bath canning these)

Chop everything and put in a large pan to reduce until thickened. You can either let cool and eat it right away or you could can this for later. I did can this but had some leftovers to try. It was very good, but mild. I will add more peppers or leave the seeds in for more heat next time.


For canning:
*Please visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation site for proper canning instructions. Although no one has ever fallen ill from my canning methods, I may be omitting proper procedural steps here.*

While the salsa is boiling down, put the rack in the water-bath pan, fill 1/3 way with water, and bring to boil. Wash four jars, lids and bands. Carefully examine each jar for any damage; do not use jars with any amount of damage (you can save these for storing dry foods). Sterilize the jars and lids by placing in the boiling water for ten minutes.
Fill the jars with the hot, reduced salsa to 1/2 inch from the top. Wipe the rim with a clean, damp towel. Place a lid on and hand-tighten a band on the jar.
Place the jars in the water bath. When the temperature has reach at least 212degrees, place a lid on the pan and maintain temperature for 35 minutes.
Remove the jars carefully. Place on a towel or cooling rack leaving at least an inch in between all jars. You should hear the lids contract, making a popping/pinging sound. Let them cool for 24hrs before checking for proper seal, labeling and storing in a cool, dry, dark place.

I try to use up my canned goods within a year for best taste and throw out everything that's older than three years just to be safe. But when I was growing up, we often ate home canned goods that were over five years old and we're all still alive!!

*I also found this site to be very good at basic canning instructions.*

Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts

There has been a constant sale on boneless, skinless chicken breasts lately, and the champagne chicken was such a success; I decided to try another stuffed chicken breast. Since I had fresh spinach, I decided to use that. I looked at a couple of spinach stuffed chicken breast recipes and created the following.

• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 to 1-1/2 cup chopped spinach
• 3-4 sliced garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup French onion dip (because I had some and thought onion would go well with this) or sour cream for milder flavor or even cream cheese for creamier filling
  
• 1/4 cup cheese (I was going to use colby jack, but used pepper jack instead)
• sea salt and pepper
• olive oil

Mix the chopped spinach, sliced garlic and French onion dip until the spinach is completely coated and the garlic is evenly distributed.

Butterfly the chicken breasts and stuff the filling into the chicken. Top the filling with cheese.

Fold the chicken back up and sprinkle with salt, pepper and oil.

Bake in the oven at 400F for 1/2 hour, or pan fry over medium heat until completely cooked.

This was a very tender, flavorful chicken breast. I definitely want to try this with just sour cream or cream cheese to allow the spinach flavors to show through better. But with the French onion dip the spinach tasted very much like artichoke, which was nice.

My family loved this. I would make it again. It was easy! This can even be made up ahead and stored in the refrigerator until ready to cook.

Champagne Chicken

This is a great way to use up left over champagne from any celebration, mine was Valentine/anniversary weekend. I had this at a local Italian restaurant a couple of times and liked it enough to try to make it myself. I like mine better.

• 3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 6-8 sprigs of fresh young rosemary
• 6-8 cloves garlic (sliced)
  
• 1/2 tsp dried sweet basil
• 2 TBS butter
• a little flour
• 8oz fresh mushrooms
• 2-3 TBS olive oil
• 2-3 TBS butter (optional)
• 1 - 2 cups champagne (I like Ballatore Gran Spumante)
  
• 1/8 cup half-n-half
• salt & pepper

Butterfly the chicken breast (slice the breast like a hot dog bun). Rub each chicken breast with a little sea salt. Stuff each breast with 2-3 sprigs of rosemary, a sprinkling of dried basil, a TBS or more of sliced garlic, and 1/2 TBS of sliced butter. Pepper each breast and refrigerate for at least an hour to allow all the spices to penetrate the meat. The longer you leave it, the more the meat will absorb the flavors. If you like, you can set the chicken in 1 cup champagne about 1/2 hour before cooking.

When ready to cook, heat a frying pan on medium heat. Add 2-3 TBS olive oil. Place the breast in the pan and dust with a little flour. Keep an eye on the heat; you don't want to burn the flour. Flip them carefully away from the cut side and dust the other side with flour. Once the one side is seared, flip again to sear the other side.

Push the chicken to the side of the pan and add the sliced mushrooms and the additional butter if desired. Once the mushrooms are seared, add the champagne - you can add the champagne that the chicken was sitting in as well.

Turn to low heat. Cover and let cook for about 5-10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Take the chicken from the pan. Turn the heat back to medium. Add the half-n-half to the pan. If you would like a thicker sauce, mix a little flour to the half-n-half before adding to the pan.

Serve the chicken topped with the sauce.

This, as I said, was delicious. The sauce had a tangy, almost bubbly zip. I served this with a cabbage salad and fried mashed potato patties.

Yummus

For the New Year party I also made hummus for the first time. I started with the recipe from the Red Mill bag of garbanzo bean flour. [This post is mostly the making of the recipe. If you just want the finished recipe go here]

3/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
2-1/2 cup water
2-3 garlic cloves
1/4 cup chicken broth (I skipped this)
1/4 cup sesame paste (I didn't have this, so I mashed 1/4 sesame seeds with a chop/blender)
1/4 cup lemon juice (I didn't have this so I added 2 TBS lemon grass instead)
1/8 tsp tabasco sauce (I substituted powdered cayenne pepper because I like it)
1/2 tsp ground cumin (I totally missed this - you'll see this come up later)
salt & pepper to taste (1/2 tsp sea salt and 1/4 tsp ground pepper)
1/4 cup olive oil

Which gave me this:
A hummus paste, or more accurately, lump. I wasn't sure that it was going to even work, and was short on time, so I abandoned it to the fridge until later. After all other appetizers were done, I did have time to work with it, and I had picked up tahini and lemon juice as well.

I spooned out about 1 cup of the lump and added 1 cup tahini, 1/4 cup water, and 2 TBS lemon juice and mixed until smooth. It is MUCH easier to get a smooth mix if you just mix the lump and the tahini together first, then add the water.
The flavor still was not right, so I added 1/4 tsp sea salt, mixed and tasted. Still not right. So I added 1/4 tsp more cayenne pepper and 2 more TBS olive oil. Good, but still not right. It needed some depth. It could use some more garlic, but I was going for at least one dish that wasn't garlicky.

SSB asked me if we had any Middle Eastern spices. I added 1/2 tsp paprika. Better, not quite there. There was a taste in my mind... what is it? CUMIN! It really needed cumin! So I added 1/4 tsp cumin, tasted and added 1/4 more. Perfect! Then I looked at the original recipe and noticed that it actually had cumin in the ingredient list and I had just missed it. Silly me!

Here is the final result. The little dish to the right is my trial dish that I used to try out a few variations before I made the changes to the main mix.

My final recipe for a batch was probably close to this:

• 1/4 garbanzo bean flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 1/4-1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 2 TBS lemon grass
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper

Put everything into a mixing bowl and blend using a chopping/blending handmixer until smooth. If it is too thick, add a little more liquid (lemon juice if you like a snappier hummus, olive oil if you like a super smooth hummus, or just water if all is good and you just need it so you can get a chip into it!). And of course, all spices are adjustable to taste. If you are not serving immediately, you should bring to room temperature before serving. This is great with flatbread chips/crackers, rice chips, or tortilla chips.

If you want a garlicky hummus, just add more garlic!

It was delicious! And I got lots of compliments at the party for it not only being really rich, but amazingly smooth! And I had so much of the original lump left over that I made it up for work as well, and it was a hit there too! I also had enough of the lump left to make another yummy goody that I will post about later.

Bruschetta

There was a New Year Party at my house, and I was inspired to make some very yummy appetizers. I'm going to make each recipe a new post, so watch for the others over the next few days. I'm going to start out with double tomato bruschetta.

When my son asked me what bruschetta was, the best I could come up with was "Italian salsa". I think that is a fairly good explanation. I got this recipe from AllRecipes. I read through the comments before I chose it, and ultimately made it, for ideas. Many said MORE BASIL AND LOSE THE CHEESE. The following is what I ended up with after making some slight changes:

* 6 roma tomatoes, chopped
* 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes softened in 1/8 cup olive oil
* 3-6 cloves minced garlic
* 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (I used Alessi - my favorite so far)
* 1/3-1/2 cup fresh chopped basil
* 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1 French baguette (I use the New French Bakery Take and Bake brand - THE BEST!!)
* 1/8 cup olive oil


The original recipe calls for sun-dried tomatoes in oil, but I only keep the dried variety -- so I just took some of the oil called for in the recipe to soak my dried tomatoes. Chop them up when soft enough. Mix with the chopped Romas, basil and minced garlic. Add the two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper.

This smells DELICIOUS freshly made, but the flavors are still pretty separate at this point. This can actually be good when you are going for dramatic, but if you want subtle, well melded flavors, let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.

The original recipe calls for the mix to be put on the cut pieces of baguette then broiled until the cheese is melted, but, I agreed with the commenters that suggested serving the mix on the side and allowing people to add their own topping -- not everyone likes the same amount of topping, plus the toast will stay toasty. SO, right before serving, cut the baguette into 1/2-1" slices, brush with olive oil and broil to toast.
Serve the mix at room temperature with the toasted baguette. I also had a dish of Romano cheese that could be sprinkled over the top.

The bruschetta was very easy and very popular. I will definitely be making this again.

One thing I might try next time is reducing (boiling down) the balsamic vinegar a little to deepen the flavor, but this was also great as is.

Another note: I brought the left overs to work on Friday (about 36 hours later) and it was even BETTER!

Turkey Meatballs with Wine Sauce

I had a work party to go to and needed a dish to bring. I wanted something that could be a meal dish or h'orderves. Meatballs would sure fit that bill. I have my very own recipe for meatballs that I just LOVE!

Turkey Meatballs

2lbs ground turkey
1 sleeve of saltines
3 TBS rosemary
1 TBS Italian seasoning
1 TBS thyme
2-3 eggs
1-3 small cloves garlic minced
1/2 sweet onion minced
a couple of dashes olive oil
Salt and pepper

I do not eat mammals, but poultry is fair game! I thawed out 2lbs of ground turkey. Nothing like meat in a tube!
Pre-heat the oven to 350°. Mix all the ingredients together and roll into balls. I chose to roll them into small balls that could be picked up with toothpicks, but you could make them as big as you like. place them on a cookie sheet. They can be very close to each other. Bake until they are completely cooked.

These are DELICIOUS!
And they go really well with spaghetti and sauce.

Speaking of sauce, my husband thought a sauce might be nice with these, so I made one up for them.

Wine Sauce

1/2 bottle Madeira wine
4oz rice vinegar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1-2 tsp soy sauce
2 TBS stone ground Dijon
1 TBS cornstarch dissolved in water

Put the first 4 ingredients in a saucepan on medium heat. Simmer until the liquids start to concentrate. Add the Dijon and the dissolved cornstarch. Stir over heat until thickened.

Serve with the meatballs, or any other meat that might go well with a wine sauce. It is fantastic!

These were a big hit at the party. People were asking about the meatballs and the sauce. I rock!