Vegetarian Swedish Meatballs

I was bringing Swedish meatballs to the potluck at work, and wanted to bring a vegetarian version as well. I really couldn't find a good one online, so as usual, I made one up.

I had a lot of trouble getting the flavor of the meatball the way I wanted it, I accidentally used twice as much black pepper than I intended, and I couldn't get a veggie brown sauce that didn't taste like bitter onion soup - so I almost scrapped the whole thing. However, after a few additions to the meatballs and an herb sauce in place of the brown sauce, they turned out great! I am planning to make bunches to freeze, and make Italian versions for spaghetti as well.


meatballs:

• 8 oz cooked black eyed peas, drained and mashed
• 1/2 onion, minced (can saute or leave raw)
• 3 TBS olive oil or melted butter
• 1/3 cup bulghur wheat, soaked overnight, drained
• 1/3 cup oatmeal, cooked or soaked overnight in water, milk, yogurt, or sour cream
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 2 TBS soy sauce (Kikoman works very well for this)
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp garlic salt or adobo
• 2 eggs

gravy:

• 1 cup milk or cream
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp thyme, ground
• 1 TBS parmesan/romano or Jarlsberg, shredded
• 1 tsp garlic salt or adobo

Heat oven to 300F with a small pan of water on the lower rack.

Mix meatball ingredients together.
Form into 1" balls and place on a well oiled cookie sheet. (They are easier to roll if you cool the mix).
Drizzle or brush olive oil on the balls.
Bake for 30 mins. Make sure to keep the water pan filled as they bake.

Mix gravy ingredients in a medium sauce pan and bring to simmer.
Simmer until it thickens to the desired consistency.
If you are having trouble getting it thick enough, add a little more flour mixed in milk to the mixture, and simmer some more.

Serve the meatballs with just the sauce or over noodles.

Delicata with Wild Rice and Cranberry Stuffing

I grew delicata for the first time and wasn't exactly sure what to do with it. The recipes I found online were your standard squash recipes: butter and brown sugar. I wanted something more savory, so I came up with something on my own. Our exchange student had never had wild rice before, so I knew that was in and it just sort of evolved from there.

• 1 cup uncooked wild rice
• 1/4 cup craisins
• 2 TBS chopped scallions
• 1 TBS chopped medium-hot pepper
  
• 1/2 tsp ground rosemary
• 3 TBS fresh thyme
• 1/4 tsp fresh chopped sage
• 2 TBS butter
  
• 1 TBS honey
  
• 2 Delicata squash

	Cut the delicata lengthwise and scoop the seeds out. The seeds are said to be good for roasting, and this is an heirloom squash, so you may want to try to save the seeds.
Cook the wild rice in 2 cups water until tender. Add craisins, onion, herbs, and honey. Mix well and stuff the delicata halves with the mixture.
	I baked these at 400F in a claypot cooker for 40 minutes. You could probably get by with 350F in a regular baking dish. This was the first time that I had eaten delicata. It was a tiny bit mealy, but sweet. The skin, although fairly hard when raw, is soft enough to cut with a fork after cooking and completely edible.

The recipe? It was delicious! I will definitely be making this again. And the stuffing could be a stand alone dish as well.

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!

Potatoes and Parsnips in Four Cheese Herb Sauce

OH.MY.GOSH!!

I made the most delicious sauce today!
Seriously, I almost cried.

• 1 sweet onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 medium potatoes, sliced
• 2 parsnips, chopped
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 3 TBS butter
• 1/8-1/4 cup flour
• 1 pint half-n-half
• 2 TBS thyme
• 2 TBS Italian four cheese mix
• salt & pepper

Saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat. When the onion is about half cooked, add garlic. Add butter, be careful to monitor heat so that the butter melts but doesn't burn. Once it is melted, mix in enough flour to make a paste. Mix in half and half, thyme, four cheese mix and sea salt and pepper.

O.M.G!! It was YUMMMMMY!!! I wanted to eat it right then.

Place potatoes and parsnips in a baking dish. Pour the sauce over the potatoes and parsnips mixed it in, and bake the whole thing at 350F for an hour.

It was delicious!! I will definitely make this again. My son and husband weren't so sure about the parsnips (although they each had two huge servings), so I may omit them in the future. I think they just weren't expecting them.

In any case, I definitely have big plans for that sauce!

Chicken Sum'n Sum'n

I was asking my husband what he wanted for dinner. He said that he didn't know. I said that I could make chicken... er, sum'n sum'n. He laughed and said that I should actually come up with a recipe and call it that.

So I did! And now you too can make chicken sum'n sum'n.

• 1 whole chicken
• 1/2 bottle wine
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 3-4 TBS thyme
• 1 tsp celery seeds
• 1-1/2 TBS sea salt
• 4 TBS pomegranate arils
• 1 medium sweet onion
• 1 tsp ground rosemary

In a stain-free bowl, mix wine, hoisin, thyme, celery seeds, and 1 TBS sea salt. Marinade the whole chicken in this mix for at least an hour.



Place the marinaded chicken in your chicken pan of choice. I used the clay pot cooker, but you could use regular pan or a dutch oven. In a non-clay cooker, I would suggest adding about 1 inch of the marinade to the bottom of the pan to keep the chicken from going dry.

Sprinkle 1 tsp sea salt, 1 tsp ground rosemary over the chicken. Add pomegranate arils and a onion cut into 2 inch pieces into the pan around the chicken.

In the clay pot cooker, I cooked it for two hours at 450F. I'm not sure what it would be in a regular pan: 1-2 hours on 350F? I would cover with tin-foil for first hour if in a regular pan, and then crisp the skin for twenty minutes without tin foil.

When cooked in the clay cooker it is so tender that you can use a fork to get meat off the chicken.

I served this chicken with garlic & rosemary mashed potatoes and a salad made with red lettuce, chopped pecans and the rest of the pomegranate's arils with a fat free honey dijon dressing. Oh Joy!!

Apple and Herb Chicken

I created this recipe for my clay pot cooker, but you can use it for how you normally roast a chicken.

• 1 whole chicken
• 1 medium sweet onion
• a few potatoes
• a few stalks of celery
• 2 cups baby carrots
• 1 TBS ground rosemary
• 2 TBS thyme
• 1 packet apple cider mix
• sea salt

While the clay pot was soaking in water (you need to soak it in water for 10-15 minutes before putting the ingredients so it will keep your food moist while it cooks) chop up the sweet onion, potatoes, and celery. Grind the rosemary and thyme in a mortar. Once the pot has soaked up enough water, dump the apple cider drink mix in the bottom, pile in a cut whole chicken, sprinkle it with sea salt and the ground spice, then dump in the chopped veggies with the baby carrots. On goes the lid and into a cold oven. Turned on the oven for 450 degrees (100 degrees hotter than you would usually cook the food). Bake for about an hour.

When I made this I ran some errands and came home a little late. Doesn't it look delicious even if it is a little, er, toasty?

IT WAS! The apple cider mix was a great inspired touch, too! And even though it cooked long, it was still moist.

Thyme and Zucchini Fritters

There's more to zucchini cuisine than bread. I have quite a few recipes for zucchini that I simply LOVE! And of course, I am always looking out for new ones to try. So when I bought the most amazing recipe book EVER!!! I decided I just had to try this easy Thyme and Zucchini Fritter recipe.

Of course, I almost always just use a recipe as a guideline, so the following is how I made them and will not exactly correspond with the recipe in the book.

• 2 eggs
• cup flour
• 2 cups grated zucchini
  
• baking soda
• milk
• thyme, fresh or dried
• salt and pepper
  

In a medium sized bowl beat together two eggs into a scant cup of flour. When this is mixed thoroughly, sprinkle baking powder over the top of the batter, just enough to dust it. Mix this in as well. Mix in enough milk so that the batter will just barely run from your mixing utensil. This is about 1/4-1/3 cup. Mix in about 2-3 teaspoons of dried thyme. You can also use fresh if you were lucky enough to remember to grow it this year. Salt and pepper to your taste.

Cut the ends off the zucchini, and start grating.Wrap the grated zucchini in paper towel and squeeze out the moisture. Mix the grated zucchini into the batter.

You need a frying pan and some oil. I use a cast iron skillet. I love the way that cast iron cooks food. It just adds something extra to the food that I can't explain. It makes pancakes and hashbrowns perfectly.

Heat the pan first on medium heat. I learned years ago that the key to non-stick (save for those cancer causing teflon thingies) is cold oil on a hot pan. I don't really know if this is true, but what the hell. Do it anyway. I splurge on extra virgin olive oil. You only live once! Use a couple of tablespoons.

Once the oil is heated enough, scoop some of the batter into the pan and spread out slightly. You can put a couple of these in the pan at a time. I got three in at a time. Fry each side until they are golden brown and there is no more raw batter coming out the sides.

I served these warm with real mayonnaise. I did try them with Miracle Whip too, and that was good as well. I would have made my own garlic mayonnaise, but I was way too eager to try these while they were still warm and I hadn't thought to make it ahead of time.

The verdict? Nummy! I would definitely make these again.