Turkey Pesto Meatballs

It's been years since I've updated this blog. I'm not even sure this is going to work. Just to dip my toe in the water here's a recipe I made.

We are on day 4, yes, four of being trapped in our own home. Winter Storm Nemo/ Charlotte dumped 40 inches of snow on our hometown. One might say we won! We will tell you we've lost. Being stuck at home for 4 going on 5 days is not a win. Tonight I did win. It was a bit of cooking by braille, I felt my way around. Here is what I had in the house, thawed ground turkey, plain bread crumbs, eggs, premade pesto from Costco, and Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle from Penzeys.

I think it was 1.25 lbs of ground turkey
about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of premade pesto
about 1 ounce of Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle
aboud 3/4 cup of bread crumbs
1 egg white
I mashed it all together until my fingers were numb. The turkey was still quite chilly as I didn't take it out of the freezer until this morning because I was POSITIVE we would be plowed out and able to leave to go get dinner. Anyways. I wrapped a baking pan in foil, wiped it with olive oil and rolled my turkey meatballs placing them on the oiled foil. I bake them at 375 degrees for 20ish minutes. I think I overbaked them, because you only need to heat turkey to 165 degrees, but they were still fantastic. No photo for this as it is a test.

Bananas Foster

This is a showy dessert. Thankfully it is super simple, and super bad for you, but why not indulge every now and again. I was invited to a girls night and thought this would knock them off of their collective feet.

Yes, that is fire you see coming from the pan, who doesn't enjoy dessert and a show? I do recommend using long matches to ignite the alcohol as not to singe your brows and or face.

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar

4 bananas
1/4 cup rum

1 long match

vanilla ice cream

Melt the butter over medium heat, once melted add the brown sugar. You want to stir this until the sugar is melted into the butter. Add your sliced bananas and heat on both sides. When the sugar, butter, banana mix is bubbling get ready. TAKE THE PAN OFF THE HEAT then add the rum. Quickly stir to heat the rum then ignite the rum with a long match. If you have a gas stove some may say you can use the flame of the gas to light it, I wouldn't but do what you wish. Serve the bananas over vanilla ice cream. In this picture we gilded the lilly with whipped cream, totally over the top and yet quite enjoyable.

Mustard & Dill Salmon

Here at the abode we are trying to be more diet friendly. Though we are all big fans of fried with gravy it just isn't kind to the waist-line. This dinner took about 35 minutes to prepare from start to finish. I served it with couscous to have a starch, I do love a rounded meal.

INGREDIENTS

Spice Rub:
1 teaspoon each dried mustard, dill
1/2 teaspoon salt & black pepper
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme

4 6 oz salmon fillets
2 teaspoons honey
8 cups spinach leaves
1 clove minced garlic (I use my microplane to grate the garlic right into the pan, be sure to have your spinach ready to go in or you will burn your garlic and have to start over)

1/2 cup red wine (Something you would drink, not cheap "cooking wine")

1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard

I began by making the spice rub, drizzling honey on the salmon and sprinkling the rub on the fish, reserving about 1/2 of the rub. I added olive oil to a large pan, grated in the garlic and quickly added the spinach. I filled the pan, let it cook down and filled the pan again to be sure to have enough. Spinach cooks down a lot so it is better to aire on the side of too much than too little. I also didn't salt it. I was worried as it cooked down it would be too salty. I suppose a small sprinkle would have been okay.

I took the spinach out of the pan and set it aside to stay warm. I heated some oil and browned the salmon. Once browned on both sides I put it in a 300 degree oven to cook through, you want it at 130 degrees. While I waited for the salmon to cook I added the wine, Dijon mustard and left over spice rub to the pan and reduced it to make a nice sauce.

To plate I made a pile of spinach which I laid the salmon on. I drizzled the red wine sauce over the fish and placed a rounded scoop of couscous on the side. Enjoy!

Moules Ravigote

The man of the house made a delicious dinner Saturday night which consisted of mussels and shrimp. Super simple idea, good ingredients, good flavors and you get a great meal. He also thought the 3 of us needed 2 pounds of mussels, silly man, that was way too much. What to do with left over mussels, toss them right, they can't last that long, or can they?

We picked out the left over mussels and saved them in the fridge. I happened across a recipe in Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home Cookbook. I admit it, I love cookbooks and read them like regular books. This wasn't a difficult recipe by any means, but it was time consuming. Thankfully I am a chopper and tend to dice things into little bits, so this recipe really worked well with my knife skills. It is hard to tell in the photo, but there are a bunch of mussels, nestled in their shells, covered in the ravigote. I served a simple salad of romaine, tomatoes, and shaved Parmesan with a faux Caesar dressing along with the mussels, it was a nice light dinner. It would have been even better enjoyed on the deck in June with a nice white wine. If you want to just cook the mussels and make the ravigote sauce you can do that too.

INGREDIENTS

For the ravigote sauce:

1 1/2 Tbs minced shallots or scallions

1 1/2 Tbs Dijon mustard

2 hard boiled eggs, finely chopped

2 Tbs chopped gherkin pickles

1 Tbs capers

1 Tbs chopped parsley

2 Tbs Chives (I didn't have any)

1 Tbs white wine vinegar (I used red wine vinegar)

2 tsp lemon juice

4 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp Tabasco

1-2 cloves minced garlic

Mince, chop, and dice all of the above items that need chopping. Then add the wet ingredients. Spoon the sauce over the mussels and enjoy.

Blueberry Shite with Hard Sauce

Don't let the name fool you, this dessert is a family favorite; and in my family we drop the "e" in shite. This recipe came from my grandmother. Rumors had circulated about her not giving out recipes in their entirety as to be the only one that could make it just right. After the experience I had this morning trying to put this "shite" together I feel I can attest to the fact she may have left some important details out of many a recipe. Here is the exact recipe I had to follow.



For the dough & crumb top:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
3/4 cup crisco shortening
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon


For the filling:
1 pint blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
tapioca
cinnamon


Mix. (Ingreased dish @3500 for 35 min.) Pat crust on bottom & sides, add blueberries and crumbs on top.


You may be thinking to yourself, but Michelle, my oven doesn't go up to 3500! I know, mine doesn't either. Needless to say, this recipe needed a little help in the specifics department.

Here is what I actually did.

For the bottom crust and the crumb topping:

(Using a pastry blender mix the following)
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup crisco shortening
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Add in 2 egg yolks, this will be a "sandy" mixture, and quite dry. I reserved about 1.5 cups of this mix for the topping. I pressed the remaining mix into an ungreased 9"x 13" glass pan. Atop the crust I added about 2 quarts of frozen blueberries that I mixed with 2/3 cup sugar, a rounded tablespoon of tapioca and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Sprinkle the top with the reserved crumb topping. This did take much longer to bake than it said on the card, about an hour to be exact. I wanted the top and bottom crust to be brown and it took some time to get there.

For the hard sauce, I am sure some of you will freak out about this. If you have a bun in the oven or have health issues you may want to forgo the raw egg in this topping. The eggs do give the sauce a richness and a lightness, but how bad can butter and sugar be without some eggs?

Hard Sauce
1 stick soft butter
2 cups powdered sugar

Once this is blended add in 2 eggs beaten with 2 teaspoons of vanilla. I used the KitchenAid for this, and I got a nice light and fluffy mix. Refridgerate this sauce until you are ready to serve. You should also note this really isn't a sauce at all. It is a topping of sorts. It is "hard" as the name implys.

For service cut a piece of the blueberry shite, best when warm and top with hard sauce, I promise this is a great dessert, just not a well written recipe. Enjoy

Fancy Salad 1

I like to try new things, when I do I generally drag my parents down with me and make them eat it too. This time it worked out as a plus.

This salad began with mixed organic baby greens, I wanted arugula but was not able to find any. I sliced a red bartlett pear to top the greens. I followed the pear with the mascarpone dressing. I really loved the sharpness of the mixed greens, against the creaminess of the mascarpone dressing.

For the dressing:

2-4 tablespoons of mascarpone cheese

Juice and zest of one lemon

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

Blend together everything but the oil, waiting until the end to add that in. You may need a splash or two of vinegar if the dressing is too thick.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce

It was a week of everything pumpkin; pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pies, and pumpkin ravioli. I couldn't find a recipe that I really liked so I mixed a bunch of different recipes together. I did not make my own pasta. This was a personal choice, I have never wanted to make my own pasta. You can buy perfectly good wonton/ egg roll wrappers at the grocery store that serve the same purpose and are much less labor intensive than making your own pasta. However, if you are a glutton for punishment, feel free to make your own pasta. For the sauce I went simple, butter, sage, salt, pepper and a bit of red pepper, next time I would add enough sage so there was one sage leaf for each ravioli.

I began by making my filling. I mixed the pumpkin, ricotta cheese, tomato paste, nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, salt and pepper together. Now that I think about it, an egg may have been a good idea, but I didn't have any issues with the filling staying together.

Next I cut my egg roll wrappers in half. I couldn't find wonton wrappers, so I had to substitute with eggroll wrappers. Once I put a full teaspoon of filling in the center I ran a wet finger around the edge of the pasta to help seal the pasta. I dropped the pasta and cooked until done in salted boiling water. I can't say how long really, just test the pasta to be sure it is cooked.

You want the sauce finished and waiting for the pasta. I melted a stick of butter and 14 sage leaves in a pan and let it go brown, not dark brown, but just brown. The sage leaves get crisp and are quite yummy with the ravioli. I added salt, pepper, and red pepper to the butter. As the raviolis finished cooking I dropped them into the sage brown butter sauce. Plate and enjoy!



INGREDIENTS

1.5 cups pumpkin puree
.5 cups ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons tomato paste
salt, pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (grated fresh from an actual nutmeg if you can)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon brown sugar