Sweet and Sour Meatballs

One of my very favorite things to make. Nothing fancy, but I always love these meatballs. I serve them over rice with a green salad or other vegetable, or as the case was here, a Tomato Cucumber Salad. I also always make a full 9x13 pan, which this recipe is good for and makes about 24 golf ball sized meatballs or 40 ping pong ball sized meatballs. That way I have left overs. No, I don't eat them the next day (usually) instead I put them in a big freezer bag and have them ready for a night I don't want to cook, but want something really good.

Chili

It's that time again...when we shake things up a bit around here to give you the opportunity to see what other people like to cook (very noble, right?)...to give you a chance read something someone else besides us write about their food...and it just might also happen to be the end of the semester which equals tests, projects, exams, and lots and lots of grading. Cold cereal will be the main course in the Zirker house for the next 2 weeks. Meanwhile, you'll be hearing from Caroline as well as a couple of my favorite cooks. 

This guest post is from one of our most loyal readers (and dear friend), Lindsey R. She has actually already made a few culinary appearances on this blog in the form of her family's cookie salad and buttermilk blueberry pancakes (which I may have made 3 times the past 8 days), but this is her first official post. Welcome, Lindsey!

Tamale Pie

I feel a little sheepish calling this "tamale" pie especially if a Latino chef were ever to see this recipe. There's really nothing tamale-ish about it...there's corn and meat and that's about where the similarity ends. But it's good. On a nice blustery fall day (the kind we don't seem to be getting much of around here), it's the perfect meal.

Shepherd's Pie

This is a pretty straight-forward recipe for shepherds pie and comes to you courtesy of my mother and at the request of one of our readers. I recently discovered that while we were growing up, my youngest brother would take left-over shepherds pie to his friend because he enjoyed it so much. To be honest, I wasn't a fan of shepherds pie when I was younger, but when my mother recently made this, I remembered my brother's friend liking it so much, and it turned out I really liked it too. So here I share a recipe for a good ole' meat n' potatoes shepherd pie. (I hope you will appreciate this Ryan F.)

 

Meat Loaf

Whoever came up with the name "meat loaf" was definitely not thinking. Because there is absolutely nothing about that word that sounds remotely appetizing. A loaf. Of meat. Ick. But then once you actually take a bite, you realize it's not so bad. It's actually quite delicious. Especially when it's this meat loaf, carefully crafted into the best-tasting ground beef concoction around. And it's not even really a loaf...it's more of a gently rounded oval shape. So it's really not as scary as your traditional, potluck-dinner-from-who-knows-where-meat loaf.

And besides, meat loaf is an American tradition. When people ask me what "traditional" American food is, I would never say hamburger and french fries. It's chili and cornbread and apple pie and grits and potatoes and meat loaf. So give it another try, even if it's only for the sake of your heritage.

Meat Loaf
Recipe by Kelly
Picture by Caroline

1 pound ground beef
1 egg
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/3 cup quick oats
1/4 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
special sauce (optional topping)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine egg, milk, bread crumbs, and all spices. Add ground beef and mix well.
2. Shape loaf into a large ball. Place in an ungreased 8 x 8 inch pan. Press down until about 2-3 inches thick. Spread sauce on top.
   
3. Bake uncovered about 1 hour, or until beef is no longer pink in the center. Let stand 5 minutes and serve.
   

Special Sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar

1. In a smal bowl, combine all ingredients. Mix well and spread over meat loaf.

*I love serving this with roasted potatoes with asparagus or roasted rosemary-onion potatoes.

Meatballs with Yogurt Sauce

Looking for an alternative to hamburgers this summer? These Middle Eastern meatballs are a surprisingly good, yet unorthodox combination of spices and flavors. Called "kefta," they're traditionally made with lamb. I, however, don't live in a place with a ready supply of ground lamb, so I substitute ground beef. Serve them with this minty yogurt sauce to offset the warm flavors of allspice, cinnamon and pepper.

Meatballs with Yogurt Sauce
Recipe from Gourmet January 2006
Pictures by Kelly

Yogurt Sauce
1 cup plain yogurt
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Stir together yogurt, mint, garlic, and salt in a small bowl and chill.

Meatballs
2 slices firm white sandwich bread, torn into small pieces
1 small onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh parsley leaves
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves
1 lb ground beef or lamb
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted and finely chopped

1. Cover bread with water in a bowl and soak 10 minutes. Squeeze handfuls of bread to remove as much excess water as possible, then transfer to a bowl.
2. Pulse onion and herbs in a food processor until finely chopped, then add to bread along with lamb, salt, spices, and pine nuts. Mix with your hands until well blended. Form meat mixture into 36 balls (1 scant tablespoon each).
3. Broil for 10 minutes or grill on kebabs about 5-6 minutes. Serve with yogurt sauce.

Souvlaki with Yogurt-Garlic Sauce

Greek week continues. These souvlaki are delicious, seriously. The grilled meat and vegetables combined with the yogurt sauce make a perfect pair. In fact, if you have been looking for a good Greek-style yogurt sauce, you needn't look further, because this one is great and is quite simple to make.

This recipe calls for a lot of marinating time, so plan ahead if you can, the longer you can marinate the more flavorful everything will be. To make it a complete dinner, we paired these souvlaki with our Greek Salad recipe and warmed flat breads. It turned out to be a truly wonderful dinner. It was fresh, healthy, and delicious.

Souvlaki with Yogurt-Garlic Sauce
Adapted from The New Greek Cuisine by Jim Botsacos with Judith Choate

Pictures by Caroline
Makes 4-6 servings

1 ½ cups extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon dried Greek oregano (I used regular oregano, and it tasted great)
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
2 pounds very lean boneless lamb from the leg, or filet of beef, cut into 1 ½ inch cubes
3 yellow bell peppers cut into 1 inch squares
36 red pearl onions, peeled and blanched (I couldn’t find pearl onions, so I used red onion instead)
36 cherry tomatoes

Yogurt-Garlic Sauce (below)

1. Combine the olive oil with the garlic, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste in a small mixing bowl. Remove ¼ cup, reserving the remainder. Place the meat in a medium mixing bowl, add ¼ cup marinade, tossing to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. Remove the meat from the refrigerator. Working with one skewer at a time, thread on the meat, onion, and tomatoes in a random order. (Note: I generally soak my wood skewers in water before using, so that they won’t burn on the grill.)
3. Place the filled skewers in a shallow nonreactive pan large enough to hold them in a single layer. Pour on the reserved marinade, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 8 hours. (Note: I didn’t have 8 hours to marinate, only about 1, and they were delicious. Marinate as long as you can; the longer the better.)
4. Heat up your grill. Remove the souvlaki from the refrigerator, carefully remove any excess marinade with your fingers; season with salt and pepper to taste. Place the skewers on the hot grill, turning occasionally for about 8 minutes, or until meat is lightly charred and medium-rare. The time will depend on the desired degree of doneness for the meat.
5. Remove the skewers from the grill. Serve with the Yogurt-Garlic Sauce and warmed flat bread.

Yogurt-Garlic Sauce from The New Greek Cuisine

by Jim Botsacos with Judith Choate
Makes about 1 ¼ cups

½ large hothouse cucumber, peeled
3 garlic cloves, minced
¾ cup Greek yogurt*
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Line a colander with a double layer of cheesecloth. Place the colander over a bowl deep enough to catch the draining liquid without the liquid touching the bottom of the colander.
2. Roughly chop the cucumber and then place it in a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Add the garlic and process just until finely chopped. Transfer the mixture to the colander and set aside to drain for about 30 minutes, or until all the juice has drained off.
3. Pull the cheesecloth up and tightly twist the ends together to force out any remaining juices into the bowl. Discard the cheesecloth and cucumber, remove the colander, and reserve the juice in the bowl. (Note: We actually did this backwards; we used the drained cucumber in our sauce, and discarded the juices.)
4. Place the yogurt in a nonreactive mixing bowl. Whisk in the reserved cucumber-garlic juice along with the lemon juice. The sauce should be the consistency of creamy vinaigrette. You may not need all of the juice. When blended, season with salt and pepper.

*You can either buy Greek yogurt, which is creamy, thick, and rich. Or you can make your own alternative, which is what I did, and it worked out really well. Line a colander with a double layer of cheesecloth and place it in a bowl deep enough to catch the draining liquid. Use four cups of conventional, plain yogurt to get 2 cups of drained thick yogurt. Place the conventional yogurt in the prepared colander and let it drain for 12 hours (I did it for about 6 hours and it worked great). Discard the liquid and measure out the desired amount of the thick yogurt.

Fresh Tomato Sauce and Meatballs

I've never been a huge fan of most bottled tomato sauces; I think homemade sauce looks, smells and tastes better. Growing up, my best friend's mom used to make gallons of delicious fresh tomato sauce every fall. Her sauce was packed full of meatballs and sausage (complete with all the tasty grease that goes along with it) and was perfectly seasoned. It did, however, consume nearly an entire day with blanching, boiling, baking (meatballs), simmering, stirring, etc. It was always worth it in the end, but most of us don't have that kind of time nowadays. So here's an alternative for you.

This sauce is fast and healthy. And by using canned tomatoes, you can have relatively fresh sauce any time of year. It's perfect over pasta, in lasagna or on pizza. You can use it immediately or freeze it for up to 1 year. Did I mention that it's also quite versatile? You can skip the meatballs if you're short on time, add extra vegetables if you like your sauce chunky, or blend some of the tomatoes if you like your sauce a bit thinner. Try it out. I'm sure it will be an improvement from whatever Ragu or Prego sauce you're currently eating.

Meatballs
recipe and pictures by Kelly

1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 onion, shredded or very finely chopped*
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice

1. Mix all ingredients. Shape mixture into about 20 1 1/2 inch meatballs.
2. Heat a large non-stick skillet and carefully place in skillet. Brown all sides of the meatballs, being careful not to break them. Cook until no longer pink in the center.

*Shredding your onions prevents them from falling out of your meatball when they're cooking. It will also really bring out the flavor, so be sure to pug your nose while shredding!

Tomato Sauce with Meatballs
recipe and pictures by Kelly
makes about 4 cups

Serve with 1 pound pasta

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cans (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes*
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 red (or green, if you prefer) bell pepper, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat (or use the same skillet the meatballs were cooked in). Cook garlic and onion about 3 minutes. Add the bell pepper and cook until softened.
2. Stir in remaining ingredients, except meatballs. Heat until boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 15-20 minutes.
3. Optional: if using meatballs, add them and let them simmer with the sauce another 10 minutes.
4. Use sauce immediately, refrigerate for 2 weeks, or freeze for up to 1 year.