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Mom’s Meatballs – A Fall Comfort Food

Mom’s Meatballs

I have made these meatballs dozens of times, we usually remember to make them around fall because they are very filling and one of our own comfort foods. I have never followed a recipe, just tossed the ingredients in a bowl and voila! Delicious meatballs occur!

My special equipment for this recipe is an electric skillet that we got as a wedding gift 28 years ago.  I do not know if they still make them anymore and pretty much to only dish I make in it are these meatballs and the gravy too!

THE Electric Skillet Circa 1980’s

Serve the meatballs with a nice green vegetable (green beans or broccoli come to mind) and some creamy mashed potatoes.  Yummy 🙂

On a local note, the beef in this recipe is from a ranch in Tracy, California.  We decided to purchase a quarter side of beef this year from Connolly Ranch. I will write about our experience with them at another time, but I will say I am not going back, I have been converted!

Well, I hope you enjoy “Mom’s Meatballs” and you can always tweak the recipe here and there based on what you have on hand and what you enjoy.  But to tell you the truth, it’s the skillet that’s the trick!  <3

Mom's Meatballs - A Fall Comfort Food
Recipe type: Entree
Serves: 4
 
Ingredients
  • 1 pound ground beef
  • ½ medium onion, coarsely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 - 3 slices white bread, cubed
  • 1 egg
  • ¼ cup milk, (approximately)
  • 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
  • salt/pepper
  • Oil
Instructions
  1. Mix together in a bowl ground beef, onion, garlic and cubed bread. (I use the best tools in the kitchen for this, my hands). Then add enough milk to just moisten the mixture. Add the Worcestershire sauce and salt/pepper to taste.
  2. Form into small patties and chill for about 15 minutes.
  3. Warm up skillet and add oil.
  4. Cook for about 10 minutes a side on medium heat or until desired doness.
  5. Then make gravy with the pan drippings.
Notes
© Cinder's Kitchen I make a simple gravy with the pan drippings. I don't measure and it's different every time. I use milk, flour (Wondra) and some seasoning salt.

 

Ready for that fancy skillet!

Ready for my plate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cinder’s Notes – Local foods Connolly Ranch Natural Beef – Beef (Tracy, CA), Strauss Family Creamery – Milk (Petaluma, CA), Onion (Stockton, CA), Shelly’s Farm Fresh – Eggs (Brentwood, CA)

Loaded Cauliflower

Loaded Cauliflower

This is a version of “Twice Baked Potatoes” using cauliflower.  Who does not love loaded baked potatoes?  I know I do, but if you are looking to lower your carb count, here is a great alternative.  A special tool that I used for this recipe was a “Potato Ricer“and I used the smallest “die”.  I wanted a really smooth product like mashed potatoes.  I tried a blender, my Kitchen Aid stand mixer but the ricer produced the smoothest result between the three.  If you have a food mill, you could also try that and I think next time I will to see if I get a smoother result.

The ingredients in this recipe really worked well, but you can always add or take away something as desired.

Local note – Cauliflower is from Sanger, California.

Loaded Cauliflower
Author: 
Recipe type: Side Dish
Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 1 medium head cauliflower
  • 6 ounces sour cream
  • 3 green onions, sliced
  • 6 slices bacon, crumbled
  • ¾ cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • salt/pepper
Instructions
  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking dish with non-stick spray.
  2. Cut cauliflower in to medium to small chunks. Steam until tender.
  3. Using a potato ricer, "rice" cauliflower into a medium bowl.
  4. Add sour cream to "riced" cauliflower and stir. Save some of the green onion, bacon and cheddar cheese for garnish. Add remaining green onions, bacon and cheddar cheese and stir.
  5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Place mixture into prepared baking dish. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until bubbly and heated through.
Notes
© Cinder's Kitchen

 

Hickory Smoked Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho

Hickory Smoked Gazpacho Soup

After attending a BlogHer Food Conference earlier this year, I was asked by Allrecipes.com to be a guest on their Fresh Bites Blog.  This is the recipe I came up with for the post and I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the layers of flavors, refreshing with a little crunch from the vegetables of a cold soup.

On a local note –  All from California.

Tomatoes, onions and cucumber are from Knightsen. Garlic from Gilroy.

Cilantro & corn from Brentwood.  Onion from Stockton.

 

Here is the post:

A Late Summer #RecipeForHappiness Starring Grilled Tomatoes

Imagine being in a big room buzzing with excited food bloggers! That was Allrecipes’ experience this past June when the annual BlogHer Food conference took place in a hotel right down the street from our offices. One of the bloggers we met then was Cindi Marino, the writer behindCinder’sKitchen. A recent blogger—she says she ‘officially’ started her blog this year in July—and considers it a ‘work in progress.’ But she also notes, “I guess I started “blogging” before I knew what blogging was. I have notebooks of my foodie experiences, before anyone owned personal computers, notebooks with so many tried-and-true recipes, holiday menus from the past and little “food finds” from here and there. I did not know I was a foodie when I started collecting cookbooks. When I got married (28 years ago), I owned one cookbook and borrowed a couple from my mother-in-law for recipe ideas. Now I probably own well over 200, and cannot part with any one of them.” Her Cinder’sKitchen blog focuses on the abundance of locally sourced produce, grown and picked right near her home in Northern California. 

When thinking about my personal #RecipeForHappiness, it always has to start with good food, good ingredients, good friends, and great belly laughs! There’s nothing better!

Having moved to Northern California from Southern California, I discovered the “good ingredients” part in all the local fruits and vegetables. Mind you, I knew they were there in Southern California too, but the nearest farm was a 30- to 40-minute drive. Depending on what we desired, it could be even further. Well, five miles from my present home I can now basically get most anything I want, and freshly picked.

My farmers’ market tomato bounty! (Photo by Cindi Marino)

 

What makes me happy every summer are CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture) boxes, and farm stands filled with freshly picked fruit, vegetables, and homemade pies—so much good stuff that I feel like a kid in a candy store all the time. I scoop up as much as I dare, and then turn to my cookbooks or Allrecipes.com. Whether for recipes themselves, to find inspiration to create other meal ideas or simply to reminisce about recipes I’ve forgotten. Allrecipes is a wonderful resource for cooks of any level.

The two things I most look forward to things are the heirloom tomatoes and cooking them on my ceramic cooker/grill. (Confession: I like my grill so much I own two!) When I visit a local farm stand, I walk around and admire the colorful tomatoes. They are breathtaking! People who know me will be surprised about my love affair with heirloom tomatoes, because I am not a big fresh tomato fan. However, these tomatoes taste totally different from the grocery store varieties. I adore their sweet, luscious, fresh flavor!

My favorite grill #1 (Photo by Cindi Marino)
My favorite grill #2! (Photo by Cindi Marino)

 

When I started to think about how I could use both tomatoes and my grill. I remembered a restaurant in Southern California called the Velvet Turtle. It had wonderful soups, and one of my favorites was gazpacho, which is a cold tomato soup. The recipe called for canned tomato juice, and it was delicious. Sadly, the chain is no longer in business and all outlets are closed. Well, I knew I had some kitchen homework to do.

The result is the following recipe that I think is reminiscent of the Velvet Turtle’s gazpacho, but with a little twist from my grill. Grilled tomatoes! You will not believe the smoky flavor you get from having your tomatoes on the grill for such a short time. Overall, the soup is deceptively simple to make and very flexible. Make it when you have an extra ear of corn on hand. Adjust its seasonings to suit your own tastes. Seriously, there is no wrong way to make it. Make it your own and enjoy!

Sliced heirloom tomatoes awaiting the grill (Photo by Cindi Marino)

 

And if you don’t have a grill, or are looking for other ways to use late summer’s bounty of tomatoes, check out these recipes. They’re a bunch of my favorites from Allrecipes that also use fresh tomatoes.

Double Tomato Bruschetta
Avocado, Tomato and Mango Salsa
Avocado-Feta Salsa
Insalata Caprese II
Chef John’s Gazpacho

If you do have a grill and want to try my method for grilling tomatoes for gazpacho with a twist, here’s my recipe.

Waiting for a spoon: A bowl of Hickory-Smoked Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho (Photo by Cindi Marino)

Hickory-Smoked Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho

Servings: 6

 Ingredients
10 heirloom tomatoes, cut in half
1/3 cup olive oil
salt and ground black pepper, to taste
2 chunks hickory wood
1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1 bunch cilantro, leaves coarsely chopped
5 cloves roasted garlic, chopped
1 grilled corn-on-the-cob, corn sliced from the cob
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 (8-ounce) container sour cream

Equipment
1 outdoor grill
1 juicer (or a food mill or similar device)
1 food processor (or a blender)

Directions
1. Place the halved tomatoes on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2. Prepare a charcoal grill and heat to 300 degrees F (149 degrees C). When temperature is reached, top the hot coals with the hickory chunks. Once the hickory chunks start to smoke, place the tomatoes onto the grill. Grill the tomatoes 2 minutes on each side, and then remove them from the grill to a plate Let the tomatoes cool.
3. Place the cooled tomatoes into the bowl of a food processor. In a separate bowl, reserve about 1/2 cup total of the chopped cucumber, onion and cilantro. Add the remaining chopped cucumber, onion, and cilantro to the tomatoes into the food processor bowl, and stir in the garlic. Pulse about 5 times to chop, or until the tomatoes reach the desired consistency. (NOTE: You will need to do this in several batches.) After each batch, pour the tomato mixture into a large bowl. Stir the corn, Worcestershire sauce, and red wine vinegar into the tomato mixture. Adjust the salt and pepper seasoning to taste. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
4. To serve, ladle the chilled gazpacho into bowls. Top each serving with a spoonful of sour cream and sprinkle with the reserved cucumber, red onion, corn, and chopped cilantro mixture.

Cook’s Tips

  • The hickory chunks do not need to be soaked in water before using them on the grill.
  • For flavor variations, top the soup with cold, cooked shrimp; avocado slices, bell pepper chunks, or jalapeño peppers, etc.

Creamed Corn Bubba’s Way

Creamed Corn Bubba’s Way!

I don’t remember when I first tried/made this recipe but it is one of those comfort foods you fall back on every so often. This recipe was named after my dad “Bubba”, though there seems to be some rankling about who really came up with the recipe I just remember getting it from him.  But with that said, he also told me when I was about 6 years old he invented the Grilled Cheese Sandwich, so consider the source.  🙂

This recipe uses Brentwood Corn, it’s so simple and a special treat you might make it more than once.  We always buy yellow corn as we think the white corn is just too sweet for us. You use what you enjoy the most whether it be yellow corn, white corn or both!  For this recipe the corn should already be cooked before mixing with the other ingredients.   You can use corn from many sources of your choosing fresh, frozen, canned or ??? it is up to you.  I shucked the corn using “Ken’s Trick” from YouTube.  (Check out my Tips & Tricks page for the video)

Brentwood Corn 🙂

Local Food(s) – Corn is from Dwelley Farms in Oakley,  California (we bought a case!). Here is another one of my  favorite  sources forBrentwood Corn.

Creamed Corn Bubba’s Way

Cooked Corn Kernels from 3 Ears of Corn (These ended up weighing 10.7 ounces of kernels)

1 1/2 ounces of Cream Cheese

1/2  Tablespoon Butter

1/4  Teaspoon Seasoned Salt

2 Green Onions sliced for Garnish

Place all ingredients except green onion in a saucepan over medium heat.  Stir until melted & heated through.   Garnish with sliced green onion. Serve!

Tip – You can always add a dash of water if you think the mix is too thick. Not too much though. I ended up not needing to do so.

My Homework Project from IFBC – Christmas Lima Bean & Dill Pollen

I attended the International Food Bloggers Conference in Portland, Oregon this year.  What a fun event and learned so much.  In attending a conference session titled “Break Out of Your Recipe Routine: Where to Discover New Meals to Blog About”   hosted by Alex Malott of Foodie.com and Currin Berdine of StumbleUpon.  They had a wealth of information to help trigger new ideas, recipes, and more.  In addition, they gave us “homework”.  Each of us received a package of ingredients to take home, create a recipe and write about it.  In my package courtesy of Marx Foods there were two ingredients I had never heard of before Christmas Lima Beans and Dill Pollen.

Homework

I wondered why they were called Christmas Lima Beans, because at first glance they looked speckled with a brown color, but now that I have soaked them they are a lively red and white/tan color resembling the colors of Christmas!

Heirloom Beans

The first website I visited told me how long to soak the beans (8 hours) and to cook them about 45 minutes.  Well, when that did not work I looked for more website posts.  I found one where the author said cooking the beans could take as long as 2 hours, and to not over cook them.  Well, these beans ended up cooking for hours!  I think at least 4 until they were done.  I lost count after a while.  I think I tasted more raw beans during the process than what was left at the end of the “assignment”. Well, I chose to make a bean salad with my ingredients and the end result was quite tasty.

Local Note – The green beans in this recipe are from Smith Family Farm in Knightsen, California.

 

 

Christmas Lima Bean & Farm Stand Green Bean Salad

Ingredients:

Christmas Lima Beans

Farm Stand Green Beans

1/4 cup White Wine Vinegar

1/2 cup Oil

1 to 2 teaspoons Dijon Mustard

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Salt & Pepper to taste

Dash/smidgen Dill Pollen

Soak the Christmas Lima Beans for at least 8 hours or overnight water covering the beans by over 2 inches.  Rinse. Then cook the beans in water, covering them with several inches of the water.  Boil until tender.  Replace water as necessary.  Once tender, drain and let cool.

Snap ends off green beans.  Place in steamer and steam with water until tender. Cool beans. Place both the Christmas Lima Beans and the green beans in a bowl.

Mix remaining ingredients, except dill pollen,  in a jar with a lid.  Place lid on jar and shake until all ingredients are mixed/emulsified.  Dress beans with the Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette to taste.  Sprinkle a very small amount of the dill pollen on the salad (the dill pollen is very potent).  Stir/toss the salad to coat. Marinate in the refrigerator overnight.  Serve as a side dish with BBQ meats, or as a dish by itself.  Enjoy!

Crustless Heirloom Tomato Pie – Need Help

UPDATE – I think I have it figured out.  Will test the recipe again and post next week.  Thank you!

 

I am making a recipe for the above mentioned pie and I need your help.  The end result was a very tasty dish, with unpleasant results.  The dish ended up being very watery, I believe from the tomatoes.

What I did with the tomatoes was slice them and sprinkle with salt, so the water would leach out.  I let them do that for at least 2 hours and they did leach a lot of water.  Before assembling in the casserole dish, I patted each one dry.  I then baked the pie for about 45 minutes and then let it rest for about 10 minutes.  There must have been at least 1/2 cup of liquid at the bottom of the dish.

What are your recommendations for a more pleasant outcome?  Should I let the tomatoes sit longer?  Is there a different method?  I don’t want to use different tomatoes as this dish was really tasty (coming from someone who is not a big fan of tomatoes) and very eye appealing with all the different colors of tomatoes.

Any suggestions, recommendations and tips would be greatly appreciated!  Thank you and Cheers!

Hatch Chiles

 

Note – I know this is not a local product, but I do consider it a find! Vacation to New Mexico next year? Sounds like a plan!

I only recently learned about Hatch Chiles by following Melissa’s Produce on Facebook.   Apparently this chile has a cult following.  Had it not been for Melissa’s Produce posting on Facebook, I probably would have never noticed the large display in my local Raley’s Supermarket. They are on sale right now for $.89 cents a pound, a bargain!  Hatch Chiles are grown in the Hatch Valley of New Mexico and it’s thought their uniqueness is because of the climate there in the growing season.

I thought these chiles were going to be mild like an Anaheim Chile (who I found out is a relative).  Don’t let their looks deceive you!  They are a mild chile but with a kick, as I was preparing them for cooking the air became quite potent with their aroma and I had a coughing fit!  Had to catch my breath, then I touched my face later (without thinking), a slight burning sensation ensued.  But believe me, the experience was worth it!

This is not a recipe, I am just telling you what I did as I did not measure anything, just eyeballed it.

I purchased 4 Hatch Chiles, Sliced down one side and seeded the chiles. They  are more potent than you think so be careful. I baked the chiles for about 15 minutes in my toaster oven at 350 degrees in a prepared dish. I let them cool.

I browned some sausage. On hand I had a 16 ounce package of Farmer John’s Spicy Pork Sausage and let it cool. I stirred the sausage with a little bit of low-fat mayo just to moisten and added some Monterey Jack cheese and stuffed the mixture into the prepared chilies.  Then I baked the dish in the toaster oven again for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  Great side dish!

The verdict on this dish was that it was really tasty, but I wish the filling was moister.  I tried to keep it low carb.  Next time I might not fully cook the sausage before stuffing the peppers.  But all in all, those Hatch Chiles are a winner, so go out there and get yourself some Hatch Chiles, you won’t be disappointed!  These chiles are only available for a short time during the summer, I think until some time in September so you had better hurry and get your fill.

 

TIPS

There is a newly published cookbook called the Hatch Chile Cookbook by Gloria Chadwick which contains 300 recipes.

Here is a website you can purchase your Hatch Chiles and have them shipped to your home, if they are not locally available for you. (But hurry!)

UPDATE –

I visited my local Raley’s Market today (8/20/12) to take advantage of their sale and the Hatch Chiles were GONE!!!