Week 16: Swedish Meatballs

Source: The Joy of Cooking

Overall Impression: Perfect party meatballs

Swedish Meatballs

Time = 1 hr

Servings = 12

Ingredients:

2 slices day-old bread
1/4 cup milk
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 small yellow onion
2 eggs
2 lbs ground beef or lamb*
1 1/2 Tablespoon dried parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice

Directions:

1.  Cut off the crusts from the bread and cut into 1 inch cubes.  Place in a large glass dish and pour milk over.  Let sit.
2.  Melt butter over medium-high heat.  Dice the onions and saute in butter until softened.  Remove from heat to let cool.
3.  Preheat oven to 375 F.
4.  Stir eggs into the bread/milk.  Add remaining ingredients and the onions.  Mix well - I used my hand to mix.
5.  Form meatballs approximately 1-inch in diameter.  Place on greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes or until done throughout.

Notes:

* I used 1 lb ground beef and 1 lb ground turkey.  The mixture turned out a little soft which made the meatballs not stay in a perfect round ball.  If I use half turkey again, I'll add a third piece of bread to stiffen up the mixture.
** We served the meatballs with a sauce made of 10 oz grape jelly and 1 jar of Henze chili sauce.  It was the perfect dipping sauce and a big hit at the New Year's Eve party.  But I'll add a few dashes of Tapatio next time to give it more kick.
*** To keep everything warm, you can mix the meatballs into the dipping sauce and place in a crock pot on the warm setting.

Week 4: Basil Bowties

Jordan came home from a trip to the lake with her grandparents toting a binder of recipes.  She was so excite to show them all to me and decide which we would make first.  As she read them out loud, she came to "Bazee Bow-tee's."  I said "What!?" and looked over to read the page upside down, "That would be Basil Bowties."  Cute!

Source: Adapted from Rachael Ray
Overall Impression: So fast! Yummy!
It was ... surprisingly full-flavored for a dish with so few ingredients.  Took just a few minutes to make and the whole family loved it.  But the basil leaves discolored, so it wasn't very pretty on day two.

Basil Bowties
Time = 20 min
Servings = 10 (side dish)

Ingredients
1 lb mini bowtie pasta
3/4 c pine nuts
spray olive oil
sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, to tast
Parmesan cheese, grated for sprinkling

Directions
Bring a large pot of water to boil, add pasta and simmer until al dente.  Drain.

Spread the pine nuts on a cookie sheet.  Spray with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.  Toast by putting in oven with the broiler on.  When they start to brown (about 5 minutes), shake around and toast until most are brown.  Set to side to cool.

In a large serving bowl, mix cooked pasta, 1/4 cup olive oil, cottage cheese, basil leaves, cherry tomatoes and salt/pepper.  Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Note - I suggest serving with grilled chicken.  Start the chicken at the same time as the pasta and it should be done about the same time.

Week 3: Chocolate Cola Cake

Source: May Falum
Overall impression: Very Moist & Crowd Pleaser
It was ... a great choice for my mother-in-law who just retired from many years with a Pepsi distributing company.  However, it wasn't very chocolaty so I may add chocolate chips next time.


Chocolate Pepsi Cola Cake
Time = 1 hour
Servings = 12

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, not packed*
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1/4 cup unsweetened coca powder
1 cup Pepsi cola
1/2 c buttermilk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl mix together flour, sugars, salt, baking soda and cinnamon.

In a sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat and whisk in coca powder, Pepsi and buttermilk.  Pour into the flour mixture.  Stir until completely combined.

Add eggs and vanilla - stir in.

Grease and flour two round cake tins (see picture below).  Pour half the batter into each tin and place in oven.  Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove to a baking rack to cool for 15 minutes before removing from the tins.  Frost (I didn't make the glaze in the original recipe, I just used basic vanilla frosting.)

*The original recipe called for 2 cups of white, granulated sugar but I only had 1 cup left.  So I decided to do one cup white and one cup brown sugar.  It turned out very yummy!

Here is the butter and the cola melting together.  I used a whisk to keep it all from burning to the bottom of the pan and to mix in the coca powder.

To keep the cake from sticking to the tins: 1) use a paper towel to apply a coating of shortening to the bottom and edges of the tin; 2)  put a couple tablespoons of flour in each tin; and 3) tip the tin to move the flour around all surface.  Do this last step over the sink because you'll probably spills some (I always do.)

There are some really talented cake decorators our there ... I am not one of them.  I can't even make decent frosting.  This is one place where I don't go from scratch, I go to the store.  Basic vanilla frosting and pre-made little letters.