Friday, April 18, 2014

April 18, 2014

It is Easter weekend!  Wow!  We are looking forward to a traditional Easter meal, though it will be just the 5 of us.  We'll be making ham, GG rolls, asparagus, twice baked potatoes.  When we were trying to decide what to make for dessert we settled on carrot cake since that seemed perfectly appropriate for the holiday.  And the kids LOVE it - so all in all it was an easy choice.

This week was full of the usual hecticness of grad class, the kids' scheduled activities, meetings at church, and the typical household chores and duties.  As a result, we didn't try too many new things.  The two things we did make, spaghetti sauce and meatballs, were both an instant hit and earned keeper status! And I got a new bread pan, called a pullman pan.  It makes a long loaf and you primarily bake it with the top on so the resulting loaf is square with a dense crumb.  This type of bread is called Pain de Mie.  You can use any recipe you like in it.  Ryan and the kids loved it - the sandwich bread was fantastic and held up great in lunchboxes!  I made some quick peanut butter (peanuts, peanut oil, salt - no real recipe), and we had the ultimate homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Choice of white or wheat bread, smooth peanut butter and raspberry jam.  Pretty delicious if I do say so myself!  :)

Have an amazing weekend and happy cooking!

New Recipes
Leah's Meatballs
Spaghetti Sauce



Leah's Meatballs


Ingredients
* 1 lb ground beef or turkey
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
* 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
* 3 gloves garlic, minced
* 1 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
* 1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
* 1 tsp dried Italian seasoning
* 1/4 tsp salt

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 375.
2. Mix together all the ingredients.  Form golf ball-sized meatballs and place on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and fitted with a rack previously sprayed with cooking spray.
3. Bake the meatballs for 20 minutes and then drain on a plate lined with paper towels.  Toss back into simmering spaghetti sauce if desired, or serve however you like.

Notes
I used ground beef since we had it on hand.  And I used our croutons, run through the small food processor, for the bread crumbs.  They turned out fabulously well in this recipe.  I got 29 meatballs from this recipe, and everyone absolutely loved them. 

Spaghetti Sauce (based on Pioneer Woman)



Ingredients
* 1 tbsp oil
* 1 yellow onion, diced
* 3 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
* 1 28 ox can petite diced tomatoes
* splash of red wine (optional)
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp sugar
* freshly ground black pepper, to taste
* 2 tsp dried parsley

Directions
1.  Heat the oil over medium in a large skillet or saute pan.  Add the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes or until translucent.  Pour in the tomatoes and wine (if using).    Mix until combined.
2. Add the salt, pepper, sugar and parsley.  Stir to combine, and cook over medium low for 20 minutes. If desired add meatballs into the sauce and simmer another 20 minutes or until the meatballs are heated through.  Occasionally stir gently.  Serve with pasta.

Notes
We added meatballs and loved this over noodles!  We had a mix of noodle types in our pantry (a little of this, a little of that) and cleared them out all at once with this sauce and meatballs.  Yum!  The original recipe called for 1/4 cup fresh parsley but I didn't have any on hand so I used dried and it worked well.