Mixed Plate: Happy Brocktoberfest!

Oktoberfest is upon us... even though in Munich, it's typically celebrated in September. Confused yet? The first celebration in Bavaria was to mark the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig in 1810, on October 12th, and there was much prolonged merriment that followed. The creeping start time that eventually pushed this festival a month earlier was more out of choosing more favorable weather conditions than strict tradition. Either that or Bavarians are the ultimate Pre-Func drinkers.  Oktoberfest has also come to represent the end of summer, the harvest, and yes, there's beer, but it's typically made with ingredients gathered months earlier, since beer needs some time to ferment. We celebrate Oktoberfest in our own way, sort of a celebration within a celebration (Celebration Inception!), typically heralded by the harvesting of our own beer hops, lovingly fussed-over by the Mister, so I dedicate this post to Brock -- Happy Brocktoberfest!

It's Oktoberfest - let's eat and drink all our carbs! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: Thankful for Meatballs, for Hope, and Our Indy

(Also published on Honest Cooking, for my column, Sense Memory) I’ve seen friends doing daily postings on social media, listing things they are grateful for during the month of November. And why shouldn’t they? It is, after all, the traditional American holiday to give thanks. Our month of thanks started a little earlier, in the waning days of October, when I learned to be very thankful for, of all things, meatballs. 

Happy Meatballsgiving, all ten pounds of it!  - Photo by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: The Meatball Strikes Back!

I'm back! I'm alive! And I'm definitely looking to ease back into cooking after a fun, but busy vacation. Be patient, I promise to share my adventure soon enough, but until then, I need to cook up something quick, simple and delicious. It's certainly not news that I'm an avid fan of the Meatball Craze that's been hitting the Food Trend World. They're so simple, you can make them with any ground meat combination you like, or even no meat at all, you can do vegetarian versions like my favorite chickpea/quinoa combo that are plenty tasty. We recently got our share of a cow -- we got a quarter of the delicious beast -- and so we've got a hefty supply of hamburger to last us the winter and then some. Meatballs of all shapes, sizes and ingredient combinations - ONWARD!

Meatball craze in full effect, but don't forget a crucial ingredient... - Photo by Wasabi Prime

OMG a Recipe: Who's Joe Mama?

A friend told me this story about how he was sitting in on the first day of a college class and the professor jokingly introduced himself by writing his name on the board as "Joe Mama." And then some girl asked in a dead-serious/dead-stupid tone, "Who's Joe Mah-mah?" And with that note of ridiculousness, I dedicate this special Mother's Day post to My Mama and all the Joe Mamas (or Mah-mah's) out there.

This ain't Joe Mama's stuffed cabbage - Photo by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Deck the Halls with Leftover (Meat)Balls

One of the best thing about the holidays, from Thanksgiving through New Years is the food, food, FOOD! It's everywhere. The roasted turkey, the whole ham, crown roasts of pork or lamb, prime rib, feasts of several fishes -- it's no wonder we promise ourselves diet resolutions in the new year from the ample feasting that goes for a steady two months. But even when our well-intentioned resolutions fade, we're all left with the same thing: leftovers. Don't roll your eyes and groan -- leftovers are a wonderful, beautiful thing. They are brand-spankin' new meals waiting to happen!

Christmas dinner, all rolled up into a bite-sized piece! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

When I say "leftovers," I'm not talking about the good leftovers, the marvelous whole pieces of ham and turkey that can get layered into Dagwood Bumstead-sized sandwiches, I'm talking about the dribs and drabs of this and that, stuff that most would probably just throw out. Miscellany that fits the smallest of your tupperware containers. Barely a full meal, just a buffet of small bites. It's the most maddening of leftovers -- you hate to waste food, but what do you do with such a shotgun blast of random crap?? I can credit my father for being a compulsive food/leftover hoarder -- he never lets a thing go to waste, even to my mother's irritation for finding a container with barely a bite of food being kept for some rainy day. Thanks to him, I was introduced to croquettes -- traditionally a French fritter made with potato and other chopped vegetables and meats, but it's been co-opted by many cultures who all face the universal quandry of leftover food and refuse to give in to waste. After only scraps of a holiday meal remained, my dad would refuse to throw it all out and my mom would make what could only be described as Leftover Spam -- chopped up bits of everything mixed together, bound with egg, battered and fried. Croquettes are just a prettier, Frenchier way of saying: crap we don't know what to do with, so we make a fritter out of it. See, everything sounds better in French.

Holiday ham and the many secondhand meals it provides - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I took a cue from Wasabi Dad's post-holiday meal game plan and made a couple of batches of croquettes from our sizeable supply of leftovers. We had a banner season of festive meals: Christmas Eve I cooked a whole ham, basting this hoggy mountain of meat with a whiskey honey glaze, serving it alongside a creamy cauliflower gratin. Don't ask why, but the ham wound up looking like a meaty rosebud when it cooked. Christmas Dinner, I cooked my first duck (I know, weird that I'd never cooked waterfowl before, but there's a first time for everything). Served alongside the duck were potatoes that were roasted in the fat that came off the duck as it cooked, and a dressing made with quinoa, walnuts and dried fruit. The Mister loves cranberry sauce, so even though it wasn't Thanksgiving, I made another batch of  it to go with the ham and duck. Leftover ham is good for every meal -- it got whittled down with several breakfasts, and I was inspired by a friend's "French" toast stamp and made ham and cheese paninis in our waffle iron for several mornings. I don't have a sandwich press, but I have to say, a waffle iron makes for a great ghetto panini press, as long as you have thick slices of bread.

Falafel that inspired Christmas duck croquettes with jam a week later. - Photos by Wasabi Prime

But back to the B-Team Leftovers, as in, a few handfuls of quinoa dressing, scraps of duck meat and mostly duck skin... and more quinoa. I know -- what's with the quinoa? It's been my new favorite side dish and it ends up being a great component for croquettes or, in an earlier meal of spherical leftovers, falafel. I mashed drained/rinsed chickpeas into a paste, added finely minced garlic and parsley, and leftover plain quinoa. One egg was mixed in to help bind, and I throw in a little cornmeal, just to help soak up any excess moisture. They're formed into little balls and pan-fried. I made a batch of these that stretched scraps into a couple of meals. They were such a nice treat, that idea stuck with me through Christmas when I made croquettes with finely minced duck, the dried fruit/quinoa mix, and gave each little leftover ball a cheesy center of melty havarti.

A feast of beasts... and yes, Indy got to sample some of the duck and ham - Photos by Wasabi Prime

The duck croquettes truly made leftovers magical. These little spheres were like something a wizard made, they were so good. The duck meat was from random scraps and the little wings, which is more skin than meat, really. I removed the bone and minced everything super-fine. I put the bits into a hot skillet to further render the fat and make crispy whatever was there, skin and all -- I wanted crunch, not rubbery, overly fatty bits. I put that crisped duck into the leftover quinoa dressing, which had an egg added to help bind. I formed balls around small bite sized pieces of havarti cheese. The croquettes were still sticky, so I rolled them in some breadcrumbs before frying them up in the same skillet that had the duck fat because... well why wouldn't you? The cheesy center got melty from the heat, the outer crumb coating made a strong enough shell to keep the center from oozing out. The croquettes were perfectly browned, savory bites, but with a little sweetness from the dried fruit. Eating them with a berry jam or the cranberry sauce was a perfect pairing -- duck goes nicely with fruit. It was one of those things where you create the dish in your mind, it comes together well during execution phase, and it tastes exactly as how you anticipated. In that sense, leftovers are perfection.

Never throw out leftovers - there's still good meals to be had! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Literally nothing went to waste over the holidays, which is great -- I hate when food goes to waste. Christmas Eve's ham bone was made into Portuguese bean soup for New Year's Eve and the duck croquettes went well with salads, which were a welcome change from all the super-rich food. It was nice to skip going to the grocery store and fret about what to cook. And the benefit of playing with one's food yields new meals and keeps the boredom away at the thought of having dreaded leftovers again. So cheers to recycled holiday food!

UnRecipe: Meatball Ballad - Meatballad?

There's always food trends and crazes afoot, and I would argue there's a thin strand of logic that connects several of them. I'm somewhat convinced, like some Biblical genealogy, through the massive popularity of St. Cupcake of the Holy Sugar-Sprinkled Spirit, which begat Cake Pops, which through a second cousin once-removed begat the Meatball Craze. I'm pretty sure somewhere between Cupcake and Cake Pop, a litter of Old Fashioned Doughnuts showed up. Amen. I think when the pendulum swings towards the Bizarro World of packing Cake Spam into a sphere, covering it with an inch of frosting and jamming a stick through its bottom, the trend swings back towards more sensible familiarity and we embrace spherical food that's more meatball than goofball.

On top of spa-ghe-tti....all covered with cheeeeese.... I managed to not lose my meatball - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Food trends are as cyclical as the fascination with round balls o' meat that's been going on for over a year, I'd say. But since it's hard to think about making a rich, heavy meal in the heat of summer, I'm definitely seeing more "easy meatball" recipes in all the magazines, to the point where I grow weary and full of Meatball Fury, wanting more challenging things. My recent issue of St. Martha of the Holy Stewart's Everyday Food magazine had a whole section devoted to meatballs -- like, three or four different recipes! When I flipped to that section, even I had to take the name of Martha in vain and say, Martha Focker, what are you thinking?  Initially, I thought, Where's the variety? You can do a million things with ground meat? Why follow such an overdone trend, and so late in the season, at that??  (breeeeathe)

The Hatorade Rant in my braincapsule promptly ended when I looked at my own disaster-area excuse of a weekly planner. Scribbled notes crossed out, then re-circled, as if to signal in some secret code that no, that deadline still stands, and it was due yesterday. Blerg. And lately there's been more than a few days that dragged into 2am nights, finishing a project so that I could save time for an extra project that suddenly popped up unexpectedly, that will be due at 10am the next morning. You know this Freelance Dance that I speak of, and anyone who's juggling work with a family and home life can also shout an, Amen! to that. So when I have the odd moment to peer glassy-eyed at whatever Mr. Postman has delivered to my hobbit-hovel, I may yearn for fancier fare in theory, but simple-to-prepare humble comforts are what I really need.

So in reality, meatballs kind of save the day. You can make them with any type of ground meat -- even no meat! I've done a vegetarian version with smashed beans, cooked quinoa and an egg to bind, but you could probably replace the egg with some sticky, short-grain rice to give it a vegan-friendly binder. They can be baked, pan-seared, fried or boiled. The seasoning can vary -- Italian, Asian, Spanish, Greek, anything your worldly wanderlust appetite desires. One Friday evening, I saw no less than three different mentions over Twitter from people in different states, all making spaghetti and meatballs, I'm assuming for the same reason -- a long week finally come to an end, they wanted something familiar and hearty. It made me think back to the last time I made spaghetti and meatballs, and it was for that same reason. It wasn't fussy, it can be prepared easily from scratch, and there's something about this totally Americanized dish that feels like home.

Giant turkey meatballs, with or without spaghetti, plenty tasty - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I made giant turkey meatballs. I mean, seriously, they were huge, the size that could split a planet in two if Bruce Willis and his team of roughnecks can't land the space ship on it in time to shove a nuke in it. But the benefit of large balls (heh heh) is that it's less time forming them, especially if they're going to finish cooking in a sauce, which will ensure more gentle cooking. I know a mixture of pork, veal and beef are ideal, but I like ground turkey, as it seems to stay tender and I don't get the rubber ball toughness if it's overcooked. In a basic tomato sauce of canned tomatoes with a ton of garlic, oregano and red pepper flakes (I like spicy tomato sauce), the meatballs braise away. I usually like to give the surface an all-around sear, and build the sauce on the pan drippings before the meatballs finish cooking in the sauce. Many people prefer baking, which is great for large batches that won't all fit in a pot. Regardless of method, this is was a good reminder why the meatball craze is not without merit. Even when you're tired, you can mix some ground meat together with seasonings and form a few meteor-sized meat-spheres and let the stove do the work. And the result is nothing less than satisfying.

I turned to The Power of Meatballs when I had a surplus of tomatoes at varying degrees of overripeness. You've run into this before -- everyone brings stuff from their gardens or something wonderful from the farmers market to a barbecue, but then you're stuck with all these leftovers. The tomatoes had beautiful color, but rapidly softening -- into a sauce they went! A grilling surplus of orphan hot dog buns (arrrg, damn you Atkins no-bun hot dog eaters! Oh, who am I kidding, I'm one of those douches too.) resulted in a few days of meatball sandwiches. I don't understand the notion of meatball sliders -- a tall, round burger between a bun just seems like a recipe for lockjaw. But meatball sandwiches done sub/hoagie-style, that's more bite-friendly. Either making smaller meatballs or splitting them before adding them into the bread helps for easier eating and optimal surface area for topping with extra sauce and cheese. See, there's a science to eating meatballs! It was less about epic blog food, and more about making sure random leftovers didn't go to waste, but just like with an overstuffed schedule, Meatballs Are My Hero.

Meatballs saving the day, yet again - Photos by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Comforting Foods for a Cold Winter's Night

I know I was complaining over the overindulgence of holiday foods recently, but I will say one of the nice things about winter is how extra-delicious comfort foods become when it's cold outside. Old Man Winter has definitely come home to roost in our neck of the woods for a while, so I've been making a few winter favorites.

Meatballs sans spaghetti - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I have much love for spaghetti and meatballs and my workaround to limit our pasta intake is to make it more traditional and just have meatballs. My last craving for meat-a-balls had me rummaging through our pantry and freezer. I always have ground turkey in the deep freeze and with enough seasoning and chopped garlic, you can make them pretty flavorful. I roll them extra-big, sear the meatballs in a skillet just to get a light crust, remove while I make a basic marinara sauce in the same skillet and add the balls o'meat into the sauce so they can braise the rest of the way. It makes for really tender meatballs and it makes me wish my meatloaf turned out that good. Smother with shavings of Parmesan and stuff your face!

Man-sized pumpkin ricotta manicotti! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I did satisfy my pasta jones when I made hand-rolled sheets for making manicotti stuffed with pumpkin and ricotta, smothered in a creamy cheesy sauce. I had leftover roasted pumpkin from Thanksgiving in the freezer and wanted to try a filling that included ricotta, some toasted walnuts and chopped porcini. Making the handmade pasta was just so I could say I worked for my supper, and to just add another element of complexity that I probably didn't need. I don't have a pasta roller, so it was just a rolling pin and my poor excuse for the Gun Show. But it was a delicious experiment gone horribly right. I'm thinking of making this again for friends who have just had a baby, as it freezes well. I'm likely going to cheat with the pasta and buy premade pasta, but the good stuff is the filling, with the savory-sweet pumpkin and ricotta, with the earthy mushrooms.

Hungarian Shepherd's Pie - Photo by Wasabi Prime

My new favorite is an odd combination of goulash and Shepherd's Pie. Cold weather food is also lazybones food and I'm always looking for stuff to make that doesn't require much fussing about and can ideally cook in a single pot or casserole dish. This one could probably be made in a single oven-proof skillet, but I made a skillet of goulash, which is to say a bunch of ground meat and vegetables cooked up with some tomato paste and a lot of paprika, poured it into a casserole dish, and covered it with thin slices of sweet potatoes to bake off in the oven. It's a good stick-to-your-ribs weeknight meal in its ease of preparation, and -- no surprise -- it reheats just dandy as leftovers for lunch. You could probably do this with any thick stew, topping it with slices of potato before putting it into the oven -- make it, bake it, dunzo, it's dinnertime.

I know, I know -- why you gotta be so UnRecipe and not post a recipe? I always figure a lot of this stuff is fairly basic or people already have their own favorite recipes for stews, meatballs, spaghetti sauce, etc., it's more of a visual reminder to eat something you haven't had in a while. At least that's how I cook -- I'll see a picture in a magazine, it'll inspire interest or hunger in a particular ingredient, and the UnRecipe meals come from that. I will likely post a proper recipe with the pumpkin manicotti. I need to shore up the recipe a little and make it a little simpler for quicker prep, since I'll be making it for newly-minted parents.