Kristen – Page 24 – Food Follies

Meatball Heroes

For the first time in several weeks, we finally had a break in the 100+ degree weather out here. Cooking has been out of the question, we’ve been living on sandwiches, salads, hotdogs, and hard boiled eggs.

We decided to celebrate with Meatball Heroes, a delicacy that can be found in any Brooklyn Pizza Parlor, but remains a complete mystery to the denziens of California. So for those of you who have never experienced this bit of meaty, cheesy, deliciousness.

You’ll need:

1 loaf Italian/French bread (good and crusty)
1/2 lb mozzeralla cheese shredded
16oz Marinara sauce
Lots of Meatballs

Basic Italian Meatballs Recipe

2lbs Ground Beef
2 Eggs
1 tsp minced garlic
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Black Pepper
1 tbsp Onion Powder
1 tsp Thyme

Preheat oven to 350F (You can fry meatballs as well, but I find that searing, which is great for hamburgers, makes meatballs too bitter.)
Place the meat in a mixing bowl and add the eggs and spices, mix thoroughly and then roll into balls about 1 inch in diameter.

Place the meatballs on a cookie sheet and bake for 45 min to 1hr, until they are no longer pink in the center. This is the end of the meatballs recipe, now, back to the ‘Heroes’ part!

Next cut the bread to whatever size you can eat without exploding. Slice the bread most of the way through but keep the bottom edge of the crust together. Cut the meatballs in half and layer them on the sandwich. Next, add sauce, slathering evenly over the meatballs. Sprinkle (ok dump) the mozzarella cheese on top and tightly wrap the entire sandwich in aluminum foil. If you feel like you’re wrestling an alligator then you’re doing it right. 🙂

Bake the sandwiches at 400F for 30 minutes. Then remove carefully, the cheese should be completely melted and the outer edge of the crust should be hot and crispy. (Note: it’s ok to lick cheese off the foil) and dive in! If you have fresh Parmesian or Romano they’ll make an excellent addition as well.

Another good option is to use Italian Sausage. Slice the sausages into coins after cooking them and layer them on the sandwich like you did with the meatballs.

This recipe should make 3 large heroes.

Chocolate Sludge

There’s nothing quite as delicious as an ice cold chocolate milk shake on a hot summer day. Except when you get it an expedient-service restaurant that’s so expedient that they don’t really mix the chocolate syrup in the ice cream too well. Ever drink chocolate syrup straight from the bottle and have it catch in your throat? Well, not that *I* would ever do that, but I imagine that’s exactly what the first sip of this milkshake was like. BLEH! Ahhh, well, at least after the initial gag and cough the cold creaminess finally kicked in. It’s just, well, such a horrible shock, you know?

And on another note – sorry that the posts here have been a bit thin – it’s just mostly been way too hot to cook or to want to even EAT anything much. That will change soon, I’m sure of it. I’ve got a call in to the Snow Miser and am expecting a return call anyday now.

Time for Corn

We finally ran across a good price for corn on the cob – 96 cents for 6 ears of white corn, and cooked them up for dinner tonight. It had been so long since we’d had sweet corn that I’d forgotten that John tends to eat in circles AROUND the cob, while I eat it lengthwise, like a typewriter. (I’m not sure if our relationship can stand up to this kind of lifestyle difference!) The corn was delicious, sweet, and really hit the spot on yet ANOTHER 100 degree day. Sure, boiling the water over a hot flame wasn’t so much fun, but with excellent sweet corn as the end product, we were willing to sacrifice ourselves briefly for a good cause.

Another Reason to Love Dark Chocolate

Apparently, dark chocolate is good for you! 😉

Awesome Waffles

Kristen got me a waffle iron two Christmas’s ago, and in all that time I’ve been looking for a really good basic waffle recipe.

The first ones I tried were the easy pancake mix variety, which tasted exactly like pancakes, not bad, but not waffles. Next, I tried the more complicated recipes that came with the waffle iron. One of them included lemon juice which I thought was an odd choice, but the waffles were pretty good. Still, it wasn’t the sort of recipe that makes you want to go through all the effort.

Finally, we found a recipe on Myra Fitch’s homepage. She said it was her favorite recipe which actually came with her waffle maker years ago. It was by far the best waffles we’ve tasted, they were light and flaky with that perfect waffle flavor.

Homemade Waffle Recipe

1 3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 eggs
7 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups milk

Preheat the waffle iron. Sift the dry indredients into a medium sized bowl. Separate the eggs, putting the egg whites in smaller bowl. Beat the egg whites until they are stiff. (If you are using an electric mixer, you can beat the egg whites first, then beat the batter without having to wash the beaters. The reverse is not true. If you beat the batter first and you have to wash the beaters before beating the egg whites.) Add the egg yolks, oil and milk all at one time to the dry indredients. Beat until there are no lumps in the batter. Fold the egg whites into the other batter using a spatula or other flat utinsel. Put a full 1/2 cup of batter in your waffle iron to make a 9-inch round waffle. This recipe makes about eight 9 inch waffles.

If this recipe makes too many waffles for one setting, try freezing the waffles you do not eat. After the waffles have been cooked in the waffle iron, put them out on a cooling rack. When they are cool, place them in a plastic bag, taking out as much air from the bag as possible. Then freeze the bag of waffles. The next time you want a quick waffle, microwave one from the freezer for about 45 to 60 seconds. They are almost as good as fresh waffles.

Note from John: I realize the seperating and folding of the egg whites sounds like a lot of extra work, but it’s definitely worth the effort. This step has been in all the better waffle recipes I’ve tried and it seems to be one of the key differences between waffles that taste like waffles and waffles that taste like “square pancakes.”

Why Don’t I Remember?

It’s a stupid thing, but I always forget. You can’t butter toast with a fork. Well, you CAN, but it’s extremely annoying and takes forever – the butter starts melting and sticking and will go BETWEEN the tines instead of across the toast surface. And I know this because every so often I’m too lazy to get up and get a butter knife from the drawer when I have a fork right in front of me. Yes, it’s my own fault – LOL.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

I made some beer battered onion rings today, I didn’t follow a strict recipe but winged it after reading a few different versions on the web. I used a 50/50 combination of flour and bread crumbs, plus some salt and garlic powder.

The first mistake I made was putting them into the basket of the deep fryer. The batter attached itself to the wire basket making the onion rings almost impossible to get out. Fortunately, Kristen suggested sinking the basket first and then dropping the onion rings directly into the hot oil, that worked a lot better.

It was greasy deliciousness, although it required a LOT of salt otherwise they tasted a bit bland.

Powered By Wine (well, “Vino”, actually)

Recently we started a new enterprise called Powered By Tshirts, which has all kinds of ‘powered by…’ designs, including a number (and expanding rapidly) of specific food designs. Some of these food designs, such as the one to the left, we are also selling in our little Food Follies shop! It’s “Powered By Vino” (Wine) and it’s full of grapey and winey colors – makes you want to dash off to a wine tasting party as soon as possible (or gobble some grapes – your call). So, there you go, feel free to click on the image to see all the products with this design, or drop by our new Powered By Tshirts shop and see the latest food-related designs there too (like lasagna, jelly beans etc….)

Sour Cream Streusel Coffee Cake

I had the urge to bake something the other day, and a recipe on the back of the Biscuit & Baking Mix (Bisquick, or store brand) seemed like it would be quick and painless, and would result in cake, which was the whole point, of course. I tweaked it a bit here and there.

John took one bite and his eyes lit up, “This tastes just like Drakes Coffee Cakes!” If you’re a fan of Seinfeld, you know that there is NO higher praise for a coffee cake. Even Entennmann’s brand, despite the fact that they have a display at the end of the isle. *grin*

Sour Cream Streusel Coffee Cake

Cake:
1 1/2 cups Biscuit & Baking Mix (Bisquick, or Generic)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Topping:
1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3 tablespoons butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
just a bit of powdered sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. For the cake, stir all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl until thoroughly mixed. Spread batter into a greased 8-inch square pan. For the topping, mix all topping ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl, until crumbly. Sprinkle topping over the top of the cake batter.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Once the cake has cooled, powder the top of the cake with the powdered sugar so it makes a nice contrast with the brown sugar topping.

Half-Pound Cake?

On my second attempt to make a cake from scratch, I went looking for a pound cake recipe. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough eggs for most of them (a smart man would have tried something else at this point) but I found this one and thought I’d give it a try.

The batter for the exact recipe was pretty bland, it didn’t taste like a pound cake or much of anything for that matter. I added a little extra brown sugar and some cinammon which gave the batter a much better flavor.

The cake baked up nicely, but there is no way I would call it a pound cake. It was not nearly dense enough for one thing. It tasted a lot more like a coffee cake, and if I make it again, I would add a crumbled mixture of flour, butter, brown sugar, and cinammon.