Best. Meatballs. Ever.

 Mmm yummy  No Responses »
Sep 152011
 

When I was in Istanbul last summer, I had a meat dish at the Hamdi Restaurant that was, I think, the second most delicious meat dish I have ever eaten. (After my Oma’s roladen.)

It was kebab made with minced beef and lamb, and pistachios, and magical deliciousness. It was so good that I insisted on returning to the restaurant again later in the week, so I could eat it again.

Yesterday, I stopped at the co-op for milk, and noticed that they had fresh, local, ground lamb. And pistachios. And, of course, good ground beef.

So I bought those things, and attempted to recreate this amazing delicious dish.

I have a few disadvantages, like having no idea what spices were in it, and not having a grill. Or skewers. But I do have the Internet. I found a few not-quite-right dishes, most helpfully including a Jamie Oliver lamb meatball with pistachios recipe.

Here is what I did instead.

Liza’s Turkish Meatballs, aka the Best Meatballs Ever

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound each of ground lamb and ground beef (I used chuck).
  • 1 cup salted, shelled pistachios
  • 2 eggs
  • ~20 saltine crackers
  • 1.5 tablespoons cumin
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest (dried)
  • 1 tiny pinch red pepper flakes

First, I dumped all of the pistachios into a marble mortar & pestle that we got for our wedding and hardly use anymore. This was a bad idea — some got pulverized, others barely cracked. Next time I will do it in 2 or 3 batches. The goal is crushed, not pulverized, think “ice cream topping” size bits.

After they were crushed, I dumped the pistachios in a large glass bowl. (Also a wedding present.)

Then I crushed the red pepper, which was tricky given the minute volume. I should have thrown in a cracker or two. Dump. Followed by the rest of the spices. And although I listed amounts above, I didn’t measure any of them. I cook by shaking out spices until I think that’s about right. It mostly works, although I recommend measuring salt. Or adding it one small shake at a time. What I wrote above is my best guess of the volume.

Then I crushed the crackers in two batches, and dumped them too.

(Crushing things with a mortar & pestle is fun — I highly recommend it!)

The eggs went in last. When everything is in the bowl, plunge your hands into the gooey meat mixture and squeeze everything together in a sort of knead-squeeze-knead-squeeze pattern until you can’t see different kinds of meat or identifiable bits of egg, and the spices seem more or less evenly distributed. For me, that takes about 3 minutes. If you are squicked out by all the meat texture, it might take longer.

That’s when I remembered that I hadn’t preheated the oven, so I washed my hands, and turned the oven to 385.

Next, I took out 2 cookie sheets and sprayed them with a tiny bit of cooking oil, which turned out to be completely unnecessary.

I made oblong meatballs that were about the length and width of two fingers. This recipe made 25 of them. I cooked them for 15 minutes, but thought they needed a little bit more time, so left them in for 18 minutes total. They were beautifully browned and delicious when I took them out, and Jill and I each ate one immediately.

They aren’t QUITE as fabulously wonderful and magically delicious as the ones I ate in Istanbul, but they are very good, and I am very happy with the results of my Turkish Meatballs.

(Next: Will the kids eat them?)

 Posted by Liza at 4:12 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

Gardening Obsessed

 House!, Mmm yummy  1 Response »
Jun 132011
 

I have my first real garden this year.

Last year, we dipped a toe into the gardening world, with a handful of peas and about 10 tiny, stringy carrots. The peas were fabulous!

Then we bought our new house, with the crazy overgrown garden and yard. We razed 95% of the crazy front yard, then added some tulips to the remaining 5%. In the back, we razed and sodded over the larger of the two enormous raised beds, but we left our 25′ of raspberries, and an approximately 10′x12′ bed. I put in some large, flat rocks so that the bed was reduced to 2 2×12 and 1 2×10 growing areas. I also dug up 2 enormous rhubarb plants (leaving the biggest one), converting the space to another 3×12 bed, and dug up several unkillable hostas (now thriving where I tossed them).

The results are pretty good!

There are a lot of strawberries (3 varieties in the middle of the big bed, plus one of those topsy-turvies): Strawberries - 6/10/2011

I’ve also got about 8 productive peas, with another 8 that are about 2″ tall. And 10 bush beans — 4 “Royal Burgundy” (purple!), 3 yellow, and 3 green. I’ve just planted another 3 green and 2 purple. (The yellow just didn’t sprout.) Only 1 spinach plant has actually come up, but I’ve just planted a bunch more. There are a dozen or so beets and carrots growing, with more seeds hopefully growing. I also have a corner for pumpkin and one for watermelon, and 8 tomato plants (4 varieties), a sweet pepper, an eggplant, a summer squash, and a mystery winter squash. Plus 2 kohlrabi, and 4 broccoli and cauliflower.

Carrots & Peas - 6/10/2011 NW Corner of the Garden - 6/10/2011 4 Tomatoes and a Sweet Pepper - 6/10/2011 Peas (and Eggplant and Squash) - 6/10/2011

Oh! And 5 blueberry bushes — unlikely to produce this year, but maybe next year:

Blueberry Tilblue - 6/13/2011 Blueberry Legacy - 6/13/2011 Blueberry Top Hat - 6/13/2011 Blueberry Patriot - 6/13/2011 Blueberry Climax - 6/13/2011

Just to see what happens, I’ve planted cantaloupe seeds behind the pots of blueberries.

 Posted by Liza at 9:12 pm

Who Takes Food From a Pregnant Lady?

 Knocked Up Again, Mmm yummy  6 Responses »
Jul 022008
 

About once a week, maybe a little less, I go with co-workers to a Mexican restaurant not far from our office.

And roughly 90% of the time, I order the same thing: a steak fajita quesadilla, with a side of guacamole and sour cream.

When I go with the guys who work in software security, we usually also split a queso dip. Not so much when I go with the other women in my department.

Every single time I’ve gone in the last month, within a minute of my finishing the actual quesadilla part of my lunch, someone has appeared while I had a chip and guac in my mouth and grabbed my still-full-of-guac-and-sour-cream plate. It’s already become a joke with my friends.

Today it happened so fast that I almost couldn’t get the plate back! Which also almost led to both of us spewing half-chewed food on the table, because we were laughing so hard.

But seriously! How do I get them to leave my food until I’m done?

I don’t know what I’m doing that signals the waitstaff to take away the plate. Should I leave 1 bite of quesadilla? They get all mushy if you don’t eat them while they’re hot. Should I try to train myself to sit at the table with my left arm protectively around the plate?

 Posted by Liza at 10:06 pm

Local Food Challenge Update

 Mmm yummy, Opinion  6 Responses »
Sep 162007
 

Well, midway through the month, I can see very clearly that me taking this on was insanely unrealistic.

I know that it can be done to a significant extent, but it takes a lot more planning and shopping flexibility than I really have right now.

Some parts are pretty easy, and I’ll probably keep them up, at least mostly:

  • Bread
  • Milk
  • Some chicken
  • Some fruit & veg (but not very much)

Instead of giving up completely, I’m going to modify the challenge to try to do one completely local dinner every other week. Plus the items noted above.

What I can say out of this is that it’s been a huge consciousness raising experience. First, I never really gave that much thought to where my food came from, geographically speaking, before now. Except of course to be a snob about Wisconsin beer and cheese.

Also, I never thought about the environmental impact of eating foods shipped thousands of miles from farm or factory to me. But once you start thinking about it, it’s ridiculously obvious. It is bizarre to think that it makes sense for my cereal to be imported from Canada, nearly all of my fruit and vegetables from California, Chile, or New Zealand. BIZARRE.

I do still think I’m going to try making my own yogurt, but I don’t know when and I’m not committed to it regularly.

 Posted by Liza at 7:05 pm

What Kind of Liberal? Plus Local Food Update

 Mmm yummy, Silly Internet Quizzes  3 Responses »
Sep 062007
 

Thanks, Shelli, for pointing out this awesome Silly Internet Quiz. I know the results are a shock. ;-)

How to Win a Fight With a Conservative is the ultimate survival guide for political arguments

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Also? This local food thing? Practically impossible.

I’m still reading everything and trying, but so far I’ve only succeeded in buying in-state or within ~125 miles for milk, chicken, bread, and muscadine grapes. Plus on our way home from the retreat, we bought peaches at a farm produce stand. I would have bought more, but that’s all they had. And the chicken was more than twice as expensive as the unattributed “greenwise” store brand!

I’m going to continue trying — I have some cautious optimism for the kosher grocery store in a not-too-distant neighborhood. But this may wind up as more of a consciousness raising experience than actually eating locally. For this to work in my house, I think we’re going to have to join a CSA.

 Posted by Liza at 5:24 am

A few disorganized thoughts & a recipe

 Mmm yummy, Personal, The Real Live Boy, TMI, TTC  2 Responses »
Sep 042007
 

I’m still kind of wiped out from the retreat, or more specifically, from Noah’s bad sleeping on the retreat. He was up at 3:30 or 4 on the first night, and rather than let him wake up the whole lodge, I brought him in to sleep on the twin bed with me. The second night he woke up completely and inconsolably and hungry at 2:30 am, and was up for at least an hour.

So:

  • I think it might be time to get Noah out of the crib and into a big boy bed. He’s so heavy that he wakes up when I put him down, and then we have some back and forth with the screaming before he settles down.
  • The atmosphere at work is less funereal this week than it was last week, although it seems like a lot of people are “mailing it in.” When I arrived at 9 this morning, I got a parking space that a month ago I would have needed to be there by 7:45 or 8 to get. But if I knew I only had 10 more days of work, I’d probably be doing the same thing.
  • Hormone levels etc are looking like a go for TTC this month, although probably a few days later than I thought. The 200mg of Clomid produced an E2 level of  210 today, and there were 4 follicles: 17mm, 15mm, and two 13mm. Today is CD12; the doc & nurse today thought I’ll surge over the weekend and that it’s even possible I won’t surge until Monday. My gut feeling is that I’ll surge on Friday.
  • I did a test recipe yesterday that turned out amazing. We’ll be taking a batch of these (among other things) to the new gay dads of twins at our church.

Awesome Parmesan Breadsticks, modified from Cooking Light:

  • 1/3 cup regular flour
  • 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon seasoning (either fresh black pepper, rosemary, herbs de provence, or something else you think sounds good)
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • 5 tablespoons water

Mix dry ingredients, add wet ingredients, stir until dough forms.

Place dough on floured surface and knead 4 or 5 times. Divide dough into 18 parts (roughly 1 inch balls).

Roll/stretch each ball into ~8 inch worms.

Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, or until bottoms are browned.

Total time: Less than half an hour.

 Posted by Liza at 8:03 pm

Wow, This Local Challenge Thing Might Be HARD

 Mmm yummy  7 Responses »
Aug 312007
 

Last night, I rushed to the grocery store right after dinner, for breakfasts, drinks, and snacks for our weekend retreat. I made two stops, the warehouse-grocery-meets-farmers-market, which I think I’ll be shorthanding to Produce Warehouse during this experiment, and a regular mainstream grocery store, the cheaper of my neighborhood chains.

Produce Warehouse:

  • Bananas, organic, from Mexico. Imported directly, which I guess means something to some shoppers, but I’m not sure what. There were big signs with a map and everything. Along with 50,000 30,000 pounds of bananas*.
  • Apples, gala, conventional, from Washington State
  • Musileli type cereal, organic, from Canada!
  • Purple Muscadine grapes, bought since they were the only fruit from Georgia that I could find. I hope Noah likes them.
  • Multigrain bread, organic, baked on-site. Yummy, and I have no idea where the ingredients came from. Jeez this could get hardcore very quickly!

Cheap Grocery:

  • Tropicana Fruit Squeeze water-juice bottles. These are my newest addiction. They’re fruit juice sweetened, low-calorie, and delicious. Lakeland Florida, which can’t really be justified as local, but at least is a state boardering mine.
  • Pretzels – I went with the brand from Pennsylvania instead of Texas. Not local, probably a wash as far as distance goes.
  • Yo Baby Yogurt – Organic. From New Hampshire. A staple of Noah’s diet. I’m thinking about the suggestion that I make yogurt myself, but I’m not committed to it yet.
  • Pepperidge Farm cookies – Fairfield, CT. Not local. I should have bought cookies at Produce Warehouse, but I forgot.
  • 4 Pack of Starbux Frappucinos – The label says “North America.” I’m going to guess non-local. I’m a coffee junkie and we have no idea what the 5:30 am coffee options are going to look like at the retreat locale.

* A random bonus prize will be awarded to the first person correctly identifying that reference in the comments below. No googling!

 Posted by Liza at 6:20 pm
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