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It's always a challenge to come up with a new and different recipe. Sometimes I come away from the experience with a new understanding of my family's limits of being my test subjects (yes, I'm laughing).
Today the poor test subject is my daughter. I'm trying a Zucchini dish that incorporates the use of 3 different cheeses. I openly admit that my first stab at this recipe left little to be desired.
Not only do I need to adjust the cooking time and temperature, I also need to adjust the size of the cut zucchini as well as my liquid content. About my cheese choices; the ones I chose to use were because of their creaminess when melted. There are a wide variety of cheeses that one could use, most can be found in the dairy section of the grocery store and others can be found in the specialty cheese section in the deli department. Now for the liquid choices; whole milk, heavy cream or half and half. Some cooks like to use whole milk and add in butter for the extra oomph. Me, I like to go with half and half since it's in-between whole milk and heavy cream and I don't feel the need to add in butter.
Lets get crazy an talk about bread crumbs- oh the varieties! Which type to use? Regular or Panko? Or do you go the extra effort and make your own? I like to top off my cheesy dishes with bread crumbs and my choice is Panko style. Or I could go the extra step and make my own chunky style bread crumbs, hmmm. I think that my next attempt at this recipe I'll step it up a notch and go with home made bread crumbs.
Now for me to sit down and write this all up on my note pad.
I admit right up front- I have an ever growing collection of cookbooks that is in desperate need to be weeded out! I figure that today was as good as any day to sit down and go through the ones I no longer use as a reference source for ideas. Well little did I know that I was setting myself up for some serious laughter...
So,there I was...innocently thumbing through a recipe book when I noted something odd. There was a reference to the origins of the recipe and how the original had called for use of "Squirrel Meat". Squirrel meat? Really??? My first thought was, How old is this cookbook? And my second thought was, Oh Lord let this have been and gift and nothing I bought for myself! When I looked at the cover, I laughed even harder because I instantly knew who had given me this cookbook. I smile and shake my head at the little things that make me laugh!
I saw a recipe for "spicy meatballs" and then decided to kick it up a couple of notches. I wanted something different to serve at our house warming party but still keeping within the "Tex Mex" theme that my husband requested.
Ingredients you will need;
for the Meat Balls...
1 1/2 to 2 lbs Ground Turkey
2 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Salt and course ground Black Pepper
2 Eggs
1 cup Bread Crumbs
1 TBS Freeze Dried Jalapenos
for the Sauce...
1 Jar of Thick and Chunky Salsa
1 jar of Cocktail Sauce
1/4 cup Jalapeno peppers I used the kind from a jar), I measured them w/o the liquid and then I chopped them and added them to the sauce- use less if you like it less spicy).
water
So here goes...
Mix the meat and all ingredients in a mixer, it should go rather quickly. I used Litehouse brand freeze dried Jalapenos. You can find them in your local grocers your produce section. Make meatballs no bigger than 1 inch in diameter only because if you make them any larger there's the very real issues of them not cooking thoroughly (I had experienced this while making these). Here's a tip; roll meatballs while your hands are damp- it helps to keep the met from sticking to your hands.
I fried my meatballs in 1 inch of canola oil, I rolled them around in the pot until they were golden brown. Drain them on paper towels. Put into oven to keep warm (oven temp 200).
Making the sauce- just dump everything into a pot, mix well with a wooden spoon. let it bubble and then turn it down to a simmer for 5 minutes.
Place meatballs in a covered casserole dish, pour sauce over meatballs just prior to serving.
