The Czech Meatball Experiment

Like many of you, I have seen Disney's Lady and the Tramp about a gazillion times; and unlike today's youth, I actually saw it in the theater a couple of times during two of its many re-releases from the Disney vault in 1980 and 1986.  By the way, I have a colleague whose daughter works "for" the Disney vault, and he assures me that it is a literal vault.  I wonder if they have the Country Bears Jamboree stashed away in there, too?  Hmmm...

Anyhoo, I think we can all agree the most iconic scene from that film is when Lady and Tramp are enjoying a romantic dinner of spaghetti and meatballs under a moonlit sky (nothing says romance like your vagabond boyfriend begging for free pasta in an alley, am I right ladies?).  This scene impacted me heavily because I had never before had spaghetti and meatballs.  As a kid, we had spaghetti many, many times, but the beef was cooked into the sauce, and instead of meatballs we had pieces of Chinese sausage called lap cheong added to it.  I'm not complaining, mind you.  There are different varieties of lap cheong, but the one we ate was made from pork and is very, very fatty.  It's akin to adding fistfuls of bacon to your favorite dish -- de-lish-us.  Some of the ingredients in lap cheong are not Whole30 approved (e.g. sugar and soy) so I (sadly) can't incorporate it into our day-to-day diet, but it's worth the treat every now and then.  You can find lap cheong at most Asian markets (Uwajimaya, Ranch 99, etc.), so if you're interest is piqued and your arteries have some room, go buy some -- now!

My first experience with spaghetti and meatballs that I can recall is SpaghettiOs® Meatballs.  Talk about a letdown.  It's easily been over 20 years since I've eaten them, but I remember thinking how the meatballs were small and mealy.  They didn't look like the delicious meatballs that Lady and Tramp enjoyed.  The only reason I would roll mine across the plate would be so it could keep rolling off the table and onto the floor, and then the poor meatball would just roll out the door (see what I did there?  ba dum ching!).

Since then, meatballs have continued to disappoint.  Most Italian-style restaurants make them too big and mushy, or don't season them enough so there isn't any flavor other than from the watery spaghetti sauce they've been floating in.  I really don't get restaurants that think they're so cute giving you a plate of pasta and a single (gross) meatball the size of your head.  Trying to cut that thing into pieces does nothing but guarantee a meatball-sized stain on your clothes...or the restaurant carpet.

Between these disappointing experiences and a fear of failure, making my own meatballs has not been high on the list of recipes to try as they seemed rather labor-intensive and icky because you handle raw ground meat.  But that was the old me!  This is the new me, and the new me says, "Hah!  I can try anything!"  The new me is a little cocky.

Today's experiment is Czech Meatballs from the Well Fed cookbook.

Step 1:  Preheat the oven to 400F and assemble your ingredients (egg not pictured):

- 1 clove garlic, minced (approximately 1 tsp.)
- 1/2 Tbsp. salt
- 1 Tbsp. caraway seeds
- 1 tsp. ground paprika
- 1 Tbsp. ground black pepper
- 1 cup fresh parsley leaves, minced (yields about 1/4 cup)
- 1 Tbsp. grainy mustard (I used Dijon mustard because it was what I had on-hand)
- 1 large egg
- 2 pounds ground pork

Step 2:  In a large bowl, combine the eggs, parsley, and spices.

Turn this...

Into this...

Step 3:  Using your hands (I know, gross) crumble the ground pork into the bowl of spice mixture.  Thoroughly mix until the meat and spices are well incorporated.

I can't help but think this would be a good idea for "zombie brains"

in a haunted house.  Just sayin'.

Step 4:  Fill a small bowl with water and keep on-hand.  You will use this to lightly wet your hands so the meat mixture doesn't stick as you form your meatballs (try to refrain from childish jokes at this point; it will be difficult; maybe keep it down to no more than one or two).

Using a tablespoon to keep your meatballs uniform, scoop up a level spoonful of meat mixture and roll to form the meatballs and place on a foil-covered baking sheet about a 1/2-inch apart.  Using this recipe, you will need at least 2 baking sheets.

Step 5:  Place in the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes minutes until golden brown and thoroughly cooked (cut one in half if you're not sure).  To ensure uniform cooking, I had to bake each sheet separately.

When the meatballs are done, you may want to run a spatula under them so they don't stick to the foil.

Step 6:  Serve with your choice of side and eat!

If you're not following Whole30 or any other paleo or low-carb program, this is where you toss the meatballs in with some spaghetti and your favorite sauce.  Our meatballs were served with sautéed red cabbage with onions and apples from Practical Paleo, along with a side of dijon mustard mixed with homemade olive oil mayonnaise in a 1:1 ratio (again, the recipe recommends grainy mustard, but use what you have if you don't want to make an extra trip to the store).

Voila!

So, did my opinion about meatballs change?  Almost.  I think the meatballs turned out as they were intended and had good texture, but the caraway seeds in the recipe were a little overwhelming.  I'm not a fan of rye bread and it seemed to be the dominant flavor.  The mayo-mustard dip mellowed it out a bit, but it just wasn't enough to tame it altogether.  I will try this recipe again, but next time I will either reduce the amount of caraway seed or find an alternate spice that is a bit more palatable.  Any recommendations would be appreciated!  I may also try serving these with spaghetti squash and a paleo-friendly sauce for faux "spaghetti" and meatballs.

Mange!

Kimmy

My Love-Hate Relationship With Pinterest

Recently, I joined Pinterest -- begrudgingly.  I hate Pinterest, so this means I was driven to the brink of desperation when I joined.  I know, I know, you all loooove Pinterest.  It's the best thing since sliced bread (something I can't eat), blah, blah, blah -- hey, quit throwing tomatoes (which I can eat...okay, keep throwing them).

A friend introduced me to Pinterest about a year ago when she was gathering ideas for her daughter's birthday party.  With great excitement she showed me all the "boards" she had "pinned" full of bright, colorful pictures of homemade birthday invitations, homemade party decorations, homemade party favors, and, of course, homemade professional-grade decorated birthday cakes.  It was like Martha Stewart had released a virus on the Internet and Pinterest was the result.  I conceded that it "looked cool".  I liked the idea of being able to save all the ideas you find from various websites without having to print them out, only to shove them in a closet or junk drawer the next time company comes over and you have to clean the house in an hour.  These little pieces of inspiration are then forgotten until about a year later when, after watching a Hoarders marathon on A&E, you go into a mad cleaning frenzy (we're talking bleach here folks).  The only interesting thing about cleaning up the mess a year later is the archaeological archive it provides; removing layer upon layer of ideas with the oldest ones lying in a nest of dust bunnies at the bottom -- the furniture refinishing project from HGTV magazine, the furniture painting project when staining sounded like too much work, the decoupage project when a piece of furniture seemed way too big, to the printout of an email from Shutterfly offering a free photo book before 2/15/2011 (scrapbooks are a decoupage of pictures, right?).

Still, it didn't make much of an impact on me.  I walked away and didn't give it much thought.  That is, until the world went frickin' Pinterest-crazy!  Everywhere I turned, people were talking about something on their Pinterest board, or following someone else's Pinterest board, or cooking something off their Pinterest board, or taking first-day school pictures of their kids in a certain style because, "they saw it on Pinterest and it was sooo cute."  Even guys have Pinterest boards!  Look, I'm sorry guys, I'm the first one to poo-poo stereotyped gender roles, but you have to admit this is a bit girly, even for you.  And while it may have taken time for parents to discover Facebook, there was no such grace period with Pinterest.  Last Christmas I went over to my mom and dad's, only to discover what looked like the lower-torso of a green and red monster poking out of their Christmas tree.  My mother, noticing my gaze, asked, "Do you like my Grinch?  I got the idea off of Pinterest!"  Et tu, Mother?  Don't get me wrong, it was fun and cute and Christmas-y, but it was...a Pinterest project.  I felt like Pinterest was Newman to my Seinfeld, Khan to my Kirk, Wheaton to my Sheldon.

Now, everyone is talking about suffering from Pinterest anxiety.  WTF?!  Mothers expressing guilt over the fact they had to (*gag*) buy a cake for their child's birthday instead of making it from scratch, rolling out fondant, dyeing it five colors and creating a scale replica of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.  Personally, I don't find that appropriate for a five-year old's birthday, but to each their own.

Now, in all fairness, I don't have children.  My stepdaughter was twelve when I met her so she was past all the little kid cutesy-poo stuff by then (at that point, I could do dangerous things, like introduce her to Nordstrom's), but I don't understand the need to make everything from scratch, when, hello? Target.  You can get everything from Target -- streamers, plates, invitations, thank you cards, centerpieces, party favors, tablecloths, and confetti.  The best thing?  They all coordinate (Type-A heaven!).  Again, I don't have a child, but I remember being a kid and wanting a Scooby-Doo birthday party with all the matching commercialized crap you could find.  It didn't matter that the party horns died after about three blows, or that the plates melted as soon as you put ice cream on them -- they...were...fun.  And the best thing about it was you could throw it all away when you were done and not feel guilty about it because the whole mess cost less than $50 (adjusted for inflation) and required relatively little time.

Maybe this will get me a few blow darts to the neck, but I wonder if all the Pinterest homemade wonderment is for the kids or the parents, specifically, other parents?  It sure doesn't seem to be saving people money or letting them spend more time with said children.  It would be one thing if you have a passion for making things and truly enjoy it, but most people I talk to tell me about their projects through gritted teeth and a plastered smile.

Okay, so now that I've ripped Pinterest apart and alienated, like, all my friends, why did I join Pinterest?  This paleo-lifestyle that we recently adopted, that's why.  When we started this journey about a month ago, I bought two cookbooks with some great recipes that we've really enjoyed, but even so they are limited and we are hungry people.  In the past, we could eat burgers and pizza for a straight week (ew, just typing that makes me feel queasy), but I think variety will be the key to keeping us motivated to stay on this path.  I can find a lot of great recipes by doing a Google search (I love Google), but again, you run into the problem of keeping track of everything.  Recipes that aren't in books have a tendency to wander in our house, which doesn't make sense.  It's not like we're carrying recipes room to room like a security blanket, and my dogs are less than a foot tall so they're not jumping up on the counters and taking them off to bury in the yard.  Although, there was this one time...

(We were moving, please don't judge the chaos.)

So, with great reluctance, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, I joined Pinterest.  I felt so dirty afterwards, but I'm trying to accept things and move on.  I have pinned a few recipes and follow Stupid Easy Paleo for meal ideas.  I also follow a few people like my stepdaughter, Ashley, because I love her and miss her and she's planning a wedding so I get to peek in on all her wedding ideas.  Please don't be offended if I don't follow your Pinterest board.  Just take a look at mine and you'll see why.  It's full of paleo recipes and Batman stuff, so my interests don't necessarily overlap with most of what I see out there.

In closing, I wish you happy pinning, but ask you to remember that Pinterest is a tool (pun intended) and to treat it as such.  Don't let it consume you or take you on a guilt trip.  There is enough in life to worry about...like becoming a hoarder.

See you at Target!

~ Kimmy

About this blog (start here)...

If you had asked me a year ago or a month ago, I would have freely admitted that I hated to cook.  I knew, in very general terms, how to cook, but was never impressed with the results.  Ten years ago when I got married, I was literally terrified at the prospect of cooking for me and my new husband.  I could never figure out what to eat, how to cook what we wanted to eat, or cook it in a timely fashion so we weren't eating at 9pm.

My husband, being a genius, figured out very early on that he might die of starvation if he didn't cook for the two of us.  When we were first married, he had gone back to school and was working part-time so he had a marginal amount of more free time than I did and the arrangement seemed to work well for us.  Five years later, he graduated from school (yay!) and started working full-time.  However, during the transition from student to worker bee, he didn't manage to shake off the cooking responsibilities.  See, I had become accustomed to a certain type of lifestyle -- one that didn't involve me cooking...or cleaning bathrooms.  With both of us tired after a long day of work, we were starving, strapped for time, and lacking inspiration.  We ate a LOT of hamburgers (either homemade or eating out), just because they were relatively cheap, easy, and quick.  Plus, you get to eat French fries when you have burgers (drool).  Sunday became pizza day because it was my husband’s family tradition growing up; even though we both knew it was a convenient excuse to alleviate the guilt of ordering take-out instead of cooking at home.

I want to say that things really hit home in 2013 as we hit our mid- and late-30's.  We weren't able to eat hamburgers and French fries without unfortunate consequences (*burp*), and I just felt terrible afterwards.  It wasn't just the guilt; I literally did not feel well because I had a heavy burger and all the accoutrements sitting like lead in my stomach.  With no decent options in our fridge, lunch was usually a quick trip to McDonalds (more burgers and fries) or Safeway (China Express = MSG = headache).  This would leave me feeling tired and sluggish the rest of the day.  I had no energy to do everyday things -- like cleaning the bathrooms as I was informed.  After ten years, other people in the household thought it was my turn.

As you may have surmised, we were not immune to weight gain eating the way we were.  Although it had crept up slowly, I didn't think my weight was "that bad".  Sure, I had gone up a few pant sizes; sure, I could feel every bump in the road via my belly fat a la Homer Simpson, but my body mass index (BMI) was still in a healthy range.  It wasn’t until I went to the doctor and had to stand on their evil scale of doom that things hit home.  I have an unfounded belief that the scale at the doctor’s office doesn't lie because it looks all industrial and must be calibrated based on the weight equivalent of the atomic clock.  Unlike my home scale which I think has a variance factor of plus- or minus- five pounds because the batteries haven't been changed in a few years.  That, and it was only $20 at Costco, how accurate can it be?  Anyway, the evil scale of doom insisted that I was only eight pounds away from the heaviest I've ever been, which was about twelve years ago.  When I look at pictures of me at the heaviest weight I've ever been (no, I'm not saying what it was), I remember how uncomfortable and unhappy I was and how I looked like the chick that turned into a blueberry in Willy Wonka, only not blue.  I think I would have preferred to look like an Oompa Loompa because they actually aren't that big for working and living in a candy factory; plus they have a natural Jersey-inspired tan.

With this fresh in my mind, I found myself having a rare coffee date with my friend, Amy.  She had just finished reading a book called, It Starts With Food, written by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, and was all jazzed up about their Whole30 program.  Whole30 is not a diet per se, but rather a change in lifestyle based on the paleo-diet movement.  The program is premised on eating nutrient-dense foods that would have been available prior to the development of grain-based diets.  Sometimes called the caveman diet, it does not mean you are limited to eating only meat, but it does mean cutting out grains, legumes, dairy (with very limited exceptions), and added sugars.  In doing so, you avoid the ultra-processed, calorie-dense, but nutritionally-deficient foods that are so readily available.  It isn’t the same as the Atkins diet, which measures “net carbs” and allows you to drink breve lattes made with half and half; nor is it the same as the South Beach diet which restricts certain fruits and vegetables that have a high-glycemic index.  For the record, we tried South Beach about seven years ago, and every ten days, like clockwork, we’d run to the grocery store and buy a pan of frosted brownies that were consumed with two forks and no plates.

The Whole30 program is very black and white: this is what you can eat; this is what you can’t eat.  Generally speaking, there is no differentiating between vegetables and fruits that are or aren’t allowed.  The only exception I can think of is white potatoes, but that’s about it.  It also doesn’t involve weighing food, counting calories, or getting on a scale every day. In fact, weight loss is not the primary goal of the plan.  The primary goal is to have a healthy relationship with food while restoring your body to proper working function that will allow you to recognize when you are full.  The book gives a great example of eating empty-calorie Oreos that, even after eating a few, leave you feeling hungry for more, versus eating a steak and starting to feel full after just a few bites.  I won’t go into further details at this point, but if you are curious I encourage you to click on the link and explore the Whole30 website which can provide you with more information from the folks that did the research and can explain the science.

Driving home from coffee, I decided that this was something we could do; something we had to try.  I walked in the door and laid it out for my husband; prepared for resistance or an argument, but hoping I could sell him on a plan that allowed him to keep steak on the menu.  With genuine trepidation, he agreed that we needed to make a change and was willing to give it a try.

So, the good news was that I had a husband on board with his wife's new cockamamie diet, but the bad news was neither of us had a clue of where to start.  I had just started to read It Starts With Food, and had a very rudimentary idea of what the program entailed.  As I mentioned earlier, my husband can cook, but he cooks burgers, ribs, turkey pot pie (which is actually quite fabulous) – foods that we could not have as we worked to change our eating habits.  Going into problem-solving mode, I Googled a few curry recipes and ordered two paleo-cookbooks: Well Fed by Melissa Joulwan, and Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo (thank heavens for Amazon Prime and free 2-day shipping!). 

What followed was nothing short of a Christmas in July miracle -- I started to cook!  Not reheating, not defrosting, not adding flavor packets; honest to goodness cooking that involved measuring cups and measuring spoons and using the appliances in my kitchen – culinary science!!!  Even more surprising?  I was actually starting to enjoy cooking – weird, I know!  Being a typical Type-A personality, I approached cooking with the mindset that it is merely following a set of instructions, which I am very good at.  Surprisingly, this approach has not sucked, and most of what has been created has been very decent eating.

Now, about a month later at the time of writing this post, we are already starting to feel the benefits of this change in lifestyle.  Clothes are fitting better, energy levels are up, and I haven’t been feeling the blood-sugar crashes that left me so grouchy and irritable that my husband kept a stash of emergency granola bars in his glove box.

This is just the beginning, though; I still have a lot to learn.  Every day I Google a ton of topics like, "how to boil an egg", "can you freeze coconut milk", and "what can you use if you can't find cardamom pods".  To stay motivated, and hopefully motivate others in a culinary or dietary rut, I have decided to keep track of the delicious triumphs and epic fails in this blog, as well as a few observations made along the way.  It is not the point of this blog to convince you or anyone else that this is the only or best way to eat.  If that's your takeaway, great!, but everyone has a different relationship with food and their body and it's not for me to tell you how to change that; I'm not a doctor, a nutritionist, or research scientist.  I'm just a nerdy woman who is getting a kick out of cooking for her little family and this is how I’m doing it.

Mange!

Kimmy

UPDATE: Since starting this blog (not that long ago), I quickly realized that I didn't want to limit the entire focus to be on food.  Granted, it's a large part of our lives, but not the only part.  I still plan on featuring as many cooking experiences as I can, but will expand the scope to what I call, "My Life in Progress".

The Butter Chicken Experiment

When we decided to switch to a paleo-based diet, it meant cooking at home -- a lot.  The first challenge to overcome was not the diet itself, but finding time to cook.  We both come home from work dog-tired and pretty hungry.  "Before" this meant ordering pizza, going out to eat, or grilling up a burger and fries because no one could come up with a better idea; and cooking anything other than a burger can mean eating well after 8pm.

I got us into this mess, so I took it upon myself to get us out of it; or at least get us on track.  Instead of watching an extra episode of Cupcake Wars on demand, I use that time to cook dinner for the next two nights.  I'm not cooking two separate meals; we just tend to squeeze two dinners and maybe a lunch for Grant out of one dish.  So far, this plan seems to be working because we haven't eaten out in about 30 days!  I also find it easier to cook when I'm not starving and dealing with a grouch-inducing blood sugar crash; nor is the lure to snack out of the pantry as strong when I'm full from dinner.

Today's experiment is Butter Chicken; one of our favorite Indian dishes.  According to the in-depth culinary research I did after cooking this dish (Wikipedia) "real" butter chicken involves marinating chicken in a yogurt and spice mixture and serving the finished product with naan and rice.  Under the new guidelines we've adopted, yogurt, naan, and rice are all verboten, so I had to find a "hack" that would work for us.  

Through the power of Google, I found one of many paleo-style recipes for butter chicken at paleodietlifestyle.com.

The recipe calls for:

 - 2 Tbsp. butter, times 2

Now, I know I've said before that dairy is not allowed, but there are very limited exceptions to this rule (see the Whole30 Butter Manifesto, here).  Most recipes call for clarified butter, or ghee.  In this case I'm using organic pastured butter.

- 2 lbs. boneless, skinless, chicken, cut into chunks

- 2 tsp. garam masala 

I had never heard of this spice before, which is actually a mix of different spices, but I was able to find a ready-to-use bottle at Whole Foods for about $2.

- 2 tsp. paprika

- 2 tsp. ground coriander

- 1 Tbsp. freshly-grated ginger (yes, freshly grated, not powdered)

- 1/4 tsp. chili powder (the recipe says you can adjust to taste)

- 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom (used in lieu of 6 bruised cardamom pods -- could not find!)

- 1 can tomato puree (the recipe doesn't specify the size of can; I had 24oz on-hand)

- 3/4 cup coconut milk (whole fat, not light)

- 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Because I'm Type-A and all about following directions, I have been religiously using the prep tips from one of the cookbooks I purchased, Well Fed.  The author, Melissa Joulwan, recommends measuring out all ingredients ahead of time like they do on t.v. so they are ready to go when you are.  That way, you're not scrambling for something at a crucial cooking step, and will know very quickly if you're missing any ingredients.

Here are my beautifully-prepped ingredients...

Step 1: Take the first 2 Tbsp. of butter and melt in a skillet over medium heat (it may be old hat for some of you, but I've learned the hard way that more heat does not equal faster cooking).

Step 2: Add your chicken chunks to the skillet and thoroughly cook all the pieces.  I turned the heat up just a little past medium to cook the chicken (after Googling, "what setting do you use on your stovetop to cook chicken" -- I'm not kidding).  Believe me when I tell you that butter is a miracle food!  Unlike cooking chicken in oil, the meat stayed moist and juicy through the entire cooking process.  It was almost as if the butter kept it safe; nestled in a little food cocoon :-)  

I've also learned not to smash all the chicken into the skillet at one time; give it a little room!  To cook all two pounds, I cooked the chicken in two batches.  The second batch definitely cooked a little faster than the first so there is no "one time fits all" approach. When the chicken is fully-cooked, remove it from the pan with tongs or a slotted spoon and set aside (but just for a moment!).  After removing the first batch of chicken, I didn't have to add any additional butter to the pan to cook the second batch.

Step 3: Using a larger pan that can take on a little more volume, melt the second 2 Tbsp. of butter.  You can use the same pan used to cook the chicken, but my nicer pans are too shallow.  Dirty dishes, learning to deal with them, ugh.

Add the spices, including the grated ginger, to the melted butter and mix together.  It smells good, but looks a little sketchy at this point...

(Hmmm....spice goo)

Step 4: Toss the cooked chicken into the pot and mix to coat...

...add the tomato puree...

...let simmer for about 15 minutes.

Step 5: Add the coconut milk and lemon juice and simmer for about 5 more minutes...

And that's it!  Hmmm...it smells kind of like butter chicken.  Fingers crossed!  At this point, I took it off the heat and put it in a storage container to be refrigerated.  I, um, didn't taste the food at this point.  Letting Grant read a very rough draft of this post, he turned to me and said, "You didn't taste the food?  You always taste the food!  How do you know if it needs salt or anything?"  O-kay...good point!

Fast forward to the following night where the butter chicken is served with steamed green beans and cumin-spiced carrots (which, by the way, are sooo good, and I will show how they're made in another post).  Using the guidelines from Whole30, there is a palm-sized portion of protein while the rest of the plate is filled with vegetables.

Ta-da!!!!

So how does it taste?  Well....it needs salt (cue the rare moment when husband is right).  It definitely doesn't taste like butter chicken from our favorite Indian restaurant, but it's tender and flavorful (after a shake of salt) and pairs nicely with the cumin carrots.

After dinner I had a bit of an aha moment and decided to look up a "regular" butter chicken recipe (which led to the Wikipedia reference from earlier).  Other than the yogurt marinade, I didn't really see anything that wasn't allowed in the Whole30 program, or couldn't easily be substituted (such as coconut oil instead of peanut oil).  Next time, I am going to start with a "regular" recipe and use coconut milk in place of the yogurt in the marinade.  See?  Learning already!  I don't know if those adjustments will work either, but I won't know until I try.

Mange!

Kimmy