Adventures in Thyme

Our adventures in food

Sweet and Sour Pork Meatballs

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Sweat and Sour Pork Meatballs

Sweat and Sour Pork Meatballs

Here in America, much of the news lately has been consumed with coverage regarding deflated balls (NFL footballs).  Few have been unable to resist the urge to take to social media or put their special touch on headlines decrying soft balls.  So who are we to let the subject slip by without manhandling a ball or two, slathering sauce all over it and serving it up for din-din.  This is a surprisingly simple recipe and much preferred over similar sweet and sour offerings from local takeouts.  Enjoy!

 

Meatballs

1-1/4 lbs ground Pork
1 large Apple, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon grated Ginger
1/4 to 1/2 small Onion, finely chopped
2 to 3 oz Water Chestnuts, chopped
1/2 to 1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon ground Pepper
1 Egg, lightly beaten

Sweet and Sour sauce

32 oz Chicken Stock
1 medium Onion, cut into wedges
1 cup White Vinegar
1/4 cup Honey
1 large Bell Pepper, cut into bite sized pieces
2 tablespoons Corn Starch
2 tablespoons Soy Sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste

Garnish

Green Onions sliced or slivered
Sesame Seeds

Directions

Combine all of the meatball ingredients in a large bowl. Mix with your hands until well combined. Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to portion the meat and then roll into balls.  This recipe makes approximately 14 meatballs.  Heat a little olive oil over medium-high in a non-stick pan and brown the meatballs on all sides.  Do not remove meatballs from pan when done.

Now add the Chicken Stock and bring to a boil, then turn down to medium-low, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the onion and cook another 5 to 10 minutes.

In a small bowl combine the vinegar, honey and soy sauce. Add the corn starch to the vinegar mixture, mix in well.  Turn the heat back up to medium-high and add the vinegar mixture and the bell pepper.  You’ll want to bring this back up to a boil uncovered for about five minutes.  This will thicken the sauce and soften the bell pepper.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over rice or noodles.

Veggie Buffalo Wings

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Veggie Buffalo Wings by D Fenwick, http://dfenwickphotography.com

Veggie Buffalo Wings

News from the grapevine is that there’s a Superbowl this weekend.  To be honest, I’m not a sports fan, but I AM a food fan.  Unfortunately, this Snackasaurus can’t quite keep up like I used to, so I’m re-imagining the delicacies of my youth.   Tonight, we’ll start with Buffalo Wings.  This is a wonderful little recipe that will offer a vegetarian option of an old game day standard.  Enjoy!

First let’s make the blue cheese dip then the flavors can mingle while we work on the veggie “wings”:

1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp seasoned salt
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp turmeric
4 0z blue cheese (crumbled)
a bit of pepper to taste

Mix the sour cream and mayo together well, then blend in all the remaining ingredients. Cover and set aside.  Tip: I would recommend purchasing a wedge of blue cheese and crumbling yourself, but do whatever is easiest for you.  Additionally, I add turmeric to just about everything – it helps with arthritis in my fingers, and Alzheimer studies have shown its benefits to the brain.  Win win in my book!

Veggie “Wings”

Cauliflower florets (bite size)
Baby carrots (halved lengthwise)
Parsnips (cut like French frie wedges)
Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce
1 cup water
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
Baking spray

Heat oven to 450 deg F.  Wash, dry and cut your vegetables.  If there are other vegetables that you prefer and roast well in the oven then definitely go for those – variety is the spice of life!

Now for the production line – in a bowl mix your water, flour and salt well.  Then prepare a roasting pan, or cookie sheet with parchment paper OR a Silpat baking mat.  In small batches place your veggies into the flour mixture, shake off excess batter then place on baking sheet.  Allow space between all your veggies.  (It’s best to just use your fingers, wielding spoons for this stage is a waste of time.)

When your pan is full take your baking spray and lightly spray across the tops to get them a little crunchy.  Bake in oven for approximately 12 mins or until veggies begin to brown.  (My oven is convection, so you may have to adjust to your oven type).  When they begin to brown, remove from oven and place veggies into a bowl, add enough Wing Sauce to coat lightly, and return to baking pan, then oven.  Set the “wing sauce bowl” aside, you’ll be using it again!  Cook until sauce begins to bubble on the veggies, about 3-4 minutes.

Remove from oven and return to the bowl of wing sauce.  Lightly coat the veggies again and serve immediately with blue cheese dip.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie

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Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie by D Fenwick, http://dfenwickphotography.com

Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie

 

It’s 5:00pm.  It’s been “one of those days”.  Your butt would be dragging except it’s cushioned in the car seat and your on your way home.  Thoughts soon turn to dinner.  You want something easy, but it needs to be healthy too!

Such was our situation as we ambled into the grocery store.   We walked out with the fixin’s for a one dish dinner that satisfied all our needs – and it’s non-dairy!

Ingredients:

1 Rotisserie Chicken from the grocery store (we chose “Savory” spiced)
1 bag of your favorite frozen vegetables
2 to 3 cups mashed potatoes (Instant are fine as are left overs, we used mashed white sweet potatoes – WAY better fiber and vitamin content)
3 cups chicken stock
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons flour
3/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
3/4 teaspoon dried thyme
Salt and Pepper to taste

Over medium low heat, pour 3 cups of chicken stock into a large skillet and add one beaten egg.  Whisk to combine well, then mix in 2 tablespoons flour.  Stir frequently until it starts to bubble and thicken.

If you don’t already have leftover mashed potatoes, it’s time to get your potatoes going too – and instant is well, nearly instant!  Get ’em ready, they’re going to be needed shortly.

Next add the bag of vegetables (they’ve been defrosting on your counter, but if they’re still hockey pucks you can place the bag in lukewarm water to thaw a little). While the mixture comes back to a simmer, strip the meat off of your chicken and cut into bite sized pieces.  We remove the majority of the skin from the pieces, true enough the skin has the most flavor, but it also has the majority of the fat – but if your long day calls for chicken skin then roll with it!

Add your chicken pieces to the skillet. When the mixture comes back to a simmer taste a wee bit to see how much salt and pepper to use then add accordingly. Stir well.  Turn off the heat and put the mixture into a 9 x 9 baking dish. Top with the mashed potatoes and cook at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Be sure to put a cookie sheet on the lower rack to catch the liquid that is likely to bubble over. Turn your oven to broil and broil until lightly browned on top.

Enjoy!

 

Spice Trek……..Operation: Annihilate!

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Spices

 

Chef’s log, bottle date unknown.  During a routine mission into the cabinet-nebula spices have been found faded, tasteless, as if some force has changed their very nature. Our mission is one of rescue and, if necessary, extermination of expired contents.

I have a confession to make, my spice cabinet had become so crammed full of spice bottles I had to start storing new ones in a second cabinet.  Then, regularly used spices bottles were kept on the countertop.  It was a horror.  In total 104 bottles of spices “littered” my kitchen.  With the resolve of a starship captain on an away mission of discovery I bushwhacked my way into the unknown.

I was surprised to find that I had not one, or two, but 4 spice bottles of celery (flake and/or seed), and I hate celery!  I was also astonished to uncover not two or four but SIX  bottles of allspice (2 whole, 4 ground).  One by one, I removed each bottle from its place and lined them all up neatly by spice or herb on the counter.  Then, with the help of McCormick’s Support Site I was able to remove 37 expired bottles from my collection.  Not all of my bottles were stamped with an expiration so the guidelines that McCormick’s provided was really helpful!  However, when all else fails, take a sniff.  If it doesn’t smell fresh or “clean”, throw it out.  Herbs and spices should delight our senses, from the bold color of curry to the sweet peppery odor of basil.

McCormick’s site recommends the following shelf life of herbs and spices:

• Ground Spices – 3 to 4 years
• Whole Spices – 4 years
• Leafy Herbs – 1 to 3 years
• Bottled Seasoning Blends – 1 to 2 years
• Extracts (Except Pure Vanilla) & Food Colors – 4 years
• Pure Vanilla – indefinitely
• Recipe Mixes (gravy, taco, etc.) – 2 years
• Marinades and Sauces – 12 to 24 months
• Seafood Box Mixes – 18 to 24 months

The greatest recipe known to man will fall flat if the herbs and spices used are outdated and tasteless.  Next time you change the batteries on your smoke alarm (that’s every year btw), or for the overachievers – each time your car gets an oil change, do a quick check of your spice cabinet so that every dish you make can be it’s yummiest.

 

Pecorino Crisps

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crisps

It’s been fairly cold in our neck of the woods and a big plate of spaghetti was calling to me, but I wanted something different than just a hunk o’garlic bread beside my plate.  So I tracked down this wonderful little recipe over at Pillsbury’s website called Herbs & Seeds Parmesan Crackers.

I altered the recipe to accommodate our wheat free, gluten free and bovine milk free household.  To do that I used Bob’s Red Mill Biscuit and Baking Mix which is wheat free, gluten free, and dairy free.  The texture is slightly grainy probably due to the bean flour, but it is delicious, and goes well with the silky gluten free rice pasta sold by Ronzoni.

Feel free to change out the herbs and seeds to better suit your palate!

2 Cups Bob’s Red Mill Biscuit and Baking Mix
1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 tablespoon crushed Rosemary
1 tablespoon Poppy Seeds
1 tablespoon Sesame Seeds
~ 1 cup of shredded Pecorino cheese
dried Basil
Sea Salt (we used pink Himalayan)

Place your baking sheet into the oven and preheat oven to 400F.

Prepare biscuit mix per instructions on back of the flour package.  You’ll then want to turn this mixture out onto a flat surface for it’s final mixing by hand with all your assorted sprinkles.  I covered my breadboard with a large sheet of freezer paper so I could keep the dough cold in the freezer while I did all the rolling & cooking of batches.  It also made moving the dough off the breadboard (to roll out the dough balls) much easier!

Sprinkle the garlic powder, rosemary, poppy seeds, sesame seeds and about half a cup of the pecorino over the dough.  Mix well by hand.  Now it’s time to roll out the crisps.  Note: My baking sheet is small so I rolled 3 crisps at a time, adjust your count by the equipment you have available.

Cover your breadboard with parchment paper.  Roll dough balls in your hand approximately 1-inch in diameter and place onto this parchment spaced out for easy rolling.  Now cover these dough balls with a 2nd sheet of parchment and roll out using a rolling pin, can of soup, or bottle of wine.  I rolled mine ~1/8 to 1/4 inch.

Remove the top sheet of parchment, place onto your baking sheet, prick crisps with a fork, place in the oven and bake, check them in about 8 mins.  If they are as crisp as you want, remove, sprinkle with basil, salt and more cheese.  Enjoy the yumminess!