Marjorie Approved Turkey Meatballs

Soooooo, never leaving anything alone, I have a new Turkey Meatball recipe

There are three things to remember
1)  Fresh ground turkey, no frozen chubs.  I prefer turkey from The Turkey Store (Go Barron WI), but you can use other.
2)  You MUST cook by temperature - once the meatballs hit 150, off the heat they go.  At 170 they turn into dry disgusting balls of sawdust.  Under 150 you risk food poisoning.  So get a Thermapen.
3)  Seasoning is your friend - low fat means you need lots of seasoning.  Under season and they are boringly bland

Ingredients
1 lb fresh ground turkey (I use 93/7 - you can use 99/1, but that is pretty dry stuff
8 ounces fresh mushrooms
1/2 onion
1 stalk celery
Garlic (you can use fresh, or use Penzeys Roasted Garlic)
Seasoning as appropriate (depending on if you want Italian, Asian, Swedish, or other style meatballs). For Italian I like Penzeys Tuscan Sunset and for Asian the Sate seasoning.
Salt
Pepper

Sauce of choice, depending on style of meatballs

Recipe
Finely dice onion, celery and mushrooms
Saute onion, celery and 1/2 the mushrooms.  Season with salt and pepper, and whatever seasoning your using.  Cook till soft, then cool.
Spread cooked veg on plate, spread turkey of the top
Spread rest of mushrooms on top of turkey, salt, pepper, season with seasoning
Mix together, but not too much.  Compress the turkey, you get blech

At this point I like to make a quarter size piece of the meatballs (squished flat) and cook, to check the seasoning.  Then adjust seasonings if necessary and cook the rest

Heat pan  medium (I use teflon, just spray oil)
Make meatballs and begin to brown
Once meatballs are brown on two sides (but not cooked yet), I add sauce and turn temp down to low. The idea is that the sauce will bring the temp of the meatballs up slowly to 160, making it hard to overcook.  Remember - at 150 they come off the stove.  Residual heat will bring them to 155

Serve - I like using Rosarios Spaghetti Sauce over Zucchini noodles.

Marjorie Approved

Pasta Salad

This may be vegetarian, but it is not exactly low fat or low calorie.  Not high calorie, but not diet food.

I put this together as a side/vegetarian option for a family dinner.  I know - vegetarians hate salads as their dinner option - nothing says we really don't care about you like making great food for the meat eaters and foisting off some dreck to the non meat eaters.

Well, sometimes life makes you salad.  This one is pretty good, and satisfied our vegie.

Salad Fixings
1 Red pepper - sliced
1 Yellow pepper - sliced
1 can black olives, drained and sliced
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and rinsed
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups fresh green beans, cooked and cut in half
12 oz cherry tomatoes, halved

Pasta
16 oz cooked pasta - my preference is whole grain/high fiber - be sure to not overcook - whole grain pasta overcooked is very unpleasant

Dressing
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp mixed seasoning - basil/thyme/marjoram
3 garlic cloves minced
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 ground pepper
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (1 large or 2 small lemons, juiced)
2 tbs honey

Recipe
Mix all dressing ingredients, whisk.  Let sit at least 1/2 hour
Pour over all salad fixings except pasta
Let marinate for at least an hour, mixing vegies and dressing several times
Mix in Pasta, toss repeatedly
Serve

Butternut Squash and Shrimp Pasta

You know what happens when your internet goes down?  You lose all your recipes.

Since I have basically packed up all my books and now use only the internet for recipes, it’s a little odd to cook when you just can’t look something up immediately.  So last night when I was trying to cook dinner and the internet went out I was stuck going, how is this going to work?

It worked pretty well.  Low calorie, low fat.  Good Tasting.  Serves four.

Ingredients

1 lb shrimp, thawed and peeled

1 butternut squash, peeled, small dice

1 can diced tomatoes (not drained)

1 onion, fine dice

4 cloves of garlic, diced, two piles

½ lemon

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed

4 oz whole wheat pasta, variety your choice

1 can vegetable or chicken stock

1 tbs Italian Seasoning

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Fresh grated Parmesan, 1 oz

2 tsp olive oil

Recipe

Toss thawed, peeled shrimp in bowl with juice of ½ lemon, 1 tsp olive oil and 2 cloves of garlic crushed.  Let marinate.

Boil squash till almost tender, drain

At same time boil pasta till almost cooked, drain

Sauté onion in 1 tsp olive oil

When onion is translucent, add garlic and Italian seasoning, sauté for 3 minutes

Add squash, tomatoes, beans, pasta, stock to onions, bring to low boil

Stir in shrimp, cover, cook for 5 minutes

Season with salt and pepper to taste

Serve with fresh parm grated on top

No need for the shrimp if you don't want to.  If you wanted to throw some fresh spinach in when you added the shrimp, that would be good to.  Frozen peas would be a fine addition also.  To make it a more complete meal I served it with roasted cauliflower.

Beans and Pasta (Pasta e fagioli)

Growing up my parents provided a wide and varied table.  No jello salad - we had things like Turkey Ballotine or risotto or a hundred other dishes that, trust me, were not common in the rural midwest.

However, one thing that was not common (or ever) was pairing pasta with beans.  Pasta e fagioli in Italian.  Which is to bad - because it took me a long time before I put the two together, and let me tell you, it is a great dish.  Inexpensive, quick, varied, vegetarian (vegan, if you like).

Now this dish can be made soup like or dry - I, because I am not a huge soup fan, always make it dry.  But anyway you do it, it is great.

Looks and Tastes Great

Basically dirt simple.  Cook beans, cook pasta, mix.  Add whatever else you want.

The above dish is a little more complicated (and not very healthy, truth be told).  But really good.

Ingredients
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained.  You can use any white bean in it's place also
1 can diced italian (or not) tomatoes, drained
4 cloves of garlic, pealed and minced (don't use out of jar, please)
1 tbs Italian Seasoning from Penzey's
4 oz cured olives (order from Cresp, save yourself some money)
8 oz high fiber pasta
2 oz pesto (tastes great without it - if not using pesto, feel free to aggressively use fresh ground pepper)
Parmesan Cheese to taste (grate it fresh please, no jars)
Olive oil
1 lemon, quartered

Recipe
Mix beans, tomatoes, italian seasoning and garlic with olive oil (at least 1 tbs, if not 2)
Roast in 350 degree oven for at least 20 minutes on a foil lined baking sheet.  The longer you go, the more dried out and nutty the garbanzos will be.
Cook pasta in salted boiling water - DO NOT OVERCOOK.  High fiber pasta is terrible overcooked.  I mean feed it to the chickens bad.
Drain pasta, mix with pesto and a tbs olive oil
When Beans are cooked, mix with beans/tomatoes on baking sheet, plus the olives, put back in oven for 5 minutes to let flavors meld.  Add more olive oil if it needs it.
Serve with fresh Parmesan and lemon - a squeeze of lemon really adds some nice acidity to the beans and pasta, which need it as there is a lot of fat on them.

Really quite a good dish.  Not diet friendly.  If you skip the parm, it's vegan.  Of course this is a fine dish to put sausage or chicken or shrimp in also