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

Leek and Potato Soup - 100 calories a cup!

I like this soup in the fall when leeks are cheap.  As in 69 cents each.  When they are $2.69 each, I don't like them as much.  Plus, they are cheap when potatoes are cheap also - 50 cents a lb - so a big win on the budget front.

To determine calories, you must of course base it on what you use.  Your calorie count will vary...

Ingredients

Leeks (3 @54 calories each, 162 calories total)
Yukon Gold Potatoes, peeled (18 ounces @ 26 calories per ounce, 468 calories total)
Swanson or Progresso Chicken Broth, low sodium (8 cups, 15 cal per cup, 120 calories total).  Or go with vegetable broth.
1 cup water (free)
salt and pepper to taste (free)
Thyme to taste (free)

Yields 8 cups, so 94 calories per cup with what I used.

Cut the dark green portions of the leeks off, slice in half the long way, then slice fine.  Put in a big pot of water and swish around to get the dirt out of them.  Drain.

Add to big pot and sweat (that is, cook at low to medium heat till they soften).  You don't need oil, butter or anything else.  They will release moisture as they cook down.  Salt with about a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of pepper.

Peel and slice potatoes into 1/4 thick slices.  I do it this way because they then cook evenly no matter how big the potato is - every slice cooks at the same speed.

When leeks have gotten soft (10 to 15 minutes), add potatoes, thyme, broth and water.  Cook at medium until potatoes are soft

Put half at a time into a blender, blend till smooth - be careful and put a towel over the blender and don't fill it more than 1/2 way - to much is a good way of blowing the top off, burning yourself and painting the walls with the soup.

When pureed, serve.  Good hot, good cold.

Carrot Cake Muffins

Well, carrots are healthy right?  So Carrot Cake Muffins are healthy right?

Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhtttttttt

Well, perhaps not so much.

Picture is not the best - they really are more like the center one in color.  Of course after Marjorie got done putting the cream cheese frosting on, they were all white on top.

Creme cheese is dairy, right?  And dairy is healthy, right?

Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhtttttttt

Well, at least it was reduced fat creme cheese.  And of course sugar comes from corn.  And corn is healthy, right?

Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhtttttttt

Well, here they are with the creme cheese frosting - a little melty.

Anyway - Food made of Love from daughter #3, Marjorie

Pretty tasty - and she even went out to get me cofffee to go with them.

Recipe is from Smitten Kitchen.  No changes - but Mags made them.  Click on the link if you would like to make them also.

Low Calorie, Low Fat, Low Carb - Great Tasting Pizza

As anyone on a diet can tell you, pizza is terrible for you.

The crust is a big pile of sugar, the cheese is full of fat (as are many of the ingredients) and you eat way to much of it at one sitting.  But it tastes so good!

Most diet options are bad options that don't really satisfy the craving for pizza.

The hardest place to start is the crust - most diet crusts are not really crusts, and don't really satisfy.  We just found one that does - a thin crust, whole heat, low fat, low sugar pre-made crust - from Wisconsin!

Golden Home Bakery makes a 100% whole grain, thin thin thin pizza crust.  One serving - which is a third of the pizza, not a tiny slice, is 130 calories, 1.5g fat, 25g carb, 4 g fiber and only 1 gram sugar.  Not great for you, but really pretty good.

The best part is - it tastes great!  I mean it is a good crust that holds up well and is a real "cracker" crust - which is my favorite.

Smear on a little sauce (go edge to edge - if you don't the edges get too crispy), add toppings (go cooked onions and mushrooms, thin sliced tomatoes, a little italian sausage (turkey or chicken!), some basil from the garden, a dusting of cheese (just a dusting - no layering it on), some penzey's pizza seasoning - bake for 12-14 minutes at 450 degrees...Tastes great.  I mean it really does.

You can have pizza and not kill your diet.  Purchased at Gordy's in Eau Claire - Birch Street.