Italian Meatballs... my way!

Last night meatballs were on the menu for dinner. I made enough meatballs and sauce to make meatball hoagies and spaghetti and meatballs. They were fabulous as usual. My recipe is very easy, no fancy footwork involved to make these. Easy and tasty is my recipe for success!

Italian Meatballs

2 lbs ground beef
1 cup Italian bread crumbs
1 egg
1 tsp oregano
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1 Tbsp fresh basil (chopped)
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all in a bowl (I find it easiest to mix with my hands, so either wash really really good or wear powderless gloves to mix) until all is mixed thoroughly. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll into balls. Bake on broiler pan (so any grease goes to the bottom and your meatballs do not cook in it, it helps to hold their shape and not to taste greasy) for 30 minutes. Add to favorite sauce or soup.

Serving Suggestions:
- You can make meatball sandwiches, and garnish with some grated parmesan or mozzarella cheese



- Serve with favorite pasta and cheese, such as spaghetti and meatballs (one of my family favorites)



These can be frozen and last longest when vacuum sealed in bags. Just add frozen meatballs to pasta sauce in a crockpot to heat them right up for dinner.

Corny Fried Chicken

Corny Fried Chicken is one of my creations using corn meal in the fried chicken batter. I wanted something different than standard fried chicken and started putting things in the bowl to give my chicken some great flavor. A touch of cinnamon gives it a really nice flavor that goes well with the paprika, garlic, and corn meal (which are the main flavors in my opinion). Just give this a try, it is very good for fried chicken.

Corny Fried Chicken

1 fryer chicken cut into pieces
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup corn meal
1 tsp granulated garlic, or you can use one clove garlic minced
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp cooking oil
Vegetable oil for frying

Boil the chicken pieces for about 20 minutes.

Mix together flour, corn meal, garlic, paprika, pepper, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder. In a separate bowl, beat the egg; add milk and cooking oil. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well with wire whisk.

Pat the chicken dry with paper towels. Heat oil to 360 degrees. Dip chicken pieces in batter and fry about 3-4 minutes or until golden brown. Fry a 3-4 pieces at a time. Let drain on paper towels, serve hot.

Notes:
- For a little extra kick, add some dried or prepared mustard to batter.
- Make sure the oil is hot enough before adding the chicken, or else the batter will absorb more grease and it will be greasy. Test oil with a couple drops of water, if they sizzle and pop, the oil is ready.

Danish Aebelskiver From Melinda Lee's Great Site

This is a cool recipe I found on this site Melinda Lee's page for Aebelskiver and then I used my own homemade raspberry jam for one filling and my homemade applesauce for the other filling. We just wanted something different for breakfast one day, and I had just seen something about these little gems on Food Network. I thought I have one of those pans, that looks fun for the kids while preparing something different than the same old pancakes or waffles. They went over big! It is some extra work but they tasted so good. Just visit Melinda Lee's site, she has all kinds of great foods on there, this particular page takes you to her Aebelskiver recipe.

Here is the pan you use:

You can get one of these at Aebelskiver Pan page from Cre8tive Kitchen Store. They come in cast iron, or aluminum. Cast iron is better and they are not expensive at all.

With the raspberry filling, I sprinkled them with powdered sugar and garnished with more raspberry jam, you can also put a little dollop of whipped cream on the side also.


With the applesauce filling, I made a crumb topping with some butter, brown sugar and a little cinnamon. It carmelizes over the hot aebelskiver and then you can serve some additional applesauce on the side. Caramel would probably be really good with them to make a dessert aebelskiver too. Then some whipped cream wouldn't hurt either.


Just check out Melinda Lee's site for more great ideas for all sorts of great recipes and then check out my store for the kitchen tools needed to pull off some of her recipes.

Fast Peanut Butter Cup Cake

I know all about the peanut butter scare but I did my homework with my peanut butter when I made this cake for work in January. Happy to say that no one that ate this cake got sick and it had quite a bit of peanut butter products in it (a silent YAY me going on here for no one getting sick). Anyway, this is such a decadent looking and tasting cake that no one would ever know that it came from a cake mix rather than homemade. I know it is almost like blasphemy to not make my cakes all homemade but when making for alot of people with not much time, this would be the second way to go. I did make the peanut butter frosting homemade, no store bought frosting here.

Fast Peanut Butter Cup Cake

2 boxes of chocolate cake mix (I used dark chocolate cake mixes for a double layer sheet cake)
1 batch of peanut butter frosting (recipe follows)
1 10 oz bag of peanut butter cups (chopped)

Prepare cakes according to box directions. Let cool, frost bottom layer with peanut butter frosting, then a layer of chopped up peanut butter cups. Place top layer onto bottom layer and frost tops and sides of cake. Put the rest of the chopped peanut butter cups around the sides of cake to give a more decadent look. Refrigerate cake.

(Disregard the uncreative decorating, it was a cake for work for January birthdays; this is how the sides should look after placing peanut butter cups onto cake, I probably could have used more peanut butter cups though.. oh well I will remember that for next time)

Suggestions:
- To make a round layer cake for less people, use one box of cake mix prepared for a double layer cake, cut the frosting recipe in half.

Peanut Butter Frosting

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
5-7 Tbsp milk (use enough until desired consistency is reached)

Beat the peanut butter until very smooth, gradually beat in powdered sugar, add vanilla. Then add milk 1 Tbsp at a time until desired consistency is reached. Frost cake.