Mango Basil Meatballs

Looking at the week ahead, I opted for some red meat for dinner. Local beef from a nearby dairy farm, but hamburger nonetheless. Meatballs. Served as? Not sure. But it won't involve red sauce or pasta since we had that for lunch and it's too late in the game to make brown rice.

Betty Crocker's Meatball recipe is this:
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 1 egg

Mix. Make 1.5 inches balls. Cook in 13x9x2 inch rectangular pan at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

But we all know I can't follow a recipe. I swapped the rectangular dish for my Le Creuset skillet.

Here are my ingredients:
- 1 package (I hope it's) 1 pound ground beef
- 1/2 cup crumbled Matzoh
(now my meat was frozen and I thawed it in the microwave and it got juicy, then the Matzoh was too big, so I tossed it all in and improvised)
- 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
- 1/2 cup mango coconut pepper sauce (to replace the milk, but I misread the amount)
- 1/2 teaspoon four color organic peppercorn
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground garlic salt
- 10 leaves fresh basil from the garden, torn
- 1 egg

They "feel" "right."

Will keep you posted.

They were incredible!

Trail Matzo

Gayle suggested slathering my leftover matzo with butter, adding chocolate and walnuts and baking it in the oven for a Girl Scout style trail snack.

I made a sauce of 3.5 ounces intense dark chocolate, 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, one stick butter, and one cup peanut butter. I added about 3 tablespoons dried strawberries and about half a cup candied ginger, torn into chunks.

I put the matzo on cookie sheets and added the chocolate, then I added walnuts and baked at 350 for five minutes.

I should have sprinkled the strawberries and ginger on top with the walnuts instead of in the sauce. I didn't use enough. If I did it in the sauce thinking it would allow the ginger to blend into the chocolate. We'll see.

It worked well, but next time, I'm going to spread the chocolate and the goodies more evenly.

Soup and Matzo

My husband came home the other day with a box of Matzo. Today for lunch, I took a can of cheapo vegetable soup and dressed it up. Added a cup or so of soup vegetables, about 1/2 cup peas, 1 cup french cut green beans. Diluted with the requisite can of water AND added about a cup of beef vegetable stock from the roast last week. Yes, I freeze everything.

The original soup came from Aldi.