Veg-full meatballs

I made these incredible meatballs tonight: 16 ping pong sized meatballs baked at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Mix:

- 1 pound 80/20 ground beef

- about 1 cup chopped kale

- about 1/2 cup chopped zucchini

- about 1/2 cup diced peppers (mixed colors)

- about four tablespoons parsley

- about 1 teaspoon garlic pepper

- about 4 ounces crumbled Bulgarian feta

It was a little wet so I added 1/4 cup breadcrumbs. 

Easy breakfast

I worked 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. after having 4 days off... I'm trying to eat cleaner after falling into bad habits (using all of my calories left for the day to eat food that doesn't exactly have nutritional vale-- like a beer or a chocolate or salty snacks).

I wanted to eat something before I got locked away in my little room... (Cash office at Target). 

So I toasted half an English muffin, spread less than a tablespoon of cream cheese on it, sprinkled on a little Bulgarian feta and topped it with a sliced medjool date.

A little bit of everything thing

Last night I walked to the neighborhood "corner store," a place full of candy and oddities.

I got a soursop smoothie that child and I split as part of our massive but healthy breakfast before she heads out to the amusement park with her grandparents.

This coupled with big glasses of water and the following constituted our "this might be all the fruits and veggies you get for the day" breakfast:

- medjool dates 

- half a banana, sliced in banana split fashion to serve as bread for peanut butter and imported Turkish "crushing nuts" with honey (crushed nuts = pistachio, hazelnut, apricot kernel and peanuts)

- salad tacos, both with one six inch flour tortilla and about 1/2 cup of iceberg garden salad mix and 1/2 cup green and crisp salad mix and about 3/4 ounce Bulgarian feta. Hers had Annie's Goddess dressing. Mine had hummus.

Garden omelet with feta

Using up leftovers, so these chunky omelets used everything up. Family loved them, but they wouldn't have been so yummy without the feta.

Serves 3.

Whisk in bowl:
- 5 eggs (last ones from the farm)
- about 3 tablespoons water
Add:
- about 3 cups torn greens from the garden. I used sorrel, lettuce, escarole, and basil.
Stir and toss in hot skillet, generously oiled with extra virgin olive oil.
When the omelet firms on the bottom but still gooey on the inside sprinkle
- about one cup crumbled feta
Once it's mostly firm, fold it over and cut it three
This is when I maniacally flip mine back and forth to make sure the egg cooks all the way through

Mediterranean Feast

It's close to 100 degrees. I did a lot of work today, and it's my husband's busy time of year at work. So I opted for zaatar bread and feta for dinner from Forks Mediterranean Deli.

Now, the busier they are in that slice of heaven, the more I buy. Today I went in for their cold pressed extra virgin olive oil from Beirut, feta and their homemade zaatar bread. I didn't see their homemade zaatar bread so I got their bakery zaatar.

I got a pound of fresh Greek feta ($5.94). They also have Bulgarian and French feta.

Zaatar bread was $3.75 a pack for 2 approximately 12-inch breads. I got two. They freeze well.

The olive oil was $5.99 for 16 ounces.

Then I started adding on:
- hummus, about a pound, $4.31
- madjool dates, more than a half-pound $3.90
- 6 pieces of baklava, $3.36
- less than a half pound of roasted red pepper dip (mouhammara), $2.41
- pitted camaratta olives, 1/4 pound, $1.44
- dried strawberries, about a 1/2 pound, $3.57

Spinach feta middle eastern sandwich

An incredible vegetarian lunch today. We warmed our last zaatar (spelling?) bread from Forks mediterranean Deli and added feta and sautéed spinach.

For the spinach, I heated a tablespoon of butter and some garlic in the Le Creuset iron skillet, tossed in the spinach and added about 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper. Probably 1.5 cups frozen spinach.

Steak stuffed with feta and apples

This is what I'm attempting for tonight's dinner with my dad and stepmom:

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/09/crockpot-flank-steak-stuffed-with-apple.html

Of course, being me, I have deviated from the recipe.

It's 7 a.m. and I have just set 4 pieces of sirloin tip steak to marinate in the crock pot reservoir in the fridge. I made my marinade with:
- somewhere around 1/3 cup honey
- 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinaigrette dressing

I came home about 12:30 and embarked upon the stuffing. Her recipe calls for one golden delicious apple, "one half block" of feta, something like 1/3 cup chopped almonds and two cloves garlic. I had more steaks than her, but she said she had leftover stuffing. Now, my stepmom doesn't like garlic...

So I mixed:
- About 3/4 cup feta (instinct says I should have used more)
- two gala apples
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- about 3/4 teaspoon minced garlic (the jar kind)

And I eliminated the nuts. Cheese and meat are enough protein. The nuts can't add that much texture...

I rolled about a large handful and a half of stuffing into each steak and returned it to the juice in the crockpot and put the crockpot on high. Then I tossed some extra stuffing on top. I planned to reduce the heat to low when I get home from my meeting, which will probably be after school at 3:30.

There was also a lovely raspberry, spring mix, feta, raisin and sesame stick salad...

Salad again...

Since it's amazingly hot today, I opted for quick salads for dinner, especially since my daughter didn't finish her lunch and had snacks at the neighbors and said she didn't want dinner. But she needed some fruit and/or vegetables.

So salad. With crumbled tomato and basil feta, raisins and organic ranch dressing. And a side of dried fruit (raisins, dates, papaya, strawberries, pineapple), cashews and peanuts.

But tell me... How do they manage to suck all the nutritional value out of dried fruit? That urks me. Especially since it's yummy.

Salad and peorogies

Tonight we had salad with peorogies for dinner.

For salad:
The last of a romaine bagged salad with shredded carrots, some green leaf lettuce, and cucumbers with ranch for the kid and ginger-sesame vinaigrette for the adult.

Food You Can Feel Good About (Wegmans store brand) Spinach-Feta Peorogies, which I fried in the Le Creuset skillet in a mix of olive oil, canola oil and butter.

The family loved it. Lots of vitamin A, iron, protein and fiber too.

Dill Peorogies

I had my big work event yesterday, and didn't get any food at the party, so my husband got me a couple of pizzas from Papa Johns. We had buy one get one free coupons.

We had pizza for breakfast, too.

For dinner tonight my daughter is having her leftover Mexican and a side of spinach feta peorogies from Wegmans. I'm going to fry them in oil with butter and fresh dill.

My first cheese flight

Yesterday we spent the day with good friends... Sometimes there are people that you don't see often or haven't seen much, but you know that the mix will work and it doesn't take long to get everyone laughing... I hope that's the way our hosts feel about yesterday. Two families, five kids. We were supposed to have dinner and watch a movie but we never quite made it out of the kitchen... And the kids played for seven hours I believe with only one minor injury forgotten quickly enough...

My job was to bring wine. I selected a Barton & Guestier Vouvray, my staple in the cheap but delectable French wine department, and a Beaujolais-Villages from Beaune (Joseph Durhin, I believe) because my normal Beaujolais was on sale and therefore sold out. I also added a sparkling raspberry wine, a cheap wine but one our family likes for something bubbly and fun. The tab at the liquor store was $32.

But then I went to Wegmans. And they had the slate cheese board I'm wanted on sale... And since we eat more cheese than meat in this house, I went for it. It was a slate cheese board so you can write the name of the cheese on it...

My goal was to purchase some fun cheeses that wouldn't be offensive to the children, but yet still be exotic and inexpensive. For budgeting purposes, I considered the expense similar to eating out, since our hosts would be providing dinner ( a delectable feast of salad, Russian baked chicken, rice and beans, bread, cookies, and the cake shown above is the hearty Russian equivalent of apple pie. )

And while I may be frugal, I love good food and I love sharing good food with friends.

Not pictured above is my last loaf of homemade multigrain bread and the little pre-made baguettes my hostess made. And note to self: her kids love crackers. If I every need a gift for them, I'm buying crackers at the warehouse club.

First, in the totally unnecessary splurge department, I bought imported French triple cream butter. It was on sale for $3.99 a half-pound. Consider I normally pay $1.50 for a whole pound for the American substance we call butter, but hey, it's the holidays and I wanted to see if it was good. And it was. Worth the price? I don't know but that's why I call it a splurge.

Next was a cute triangle of Brie de Nangis. It was $2.40 and tiny. But the folks at the cheese shop said the flavor would fall between the medium brie and the intense/earthy brie. I don't like intense brie, but I do like medium brie and I consider myself a cheese sissy for not liking the "intense" cheeses. So I thought this was worth a try. It was delicious.

I checked out the Roquefort for fun, but the smallest piece was a $70 half wheel. Not fun.

I checked out the goat cheeses and purchased an ubiquitous lump of French feta. I'm not sure if it was actually French, or simply made in the French-style, but I bought it. $3.36. My receipt says it was Valbreso. Some internet research suggests that it's a sheep's milk cheese made with the milk leftover from the production of Roquefort.

I then moved to the port salut and selected a Chaumes ($4.35). Because I like Chaumes. According to Cheese.com:

"One of the most popular cheeses in France, produced by the Fromageries des Chaumes, one of the most famous and the biggest cheesemaking company. The soft rind is bright tangerine-orange and the interior is smooth, supple and quite rubbery. The nutty, almost meaty taste and aroma are mild. Affinage takes four weeks. It is used as a table cheese and also for grilling."

According to Wikipedia: "a cow's milk cheese from Périgord (South West of France), made by traditional cheese-making processes. Translated literally, "chaumes" is French for stubble."

And finally the American addition: a big wedge of New York champagne cheddar, $5.66.