Sometimes, all you need in life are meatballs. Recently, I read this article about how to change your life with meatballs, and it got me thinking about all the time I spend rushing through life and haphazardly flailing from point A to point B, whether A is the moment I wake up and B is a chaotic Monday morning at work or A is where I am and B is where I want to be. How much better would life be if I could actually learn to embrace the messy, ambiguous in-betweenness and enjoy the moment I am in right now with the person/people in my company right now, whatever the circumstance? Why is it that I allow clean, folded (and PUT AWAY) laundry dictate my sense of calm and a busier, fuller schedule puff up my sense of self? It’s all bass-ackwards, just like our culture and my whacked-out prioritization habits.
Let me be brazenly honest here: the food photographs and recipes you see are only a small, edited, picturesque glimpse of my very crazy, messy, one-day-at-a-time, lifestyle. If you know me, you already know that, but if you don’t, I just wanted to get that squared away. I am not the perfect housewife who rushes home from work to reapply makeup and make a 3 course, candlelit dinner for my husband. (Sorry, Marshall) Real life: My husband is in the kitchen at this very moment, wearing ski goggles as he chops up an onion (I kid you not), working hard on a recipe for my grandmother’s goulash that I have (most likely illegibly…) jotted down in my beloved Moleskine recipe journal. He is an amazing, thorough, direction-follower, and I just throw things together and fix them, fix them some more, and try my damndest to write down what I’m doing! So really, Gouramanda is a covert ploy to get me out of cooking and get my husband to do it….”Hey, all the recipes are on my blog! You plan the meals this week!” I may or may not be kidding.
The true impetus behind my blog is actually you. If the cooking process doesn’t come naturally to you/ totally stresses you out, I got you covered. And guess what, the more you do it, the less you will need me! In teaching, we call this “scaffolding,” where students “lean and then wean” off of what you teach them. Yes, I just made a teaching reference; you know you love it. My infatuation with cooking sprouted from a “Food Network” obsession in high school, and it continued (and continues) to blossom from there. Messy, learn-and-love-as-you-go, blossoming without a point B in sight! Buen provecho!
- 1.25 pounds ground turkey, lean
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ yellow onion, minced
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- juice and zest of ½ small lemon
- ½ cup panko bread crumbs
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground pepper
- ½ teaspoon ground coriander
- a few mint leaves, chopped
- ¼ cup mozzarella or romano cheese
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- Other ingredients/garnish (optional):
- cooked Israeli couscous
- sliced tomatoes
- sliced cucumbers
- fresh mint
- feta cheese
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Mix all ingredients (except for olive oil) together with your hands in a large bowl. Form about 8-10 medium sized (a little bigger than a golf ball) meatballs.
- Heat olive oil in a large, ovenproof skillet over medium heat. Cook meatballs, searing about 2 minutes on each "side." Place skillet in oven for 20 minutes.
- Serve meatballs over couscous with cucumbers, tomatoes, and easy tzatzaki! Top with feta cheese if desired.
- 2 cups greek yogurt
- 1 English cucumber, peeled and diced
- juice and zest of 1 lemon
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon good extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon fresh dill, chopped
- 1 teaspoon fresh mint, chopped
- ⅛ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Combine all ingredients together in a medium bowl!
Leave a Reply