Lamb pita FTW!

Tonight's Menu

• tiny spiced lamb meatballs w/tzatziki
  
• whole-wheat pita
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Hey, so I cooked lamb for the first time ever tonight and it was surprisingly (because as you longtime readers know, I don't have such a great track record with kitchen experimentation) delicious! It almost tasted like I knew what I was doing! Weird!

What I did was take a couple of cloves of garlic and some fresh herbs from my garden (mostly parsley, with a bit of oregano and mint -- my mint is JUST NOW coming back from winter) and whiz them up in a little mini food processor that I always forget I have. It made a sort of paste, which I added to 1.5 pounds of ground lamb, some salt and pepper, dried cumin and coriander, chili powder, garam masala, an egg and some dry bread crumbs. I formed it into teeny tiny meatballs, using about a teaspoon of lamb mixture for each ball, and put them on a foil-lined baking sheet. Then I popped them in the oven at 400 degrees F for about 25 minutes. (Digression -- I ALWAYS bake my meatballs instead of frying them. It's so much easier, and there's less to clean up. Plus they are lower in fat, without the added oil and whatnot. Try it!)

Oh, people. They were so good! Really aromatic without any one spice overpowering another. I only wish I had measured the spices, so I'd know how much to tell you to use if you make this. You'll just have to wing it like I did!

I had never made tzatziki before tonight, either. I know! I love it and could eat it on just about anything, but I've never actually MADE it, and it was so easy! All I did was peel and grate a bit of cucumber (I used the seedless kind, but if you use the regular just scrape out the seeds before grating) onto a paper towel, then wrap it all up and squeeze it over the sink to get most of the water out. Then I dumped the cucumber into a bowl and added a couple of very finely minced garlic cloves, the juice of half a lemon, and a bit of EVOO. I tossed that around with a fork to combine, then stirred in about a cup of Greek-style yogurt (I found this at my local SuperTarget, believe it or not) and a wee bit of salt to taste. I refrigerated it for a few hours to let the flavors meld before serving. It was really good, but I used a WEE bit too much garlic, I think. I'm sort of breathing fire now. At least I don't have to worry about vampire attacks for the next few days. Hee!

The pita was purchased. I've heard it's easy to make and keep meaning to try it, but not tonight!

The salad bar was chopped romaine lettuce, sliced green onions, sliced carrots from the garden, and the last of the cherry tomatoes.

What I did, and no one else really followed my example, was fill my pita with chopped romaine, top that with some meatballs, and drizzle some tzatziki on top. It was pure heaven, people. Thank goodness there were leftovers!

Meatballs

Tonight's Menu

• "cocktail" meatballs
• steamed basmati rice
  
• steamed broccoli
  

Ack! Sorry for the dearth of posts last week. I'm feeling totally uninspired, food-wise. Grilled burgers and chops, sauteed trout, and various leftovers made up the bulk of our dinners for the past week.

Tonight, however, I was in the mood for my mom's cocktail meatballs. If you grew up in the '70s, particularly in the midwest, you have no doubt eaten this exact dish -- meatballs in a sauce made from grape jelly and bottled chili sauce. My mom usually made this in the crockpot on "card club night" and served the meatballs/sauce on their own, but you add a little rice underneath and that's a MEAL, baby!

Incidentally, if you want to make meatballs from scratch but are afraid it will be a huge pain in the ass, fear not! The way I make them is dead easy. Just take a pound of ground meat (I use beef, but you could do turkey or whatever) and mix it up with the usual breadcrumbs, egg, seasonings, etc. I use a gallon-sized plastic zipper bag to mix everything -- just dump in the ingredients, press out the air (very important!), seal it and knead the hell out of it until all the ingredients are mixed. Then I use a little cookie scoop thing, like a miniature ice-cream scoop, to form the mixture into balls right from the bag. Line a baking sheet (one with a rim around the sides) with tin foil, shiny side DOWN (or use Reynold's Release -- I freakin' LOVE that stuff), stick the meatballs on it and bake them in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes. Super easy with no messy hands or grease spatters from a skillet! You can make these way ahead of time and freeze them for later use, if you want.

The sauce, as I said, is just grape jelly (6 to 8 ounces) and a bottle of chili sauce (like the Heinz stuff they sell next to the ketchup). Heat them together in either a large pot or a crockpot until the jelly melts, dump in the meatballs and heat them through, and you're done!