Meatballs with Prunes

Last night I suggested this to my husband and like a twelve year old boy who thinks prunes are just for old people with bathroom trouble he said, "That sounds gross". Now I admit it sounds better in French Boulet aux Pruneaux which is how I read it in a French cookbook, so I knew right away that this would be delicious.

It was quite simple to make and we had most of the ingredients on hand. Including the prunes, which my husband asked me to buy, specifically because he wanted to eat more foods favored by old people so that he could avoid eventual bathroom trouble. He ended up admitting that this was a wonderful combination, and that he had fallen victim to what he thinks is a very American misconception about not mixing "good for you" with "good". It does seem that a lot of the time we think in order to be healthy we have to be sacrificing, and if something is rich and delicious it must be an indulgence, something to feel guilty about. I think my favorite part of this whole project is discovering how much rich, delicious, "decadent" food I have been able to eat, while losing weight and feeling healthier. I don't assign any of my mental energy to worrying about how much fat, or how many calories are in any of the recipes. I make no substitutions based on cutting fat or calories. I don't concern myself with how many carbs I'm consuming, or what my carb-to-protein ratio is. Primarily my concerns are, using up the vegetables that come in my CSA box before they go bad, using my time wisely to make sure we have food made when we need it, and so I am not cooking all. the. time. Since I see every ingredient that goes into everything I'm never taken by surprise or tricked into thinking something is healthier than it is. And honestly, I think it is hard to make food that is truly bad for you when you are pretty much working with things that were grown from the ground, or fed from the ground, rather than conjured in a lab. Oh dear, I'm starting to sound like a preachy zealot... suffice it to say, this is working out nicely for me, I'm learning a ton,  eating lots of wonderful food and really not missing much of anything most of the time. On to this delightful recipe.

I found it in the Chocolate & Zucchini cookbook. This is the cookbook version of the blog by the same name. This is the first recipe I have made out of it, but it's a lovely and really enjoyable cookbook with delightful musings on food and entertaining by the author Clothide Dusoullier. (It turns out she consulted on a food show called Bizarre Foods that my friend Superterrific worked on a few years back, when they did an episode in Paris... the food world keeps getting smaller)

I made some modifications to this recipe to accommodate ingredients I had on hand, I will note them in the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground meat (She suggests lamb, but I had grass fed ground beef, so that's what I used. I'm sure lamb would be richer and more luxurious tasting, but the beef worked out well.)
12 good quality prunes (sometimes called dried plums for reasons of perception mentioned above) Pitted and finely chopped
2 small shallots, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1/4 cup (packed) fresh, flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped, plus some extra for garnish
1 tablespoon orange zest, freshly grated and finely minced from two oranges. (I used clementines)
1/4 teaspoon allspice (I did not have any allspice, so I used almost a 1/4 tsp cinnamon, about an 1/8 tsp ginger and a dash of nutmeg. I would have used a ground clove, but I didn't have one.)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 Tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil 
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the meat, prunes, shallots, garlic, parsley, orange zest, allspice, egg, 1 Tablespoon olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix well with a fork. Cover and refrigerate from 10 minutes up to 8 hours. (I put it in there for about 45 minutes) 

Remove the bowl from the refrigerator. Wash your hands well, and keep them damp. Scoop out rounded tablespoons of the mixture and roll them into balls between your palms. Set aside in a single layer on two plates until you've used up all the meat. Wash your hands again.


Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add half of the meatballs in a single layer without crowding. Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring the meatballs gently around the pan to brown them all over. Set aside on a clean plate and cover with foil while you cook the second batch. Return the first batch to the pan and cover, reheat for 2 minutes. 

Serve over a bed of cous-cous and drizzle a little yogurt over the top and sprinkle some additional chopped parsley on top and a lovely green salad on the side. 

I have some pictures of this, but it keeps failing when I try to upload them, so I will have to try it again later. For now use your imagination.


 

Beef Stew

I wrote this entire post yesterday and lost it, so you will have to imagine how clever and witty it was because I don't think I can repeat the magic. I have made this Beef Stew recipe twice since New Years. It is quite delicious and satisfying as a winter meal. The first time I just served it with a salad of mixed baby greens from my garden, avocado, pomegranate seeds and red onion. The second time I served it over Leek and Potato puree. (This was actually DR's brilliant idea. I made the puree and then had no idea what to do with it.) It was perfect! The puree gave the soup some extra body and made it more filling, and the soup gave a savoury-ness to the puree that was much needed... a puree like that is too rich and bland to eat too much on it's own.

I got this recipe from the book Cleaving the second book by Julie Powell of Julie & Julia fame.  By virtue of it being her lesser known work the wait for it at the library was shorter than for Julie & Julia, so I read it first. For Ms. Powell's sake I would suggest not doing this. Cleaving is the story of her 6-month apprenticeship at a butcher shop in upstate New York. This part is fairly interesting as she learns how to debone a pig, make sausage, and hack through all manner of meat products. (Reading it did make for some unpleasantly meaty dreams when I was suffering from a brief stint with the flu over Christmas) But by far the more unsavory and nauseous element of this book is her overly detailed descriptions of her extended extra-marital affair, which she blames on the excess of free time and the email and text messaging mobile phone she acquired after the success of her first book and movie. First of all, it's annoying to listen to someone complain about how success has corrupted them, but now that I am reading the first book with the knowledge of the second book, it is pretty clear that the only thing keeping this histrionic narcissist from having an affair sooner was free time and an interested partner. She seems surprised by her behavior in the second book, but the first book is full of complaints about her husband, and jealousy over her single friends romantic conquests. For a book about food, it's an awful lot about sex. So she may be right in that her success gave her the opportunity to engage in behavior that a 40 hour a week job and a time-consuming cooking project didn't. Anyway, despite this being kind of a skeevy and not terribly well-written memoir, it did have some good recipes in it, and I'm not going to let the source taint the food.

I have made some adaptations to this recipe. For instance I am using more vegetables, because I found it to be too meaty the first time (which is really saying something). And I make it in the slow cooker, rather than in the oven. I think it's safer for this kind of thing because when things cook for hours it's easy to forget about them. So here is my version.

3 lbs stew meat cut in chunks (The chunks in the meat from Trader Joes that I get are usually too big, so I cut them in half)
1/2 cup flour in a shallow bowl
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus some more (or however much you think you need)
1 large onion sliced into thin half moons
1 head of garlic, minced
6 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch rounds
6 stalks of celery, finely sliced
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh thyme
2 cups red wine
1 1/4 cups beef stock (Ingredients: Organic Beef Stock (Water, Organic Beef) Organic Beed Flavor Base (Organic Roasted Beef Including Beef Juices, Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Organic Beef Flavor, Organic Onion Powder, Sea Salt, Organic Canola Oil, Organic Caramel Color, Organic Garlic Powder, Organic Black Pepper, Organic Paprika, Natural Flavor), Sea Salt, Organic Garlic Powder) I 've had this beef broth in my cabinet since before the project began. It's amazing that I've still got stuff like this, but it came in handy since Beef Stock is something I am very intimidated about making. There is enough left for one more stew I think...yikes.
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste

Dry the stew meat with paper towels and toss them lightly with the flour until evenly dusted. On the stovetop, brown the meat in batches in the olive oil over high heat.
Once all the meat has been browned remove it to the slow cooker, add the beef broth, wine and tomato paste, cover and turn the cooker to the low setting.
On the stovetop, turn the heat down to medium, add some more oil to the same pan, and throw in the vegetables and thyme. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring often, until vegetables are softened.
Then add the vegetables to the slow cooker and add salt and freshly ground pepper generously. Cover and walk away for as many hours as you can. If you need to eat the stew in the next two hours, I suggest turning the heat up to high, but if you can avoid it, leave it on low. Around here people are used to eating meals very late, and often much later than they were originally told, but your house might run more like a train, I don't know.

Pot Roast

This recipe is adapted from one I found on simplyrecipes.com. The original called for cooking it over the stove or in the oven. I made mine in the slow cooker.

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 lb of beef shoulder or boneless chuck roast
• 1 Tbsp olive or grapeseed oil
• Salt, pepper, italian seasoning to taste (I didn't have Italian Seasoning so I used orgeno, thyme and sage)
  
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped or sliced
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1/2 cup of red wine
• Several carrots, peeled and cut lengthwise

1 Use a thick-bottomed covered pot. Heat 1 Tbsp of oil on medium high heat (hot enough to sear the meat). Sprinkle and rub salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning all over the meat. Brown roast in pot, all over, several minutes on each side. Don't move the roast while a side is browning, or it won't brown well.

2 Put onions and garlic in the bottom of the slow cooker and when roast is browned, place it on top. Add 1/2 cup of red wine. Cover. Set the cooker to low. Near the end of the cooking, add carrots, cook until tender, about an additional 30 minutes.

I made the mistake of cooking this on the simmer setting for the first few hours, then turned it to low. I think it would have been juicier and more tender if I had cooked it on low the whole time.


Serves 4-5. Suggest serving with green beans and potatoes

Pumpkin Stew in a Pot

This recipe is from Organic Baby & Toddler Recipes. I made it for my 10 month old son. They said the recipe would make four servings for a 15-month old. I don't know who this 15-month old they are referring to is, but he must have quite an appetite. This made more than four adult servings. But I served it to my son last night, and it looked so good, and he enjoyed it so much that my husband and I had it for dinner as well. I added a little bit of salt and pepper to mine, but that is the only change. I should probably eat all the same foods as my son. Anyway this is a delicious recipe for the whole family.

1 pumpkin or squash about 6lbs. (I used two small kombucha, otherwise known as Japanese pumpkin. It has a green skin and is generally thicker than pumpkin.)
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 lb ground pork or beef (I used grass fed ground beef) You can also use cooked unsalted Lima or Great Northern Beans instead of meat.
1 large onion chopped
3 apples, cored and cut into large chunks
1/2 cup water or stock
1/3 cup raisins
1 tsp chopped fresh or 1/2 dried basil or thyme

Preheat the oven to 350ºF
Cut the top off the pumpkin or squash and discard. Cut the pumpkin or squash in half and scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp. (You can toast the seeds for a snack.) Place the pumpkin cut side down in a large, deep baking dish with 1/2" of water in the bottom. Cover with foil and bake in the oven until tender, about 2 hours.

Heat the oil in a pan and fy the meat or beans, onions and apple until tender, about 15 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, then simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Drain the water from the pumpkin. Use a spoon to scoop out the soft flesh, then discard the skin. Mix the flesh with the meat or bean mixture and return it to the baking dish. Cover with foil and return it to the oven until hot, about 20 minutes.