Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

A Moroccan New Year’s Eve – Get it???

Did you get my joke there?  Instead of a “Rockin'” NYE, I said a “Moroccan” NYE!  Tim has already declared 2015 the year of the bad joke after I made some comment this morning about, “If this kitchen’s Moroccan, don’t come a knockin.”

So, yes, I made a Moroccan dish last night – Moroccan-Style Lamb Meatballs, to be precise.  They turned out pretty tasty (the sauce especially) but my favorite lamb meatball recipe is still this one.  These meatballs weren’t a lot of work, per say, but they did take a sh!tload of spices – thirteen to be exact.  And when it was all said and done, you couldn’t really taste them in the end product.  The meatballs might be more flavorful today though.

That’s how we celebrated our New Year’s Eve. I found a NYE Dance Party mix on iTunes radio, and Tim and I cleaned the kitchen, cooked, cleaned the kitchen again, made a drink, watched Gilmore Girls while crocheting a scarf, made another drink, watched The Labyrinth, and then went to bed at like 11PM.  It was actually a really enjoyable night (from the perspective of two complete homebodies).  And as a bonus, I feel great today!

I tried another new recipe this week:  Oven Baked Chowder.  Although this recipe is expensive (1.5 lbs of tilapia was about $15), this one is a definite keeper.  The chowder turned out super flavorful and delicious.  Next time I make it, however, I will cook it in our dutch oven.  We ran out of room in the 8 X 11 pan.  Also, I would add a whole cup of coconut milk to make the sauce even more creamy.

How was your New Year’s Eve?  Any big plans or goals for 2015?  Tim and I discussed last night that we are going to try to reign in our eating out to only 2 times per week. It will help us save money and calories.  That’s about it for us!

Hope you are having a great January 1, 2015.  The future is now, Man!!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Fancy sounding food that sucks

I tried two new recipes this week – much to the dismay of my pocketbook.  Trying new recipes can be an expensive gamble, especially when you are talking about high quality, healthfully-raised meat.

Hot & Spicy Pulled Pork – Tim and I were not fans of this recipe.  The recipe instructions say you can put it together “in a snap,” but cutting up all of the tomatillos, tomatoes, peppers, etc. took quite a while.  The end result was bland – not spicy at all.  Perhaps it’s because I used a poblano pepper instead of a serrano pepper.  While the sauce tasted good, the pork did not have much flavor.    In fact, we didn’t even end up eating it all.  I ended up tossing probably about 1/2 of the sauce/stew too.  It didn’t taste BAD; we just weren’t that into it.  I’ve written about this before (and should have remembered this before trying the recipe), but a lot of roasts with tomatoes, onion, and garlic end up tasting the same to me, and I don’t like that taste.  Oh well – nothing ventured, nothing gained, right??  As always, I appreciate the fact that people post their recipes for free on the internet though!

Ginger & Lemongrass Meatballs with Braised Scallions – Tim and I LOVED this one.  Lamb is just a really delicious, flavorful meat, and this recipe makes it even more delicious by mixing it with pork, garlic, ginger, basil and cilantro.  As indicated in the title of the recipe, you are supposed to add lemongrass, but I could not find it anywhere, so I subbed lemon zest for it.  The meatballs were still very tasty!  Tim’s going to make some basmati rice and eat it with the leftovers.  The fancy-sounding Braised Scallions, on the other hand SUCKED!!  I used green onions from the Farmers Market, and they were basically unedible – super tough and difficult to eat.  We ate the centers out of about 2 of them, and then tossed the lot.  I don’t know what I did wrong!  Mark made them sound so delicious in the introduction to his recipe.

What’s on tap for the weekend?  Leftover meatballs 🙂  And a bike ride from Cordova to Fulton and back.  Having a friend over for supper and a bonfire.  And I need to go shopping.  Need to.  We need to buy a deep freezer.  And I want to swim.  I might drag Tim to one of the local pools that have tiny water slides.  I have to eat well this weekend too.  We had a milestone birthday on our team this week, which resulted in cake, donuts, alcohol, chips and bean dip, etc.  As a result yesterday I was dealing with pre-primalish mood swings and anxiety, and it’s carried over to today. I’m hoping a day of being outside, exercising, and eating good food will get me back on track.  I forgot how bad it feels to feel bad!  I really need to remember how horrible sugar makes me feel.

I hope you have a great weekend.  Get outside. Play.  Appreciate the beauty of late summer.  I’ll quit bossing you around now.