Thai Style Meatballs & Peanut Dipping Sauce

I was in the mood for meatballs, but I also recently had Italian food. I wanted something different, so I looked up a few recipes for Thai meatballs (I had them in a restaurant once and loved them). A lot of the recipes I found had Thai fish paste in it...sounds yucky.  I don't like fish, and I don't like paste. I'm suuuure it's a delicious addition to many dishes, but it wasn't something I had on hand. So I decided to take a little from all of the recipes I found and make up my own...

Cooking experiment! 

And a successful experiment it was!  Here's the recipe I came up with, and immediately added to my recipe book for my kitchen because it was so tasty.   They have a bit of a kick to them, you can leave out the red pepper flakes if that's not your thing. But honestly, they're delicious the way they are!

Not the best picture... pardon the paper plate!

Ingredients Needed
Meatballs - Thai Style

~1 pound of ground beef (I had a little over a pound, maybe 1 1/4 pounds)

3 tablespoons coconut milk

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon (heaping) cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon red pepper (optional, but adds a delicious kick)

1 teaspoon (heaping) basil

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 tablespoons peanut butter (I used Skippy Chunky, the chunks of peanuts added a yummy crunch)

1/4 cup Panko breadcrumbs 

1/4 cup water 

Splash of soy sauce

Zest of 1/2 lime

Peanut Dipping Sauce

1 cup coconut milk

1 cup crunchy peanut butter 

1 lime, juiced. (Zest optional)

For meatballs, mix all ingredients in a large bowl until well mixed. Form meatballs into walnut sized spheres. I was able to make 21 meatballs. Bake in oven @350 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes, or fry in peanut oil. 

Mix together the peanut dipping sauce in a medium sized bowl. Serve with jasmine rice.

I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as we did! Enjoy! 

Apples! Apples! Apples!

              

How do you get 60 apples in one afternoon? Go apple picking!

Living in the Hudson Valley means theres lots and lots of apple orchards all over.  We decided to go to the closest one, Masker Orchard.  I also like it because it's close to my maiden name, Mader ;) 

And It has spectacular views, like this! 

So now that you have apples... of course, you're gonna make pie! We did! ....and turnovers, and an apple crumb bake, and we still had over half of the apples left. 

...Before

And after....

I didn't get a picture of the pie, wasn't fast enough... 

There's only so many apples you could eat... and after all that peeling, coring, and chopping from making the desserts, I wanted to do something easy with the rest. I've been seeing a lot of recipes for slow cooker apple butter so I decided to try some myself! I love my crockpot.

You still have to core 'em and cut 'em, but for apple butter you don't need to peel the skins! There's extra nutrients in the skins so it's a win-win for my lazyness. 

Surprisingly, no butter in apple butter.  Which is awesome, I can eat it without feeling like a lard ass! All you need is apples, brown sugar (light or dark, doesn't matter), apple juice/cider/or water, cinnamon, and nutmeg (optional, but I love nutmeg).  

I did 12 apples, half a cup of Masker's apple cider (you can use water or apple juice, but I wanted mine to be flavorful and deep in color), a quarter cup of light brown sugar, two tablespoons of cinnamon, and a dash of nutmeg. I put it on high for four and a half hours and mixed it every once in a while to make sure nothing was sticking to the pot.  After that I used my stick blender for a while to mash everything up. I cracked the lid to let out some of the moisture and let it thicken up a bit. At this point in the cooking process it looked like apple sauce and smelled like a million Yankee candles. You can totally stop here or take some out to have cinnamon apple sauce, but I kept going with my batch. I wanted it to get to peanut butter consistancy and smoothness. I let it cook with the lid open for two more hours. I cannot even explain how awesome my house smelled. I didn't notice it because I was standing in it for some time, but then I took my dog outside and came back in and really smelled it all!  Soooo amazing! I used the stick blender one last time to smooth it out perfectly and then it was done! 

It made so much apple butter! I've been globbing it on my toast each morning, it's a wonderful way to start your autumn days. 

As they say at Masker Orchard, Live Apply!

~Craftmeister

Tomato Basil Parmesean Soup

It's no secret that we love Rao's in this house.  Their pasta sauces are some of the yummiest I've ever tasted!  My favorites include Vodka Sauce, their new Four Cheese Sauce, Arrabiata, Garden Vegtable, Tomato Basil, Garlice sauce, Marinara (AND Sensitive Marinara).... Basically all of them!  

This past month, Tomato Basil has been my favorite favorite.  The flavor of the month if you will. 

A while back, I had found a recipe for Tomato Basil Parmesan soup.  If you've read my blog before, you know that I love making soups in the crockpot - I HAD to try it!  The original recipe called for canned tomatoes and dried basil as the main ingridients.  Honestly.... I wasn't impressed.  Fresh ingridients can make all the difference in how a soup tastes.  But the basil I had purchased from the farmers market wilted, so I couldn't use that. I had two bottles of Rao's Tomato Basil Sauce on hand and I decided to try it out.  After all, Rao's uses fresh ingridients in their sauce, and I already know it tastes good!  So, another Craftmeister cooking experiment....

And what a successful experiment it was!  

Here's what you need:

2 jars Rao's Tomato Basil Sauce

4 cups chicken broth

~2 cups of celery 

~2 cups of carrots

~2 cups onion

1 tablespoon oregano

1 bay leaf

3/4 stick of butter

2/3 cups flour 

2 2/3 cups half n half 

1 1/2 cups of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Salt & pepper to taste 

1 teaspoon dried basil 

Chop the carrots, celery and onions.  Put them in a food processor to dice them very tiny.  Add the Tomato Basil sauce to the slow cooker.  Stir in chicken broth, veggies, bay leaf, and oregano.  Cook on low for 6 hours. 30 before done time melt the butter in a sauce pan and stir in the flour.  Add this to the crockpot and mix it in.  Warm the half n half and stir it in with the Parmesan cheese. Stir it all in. The soup will look more orange than tomato red.  Sprinkle in dried basil and add salt and pepper.  Serve hot with grilled cheese sandwiches. 

And there's bacon in those grilled cheeses, double yumm :) 

Cheeseburger soup

There's something wonderfully nostalgic about handwritten recipes.  But the thought of having recipie cards flying all over my kitchen gives me a headache.  I'd loose them all.  So I started a recipe book for my kitchen!  It has music notes on it, so I'm trying to think of a clever name for it, like "Kitchen Symphonies" or "Dinner Music" or "Songs For the Tummy". I'm still brainstorming..... 

But here's one of my favorite handwritten recipes.  The last time I made it was the first time I made it, and it was a huuuuge hit.  It filled up the entire crockpot and it was all gone that same night!  Everybody loved it.  And I think you will to! 

Here's the recipe, taken from my personal cookbook!

Start out with onions, garlic and ground beef. Brown all together in a skillet, then drain and add it to the crock pot. 

Veggies!  Peel the potatoes and cut them bite sized.  You can use whatever potatoes you'd like; red, russet, white, etc.  I use white potatoes.  I also added celery, two stalks.  Celery is a superfood, and I think the crunch represents lettuce on your burger.    After they're washed and chopped, add to the crock pot. 

Then add the broth, salt and peppers, and ketchup.   I used probably about double the amount of ketchup than the recipe states. I always use a lot of ketchup on burgers, so I figured I should add extra to the soup.  The recipe calls for mustard but I don't add mustard, and I wouldn't even think of it!  Up here in New York we don't put mustard on burgers!  Yuck!     Mix it all up and cover for like 5 hours on high, 10 hours on low. 

About an hour before dinner time, melt the butter in a saucepan.  Add flour and milk and whisk it all together.  Take pan off the heat and add cheese. Add to soup after it's all melted. 

 

I think I may need a bigger crock pot! 

The cool thing about this being cheeseburger soup is you can make it taste like most cheeseburger varieties!  Like turkey burgers? Use ground turkey meat instead of ground beef.  Or add mushrooms and use Swiss cheese for a Mushroom & Swiss Classic.  You can top the soup with cooked bacon crumbles, chopped pickles, or extra cheese.  Personally I like the way it is right from the pot.  :) 

I hope you enjoy this soup if you do try it! 

~the craftmeister