Spinach Meatballs, Sweet Potato Pancakes & Sweet Potato Fries

I really try to mix up Little's food so she doesn't get bored. To make this easier having a hectic schedule, I like to keep the freezer stocked with homemade stuff that just needs to be reheated. Here are two of my favorite recipes:

Spinach Meatballs--sooo YUMMY!
1 package Jennie-O ground turkey 93/7
1/2-2/3 package frozen spinach (I use Fresh & Easy's)...you can also use fresh, but frozen is a little easier
2 eggs
1/8-1/4 cup of bread crumbs (optional, but I think it holds them together better. If you leave these out, the recipe is gluten-free--I modified it this way for my best friend Sherry could eat them!)
Italian blend spice
Garlic powder
Olive oil cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2.Whisk eggs then mix together with ground turkey
3. If using frozen spinach, it's easiest to use a vegetable steamer. Fill base with water, add 1/2-2/3 of the bag, add cover, cook for about 4 minutes in microwave. If you don't have a steamer, follow package directions. Just be sure that once cooked, strain and blot thoroughly with paper towel. If using fresh spinach, fill a large saucepan about 1/2 full of water or so. Bring to a boil. In the meantime, cut stems off spinach and cut the leaves into strips. Once the water boils, toss in the spinach and "blanch" for about a minute. Strain and thoroughly blot with paper towel. Mix spinach into egg/turkey.
4. For the spice and garlic powder, I rarely measure. Use your judgement. Same with the bread crumbs, if you use them.
5. Spray a shallow baking pan (I wouldn't recommend a flat baking sheet) with olive oil cooking spray.
6. Shape into meatballs and bake for about 20 minutes or until cooked through.

The finished mixture before taking meatball form.
As you can see, there's a good amount of spinach in this recipe!

Makes about 16 golf-ball sized meatballs in my experience.

These are sooo good. I've used them mainly for Little (she loves them w/ Fresh & Easy's Goodness brand whole grain pasta shaped like animals and their pasta sauce, which has no sugar or artificial ingredients or preservatives added), but I've started using them for "adult" dinners too. These freeze really well!

Sweet Potato Pancakes

2 sweet potatoes
3 eggs
1 cup whole wheat flour (for a lighter texture, use 1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 all purpose)
2 tbsp of butter or margarine, melted
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk (or more)

1. To cook sweet potatoes--Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Scrub and poke holes in potato with knife (careful), then rinse with water (it helps cook them). Wrap in foil and cook 40-60 mins or until softer to the touch. Obviously use an oven mitt, but you should be able to squeeze it and have it "give." I usually cook these in advance if I'm making baked sweet potato fries. It's easier to work with once it's cooled. Just store in fridge in foil.

2. Mix sweet potatoes in a mixing bowl with eggs. Stir in the flour and add the baking powder.

3. Add up to 1/2 cup of milk, stirring. Use your judgment--mixture should have a thick, lumpy sauce consistency. Stir in 1-2 tbsp butter.

4. Heat a skillet to medium-high. I use a griddle because I can make more at once. Spoon batter (I like to use a 1/4 or 1/3 measuring cup to scoop and pour) onto the griddle and cook until bubbles rise to the surface of the pancakes and break.
5. Using a spatula, flip the pancakes and cook another 2 minutes or so until cooked through.

This recipe makes about 14-16 2 1/2-3 inch pancakes so you can increase or decrease the ingredients depending on how many you want to make. These also freeze really well. I use these mainly for a "side" for lunch/dinner for Little. She'll eat them plain, heated with a little butter, or with jam. I'll save pumpkin or banana oat or blueberry pancakes for breakfasts.

Since I mentioned them, though I don't have photos, here's the basic recipe for:


Baked Sweet Potato Fries that even the Sweet-Potato hating Hubs loves

1 large sweet potato, uncooked
1-2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
Cinnamon, ginger, brown sugar, nutmeg (whatever spices you'd like to add--I use cinnamon, ginger & nutmeg)

Olive oil cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Scrub potato then slice into wedges--they'll shrink a little once cooked so consider that when slicing

3. In a large bowl, mix together olive oil and spices. Toss wedges into bowl and mix around until all are coated. This can be a little awkward if you are doubling this recipe. It might be a good idea to use a large storage ziploc and toss, but you might need a little more oil.

4. Coat baking sheet with olive oil cooking spray then arrange a single layer of wedges.

5. Bake about 30-40 mins until tender.

These are far more nutritious than regular french fries and they're baked instead of fried. The Hubs seriously dislikes sweet potatoes, but I made these with dinner one night and he said he could eat a ton of them they're so good. Don't expect french fry consistency. They have a crispiness to the outside, but they're gooey on the inside. These are great for kids, too, but be sure they can handle the skins (Little had trouble the first time I made these for her, but does fine now).

The great thing about the top two recipes (if you pre-cook the sweet potatoes) is that they aren't terribly time-consuming for prep. Last week, I made both after work and got them cooking in about 15-20 mins while Little did this:

Meal Planning Monday

Edited: Thursday we're having dinner out so Thursday's recipe got moved to Friday.

Mondays are busy, but Meal-Planning Monday and McFatty Monday sort of go hand in hand, yes? You'll notice, however, that our dinners aren't steamed asparagus and tofu. (No offense if that's your favorite meal.) My point is that we're not starving and our dinners are pretty tasty. For the most part. There are some recipes I would not repeat.

Anyways, this segment will lay out the meal plan for the week and will also review recipes from the previous week. How it will work is: I meal plan, I cook, if I like, I post recipe and review/suggestions, if I don't like, I say that. I'm all about easy meals and freezer meals. Most of what I cook is easily tripled or whatever and frozen.

Monday: Crockpot Sausage and Potato Bake (I'm not too sure about this one. The ingredients are all good on their own so I'm hoping they mesh well and that the potatoes aren't mush.)
Tuesday: Crockpot Chicken Tacos
Wednesday: Take Two: Shepherd's Pie (Freezer meal to reheat)
Thursday: (dinner out)
Friday: Crockpot Chicken Parmesan

So this amounts to these meals and if they turn out well, 3-6 freezer meals minimum. In other words, 3-6 nights that we just have to heat and serve.

Check back next week for recipes and reviews!

Coming soon to the recipes blog...

Today I felt inspired to get off the couch even though my voice is raspy and I'm still majorly congested. I figured standing would help me be able to breathe. I wound up in the kitchen using our wonderful new kitchen cart/island and made:

6 servings of pizza dough
7 belgian waffles
3 Schlotzsky's Deli bread loaves
2 calzones
2 chocolate souffles

Calzones are baking away, but they look rather tasty. I made my Schlotzsky's-esque sandwich for lunch tomorrow already. We used 2 pizza dough servings for the calzones, but have 4 in the freezer, the waffles are in the freezer, we'll see how the bread tastes, and the souffles will be devoured for Valentine's Day dessert. (I now know why souffles are so expensive. And well worth it considering the work that goes into them.)

In baby-related news, Kaelyn's been on the move lately. I definitely feel her getting bigger. My momma instincts have me predicting her to make her arrival in about a week. I have no experience on this whatsoever, but just my guess.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A culinary voyage

I try to do meal planning, especially right now when I'm trying to pick and choose dinners that can be multiplied to freeze. It's really a tentative schedule though for a number of reasons. For one thing, my energy level is unpredictable. As is what particular foods will sound good on a given day.

I'm pretty stoked though to make a few things this week, including:

-Seafood pasta casserole. The recipe calls for imitation crab, but I plan to also add some salmon in there.
-Sloppy Joes. Oh yes, doesn't that sound...complex. Well, the recipe actually sounds quite delicious, but the other part is that I'm planning to freeze a bunch of these sandwiches so we can grab them for quick lunches. I've had pretty good luck so far w/ this kind of concept. Plus, who doesn't love sloppy joes?
-Calzones. If I lost you at "sloppy joes," surely you snapped back to attention at "calzones" because let's face it, they are delicious creations and I plan to make my own dough. I also am planning to make extra calzones to freeze, extra dough to have on hand, and I just got wind of an idea to make stuffed crust pizza. Yep, I have discovered active dry yeast and it no longer intimidates me. Isn't there a culinary patch I earn for that, sort of like Girl Scouts?
-While I'm at making pizza dough, I'll also be whipping up some more belgian waffle batter and cooking those to have on hand in the freezer. (It also calls for active dry yeast and an hour of patience to allow it to rise so it only makes sense to make it at the same time as the dough.)
-If I have the energy, at some point this weekend, I'd like to make up what I call "Breakfast Mess." Actually, I stole the name from a fabulous hot dog joint I went to growing up. It's basically a disorderly chaos of potatoes, sausage, eggs, provolone, peppers, onions--all around just yummy breakfast goodness. I want to figure out a solution where I can freeze it in individual portions for easy breakfasts.

Now, this all may sound a bit ambitious. It might even be a little ambitious considering I'm 19 months pregnant and all. I assure you, as I've discovered, it's not as time-consuming as I thought and even when it takes longer than the recipe says, it's sort of relaxing actually. I fully intend on claiming 95% of the upcoming weekend for rest and relaxation...and a date day/night w/ the Hubs that got postponed yet again due to the two of us being sickies this past weekend.

I'll post recipes as I come across winners, along with beauty shots of the final products.

I'm definitely not Julia Child

but I have started on some freezer meals for once Miss Kaelyn arrives. So far it's just been random things to have on hand, but tomorrow is my first big freezer meals day. I'm actually really excited about it. It'll make me feel a lot better having a bunch of meals on hand so we don't have to worry about cooking and we're not getting takeout and pizza all the time. I'm hoping this leads to a trend of freezer meal/once a month cooking (OAMC) in the future. The concept seems pretty smart and can be a great money and time saver.

Here's what I've made so far:

Cheesy ham and potatoes casserole (2 meals)

Mashed potatoes (4-6 servings)

Twice-baked potatoes (14 potatoes)

French toast sticks (approx. 32 sticks)

Spinach artichoke dip (1-2 appetizers worth)

Little Rascals Frosty Treats for the pups (8 treats after they each had 2...14 total for the batch)

Now, this seems like a lot to make tomorrow, but the basics of the recipes are similar so it's a matter of chopping the same veggies and so forth so it makes sense to do it all at once:

Chicken broccoli pesto pasta

Chicken gyros

White chicken chili

Cream cheese chicken

Chicken tacos (the filling)

Cheesy chicken spaghetti

Stuffed peppers (the filling part)

Mexican rice

Cheesy beef and rice

Olive Garden Pasta E Fagiolo soup

I'll be posting more detailed blogs, complete with recipes and photos as I figure out my favorites. The frosty treats for the dogs were a huge hit and the Spinach Artichoke Dip rivals a lot of restaurant varieties we've had so those will likely be the first ones I post.

So I'm not exactly Julia Child--for one thing I would burst into tears at even the thought of boiling a live lobster--I actually ponder liberating the lobsters in the tank at Red Lobster every time we go there--but I'm a pretty good cook and hopefully having freezer meals on hand will make life with a newborn a little easier. One less thing to worry about anyway!