Turkey Meatballs!

My daughter LOVES a book called "Yummy, Yucky!" and reads it at least once every day!  It's a very simple book about things that are yummy and things that are yucky (and thus SHOULDN'T be put in your mouth!!)...lol.  We were reading it with her last night and one of the things that is labelled as "yummy" is spaghetti and then we read another of her favorites this week called "Fire Engine No. 9" where after the firefighters save the child from the fire, they have an Italian dinner of spaghetti with meatballs....and we realized she's never had meatballs before!  So that was the inspiration for tonight's meal :)

I went onto Pinterest and loosely followed the following link:
http://gimmedelicious.com/2014/06/04/turkey-meatballs-in-tomato-sauce/

I also added some garlic powder and onion powder to the turkey mixture and used seasoned Panko instead of breadcrumbs because that's all I had!  I also made my own sauce and recommend you use a marinara that you like!  I watch a lot of cooking shows and vaguely remember always being told to sear the meatballs before putting them in the sauce and so I also did that even though the recipe doesn't call for it.

Here's how my turkey meatballs turned out!

I made a large dish of it with some penne underneath

I had extra meatballs and seared and cooked them so I can use them in a wrap or something later this week

Meatballs simmering after being seared

Searing meatballs in my Calphalon pan in some olive oil

Seasoning my turkey meat (I used a combination of ground turkey AND turkey sausage)

Eggplant Parmesan

One of my favorite recipes is this Eggplant Parmesan!  I've checked lots of Pinterest pins on this and watched it made on The Chew and have sort of adopted my own way of making it.  It's actually pretty simple, but there are lots of parts to put together!  I think the most important part is the sauce - use whatever marinara sauce you like the best!  I like to make my own using some garlic, onions, crushed tomatoes, garlic and onion powder, a little allspice, and some brown sugar.  I also add some fresh basil to the mix!  The next component is the eggplant.  I slice up my eggplant and lay it over some paper towels.  I salt each side and leave it for about a half an hour to "sweat" the bitterness out.  While that's "sweating", I boil the spaghetti.  I like to make my spaghetti with half whole wheat and half regular.  Once it's ready, I strain it and leave it on the side until I'm ready to put together the whole thing.  After sweating the eggplant I fry it by dipping it in flour, then beaten eggs, and then seasoned Panko breadcrumbs.  Fry them until they're golden brown!

I place the spaghetti into my baking dish first, add some marinara sauce over top, sprinkle some parmesan cheese over it, then add the fried eggplant, a little more marinara and parmesan, a little mozzerella, and top it off with some fresh basil.  I put this in the oven for about 20 minutes and then broil for another 5.  This dish is huge and very filling!  Usually lasts our family a few days!

Here's how it turned out:

Here's the completed Eggplant Parmesan!

Last layer before the basil

Layer of Eggplant on top

Layer of Parmesan over the spaghetti

Marinara sauce over the pasta

Pasta in the bottom of the baking dish

Fried eggplant

Homemade Marinara

Eggplant slices on a paper towel, salted to "sweat"

My 2 year old's portion of Eggplant Parmesan cut up :)

Pasta and Grilled Veggies

I happened to have a lot of grilled eggplant left in my fridge from a bbq I had the other day and decided I wanted to use it in a pasta.  I made my own "red" sauce by sauteing some garlic and onions in olive oil with some allspice, salt, and pepper.  I added a can of crushed tomatoes and let it simmer while cooking my pasta.  One of the things that makes me feel better about eating a lot of pasta is to make it with half whole wheat pasta and half regular.  You can barely taste the difference and it's a little better for you!  I cut up some yellow and green zucchini and onions and sauteed them in some olive oil and garlic powder.  I then cut up my grilled eggplant and added them to the veggie mix.  When everything was all done, I mixed the sauce, pasta, and veggies all together with some fresh basil from the garden and some shaved parmesan cheese!

Just finished eating some of this for lunch with a couple pieces of a french baguette!

Here's how it looked:

Pinterest Repin

I always get notifications that other people repin some of the "pins" I have on Pinterest.  Last night 2 people repinned this mushroom and sundried tomato recipe I've tried in the past and I decided to try it again last night!  I realized that I didn't have any mushrooms, so I just made it with sundried tomatoes and some sauteed red onion and garlic instead.  I also didn't have the half and half or the heavy cream and just used whole milk instead (we ALWAYS have whole milk in the fridge for my 2 year old!).  I had some left over shredded parmesan from the eggplant roll up dish the night before, and so, that made the recipe doable!

I also decided to grill some asparagus on the side using my cast iron grill pan on the stovetop.  Everything turned out great!  My husband and 2 year old loved it :)

Here's the Pinterest recipe I loosely followed:
http://juliasalbum.com/2014/02/sun-dried-tomato-and-mushroom-pasta/


Here's how dinner turned out last night!

I didn't have any fettuccine and instead I used an egg noodle I had in the pantry!

Grilled asparagus

We got hungry later that night and I decided to make a caprese salad!  Costco just happened to have some great mozzerella and I bought amazing tomatoes from Publix earlier in the week.  Topped it with some fresh basil from my herb garden and some olive oil and balsamic......mmmmmm.

Back from vacation in Toronto!

I haven't cooked at all for the last 2 weeks while we were in Canada visiting my family!  It was an AMAZING two week break that we all needed!  For anyone traveling to Toronto, here are some of the activities we did with the kiddos:  Canada's Wonderland (we only did Snoopy's World)https://www.canadaswonderland.com/, Ripley's Aquarium (this was INCREDIBLE) https://www.ripleyaquariums.com/canada/, High Park (we went twice, once to the old wooden castle playground and the other time to the new splash pad and playground area - we also walked through the petting zoo)http://www.highparktoronto.com/, the train museum located just across the street from the CN Tower http://www.torontorailwaymuseum.com/, walking along lakeshore, Woodbine beach http://www1.toronto.ca/parks/prd/facilities/complex/311/index.htm, the Caribana parade (VERY crowded, but soooo much fun for my 2 year old for the first time!!!), riding the GO train, and lastly, but most importantly, spending a few days in a cottage at Niagra-on-the-Lake https://www.niagaraonthelake.com/.  If you've never done this before, it is a MUST.  It was absolutely beautiful!  There is a little town with shops and restaurants, tons of vineyards and wineries, paddle boarding, kayaking, driving along the lake to Niagra Falls, the list goes on and on!

Needless to say, we had a great time!  But, now it's back to the real world!  School officially started for teachers this past Monday and for the first time since graduating, I am not setting up a classroom and beginning my school year.  I have chosen to stay home with my little ones for the year and not go back to work. It's  a little bittersweet for me because I love what I do, but what could be more rewarding than teaching my own children and not someone else's?

I finally got back into the kitchen yesterday and decided I needed a quick meal.  I had some frozen shrimp in the freezer and looked up some Pinterest recipes and decided on the one below!  Shrimp scampi over angel hair pasta!  Yum!

Here's the pinterest recipe I loosely followed:
http://www.averiecooks.com/2015/07/lemon-butter-garlic-shrimp-with-angel-hair-pasta.html

I tweaked it a little by adding cilantro and green peas to the recipe!  But it turned out great!  Super easy and my 2 year old loved it!

Italian night!

Tonight is Italian night at my house!  Two SUPER easy meals in one!  The reason I make two in one is because the homemade pizza is usually finished tonight which leaves no leftovers for lunch tomorrow, so it's actually easier for me to make both so that everyone has lunch for tomorrow too! The first of the easy meals is a homemade pizza!  I make this almost weekly because it's a quick meal that everyone loves.  I always buy the pre-made/rolled out pizza dough that Publix makes fresh daily.  All I have to do is unroll it onto my baking sheet and add the toppings I like!  It's SUPER easy!  I just use whatever veggies I have in my fridge and buy a pack of pre-shredded mozzarella cheese - it's that easy.  My daughter and I love olives, so I always make sure I have olives on the pizza, but anything else goes :)

The second of the easy meals is a pasta that I learned to make a couple of months ago.  Unfortunately, I don't remember where I got the recipe or I would provide the link, but I've interchanged it with different veggies and different types of pasta.  Tonight I used linguine with the veggies I had in the fridge (red and green peppers, onions, sun dried tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and some fresh basil from the garden).   All you have to do is sauté some garlic and onion in some extra virgin olive oil and butter for a few minutes, add all the veggies (the original recipe called for asparagus that you slice using a potato peeler), and a container of marscapone cheese.  I'd NEVER cooked with marscapone before trying this recipe and didn't realize how it just melts in the pan to give it a creamy sauce.  I add some lemon zest and lemon juice, some salt and pepper, and that's it!  I throw it over the pasta and shred some parmesan reggiano over it and that's it!  Again, SUPER easy!  Two meals in one!

Finished pasta!

Finished pizza!

Dinner tonight!

So for my birthday, a friend of mine decided to make me a very cool gift basket that she made and filled with different types of pastas and pasta sauce.  It was a great gift, but its been sitting on my counter for about a month now and I decided that tonight was the night I was going to try it out!

I do want to say that I haven't actually had to cook much this week because my mom was in town and I had plenty of leftovers and then yesterday was Eid!  We did some of my favorites yesterday - Panera for breakfast and Zoe's for dinner!  I do want to say that I don't go out to eat very often here in Jacksonville mostly because I hate being disappointed when I pay money to eat somewhere (yes, I'm a food snob! NYC will do that to you if you let it!!!).  The other reason is simply because Jacksonville just has a ton of big chain restaurants and not the mom and pop places I was so spoiled with when I was living in NYC.  That being said, my husband discovered Zoe's a few months ago, and I actually love it! I think the food is simple and fresh and love the shrimp kabobs and their hummus - so that's what we did for Eid dinner last night!

***I do have a few FAVORITE places to eat in Jax that I'll probably share in another blog, but for now, here are some of my faves: Casbah (middle eastern), Black Sheep (American), Moxie (American), Hawkers (Asian Street Food), and a recent favorite, Picasso (Italian).

So back to dinner tonight....

I decided to try a new pasta that was in my gift basket and the sauce that was also in there.  Everything was written in Italian and I didn't really understand any of it, so I just made pasta the way I know how!  15 minutes after making the sauce, I realized I HATED it....just had a bad taste to it...so I dumped it out and just did my own thing.  I'm not a fan of canned sauces and never usually use them, I prefer to make my own using herbs, olive oil, and crushed tomatoes, but thought I'd give it a try - bad decision.

So instead, I went out into my garden and grabbed some herbs, blended it with some onion and garlic powder in some olive oil and voila - sauce for the cool new pasta.  I threw in some sun dried tomatoes and cut up some basil from my garden and then shredded some parmesan over it - perfect!  Made a big, green salad to go with it and my homemade greek salad dressing (check a previous post for the recipe) and that's all!  Here are some pics!

Threw in a few black olives too!

Garden salad with some added chick peas and parmesan!