Lamb Meatballs

One of my best friends and former college roommate is from Azerbaijan. I, honestly, had never even heard of the country until I met her, but fell in love with all the ethnic food from that region of the world that she introduced me to.

This friend is, seriously, like a sister to me. I guess she actually is a sister... Since we were in the same sorority.... But I always think of her as a friend and roommate first before sorority sister because I didn't join the chapter until after she had graduated.

ANYWAYS... Because I think of her as a sister, her family is like extended family to me. Her mom used to visit us all the time while we were in school and I feel like she is in aunt to me. She is such an awesome, successful, and friendly person - and a great cook! She would always stock us up on Russian and/or Eastern European pastries, stock up our fridge with homemade food, and make us "family" dinners.

For one of our dinners, she made these amazing lamb meatballs with a yogurt dipping sauce. This was probably 3 years ago and I still remembered how delicious they were. I had asked her how she makes them a few weeks after our dinner and, until recently, had never made them! I don't know why!!! Because they are awesome and so easy.

Unfortunately, she doesn't use recipes, so she wasn't able to tell me exactly how she makes them. She said she mostly eyeballs the ingredients and she will also switch up some ingredients depending on what she has already. I'm OK with this because I don't use recipes either. It's more fun that way - you get to experiment and "play" with your food!

Putting this guy to work! He's obviously excited to help because we're cooking meat - a rare occasion.

Using her "recipe" as a guideline, I made my own! She also likes to make traditional food healthier, so it was easy to copy most of her "recipe" and make a few changes based on what I had.

I started by soaking some uncooked brown rice in a little bit of warm water with saffron threads - to try to infuse some of the saffron flavor in to the rice. I soaked for about 20 minutes.

I used half ground lamb and half ground beef, as she suggested. I went for grass-fed beef because the flavor is better and it is leaner than regular beef. Lamb is also pretty lean, so it sounds like a healthy, lean combo for red meats!

I mixed the beef and lamb with the soaked rice and the water it was soaking in. I also mixed in onion, garlic, cilantro, pomegranate seeds, and chopped dried tart cherries. Rolled them in to balls then boiled them in water with a few more saffron threads. Boiling the meatballs rather than frying them or baking them is healthier because you don't add any additional oils, the fat cooks out, and it makes a super moist meatball!

I copied my friend's mom by making a garlic yogurt to dip the meatballs - seriously this stuff is amazing and the perfect accompaniment to these meatballs. We had our meatballs with some roasted eggplant and zucchini and a salad with some baby kale, pomegranate vinegar, pistachio oil, and pomegranate seeds - some feta on this salad would have been perfect if we had some in the fridge!

Yummy dinner. Both Rommel and I are looking forward to making this again!

Sole Almondine with a twist

For dinner last night, I made sole almondine but with my own little twist. To make it healthier, I did not drench the sole fillet in flour and instead of lots of butter, I used lots of olive oil with the tiniest pat of butter for flavor (just because butter and sole fish are so perfect together). I had lots of fresh tarragon and a lemon tarragon vinaigrette I made the other day, so when making the sauce, I added fresh tarragon, a little vinaigrette, garlic, and fresh lemon zest in addition to the usual toasted almonds and lemon juice.

It's a lemon and tarragon kind of day

I'm guessing it's lemon season right now.... Can anyone confirm?

In the last month, we have received a whole bag of lemons from my grandma, a whole bag of lemons from Rommel's parents, a few lemons from a friend, and my coworker also brought in a giant basket full of lemons. Before I'm even finished using the ones I already have, someone else gives us more lemons.

I was thinking of making a nice big batch of some sort of lemon vinaigrette. Lemon and tarragon go nicely together. But instead.... typical me.... I started with one idea and went lemon tarragon crazy.

For dinner we had....

Salmon seared on a cast iron with skin side down to create a nice crispy skin then finished off under a broiler then drizzled with some lemon tarragon vinaigrette.

Green beans with garlic, toasted almonds, lemon tarragon vinaigrette, and more fresh tarragon.

Simple salad with baby spring mix lettuce, cucumbers, and lemon tarragon vinaigrette.

Leftover brown rice quinoa pasta noodles with a red pesto sauce - SOMETHING had to have no lemon and tarragon, right?!

I have a nice little batch of lemon tarragon vinaigrette to use for salads for the rest of the week.... Hmmmmmm what else can I do with lemons besides the usual marinades, squeeze on cooked fish/chicken/veggies, and salad dressings?

Ultimate Umami Salmon

ULTIMATE UMAMI SALMON. YUMMMM.

Take a salmon fillet and, using a silicone brush, lightly brush on a thin layer of soy sauce then a thin layer of sesame oil on to the salmon. Then spread a thin layer of miso paste on to the fillet with a knife or the back of a spoon. Make a furikake crust by mixing some furikake with a tiny bit of canola oil in a bowl to just lightly moisten. Furikake is a Japanese rice seasoning that is usually made up of seaweed and sesame seeds. Sometimes it will have some other dehydrated things to add flavor (I think the kind I used also had some tiny pieces of dehydrated carrot, sweet potato, and a few other things). Basically... Furikake is AWESOME. Anyways... continuing.... take your furikake "crust" and press in to the to of the salmon then bake as you would with any normal salmon fillet! So easy and quick, but soooo yummy.

Carne Asada and Grilled Veggies

This is from a little while ago, but I thought I would post.... I've actually cut out all meat (except for fish) since then so this is definitely an old post...

I made some grilled carne asada and veggies a few weekends ago to take advantage of hanging outside in the last of San Diego's warm weather. YES, I know I'm a wimp when it comes to weather... It's 62 degrees F outside right now and I'm dying... The last couple mornings have been THE WORST getting out of bed with my heated blanket or out of the nice hot shower... Mornings have been about mid-50s... Don't hate me... I've lived in coastal San Diego most of my life and don't handle anything outside of the range of 73-78 degrees very well... My house doesn't have central AC or heater (well we have a heater but it doesn't really work and we've never really cared) because we rarely ever need it... Until this year.. OH MAN this year sucked for weather in San Diego...

High is FIFTY EIGHT for Thursday and Friday??!? Oh man.... How am I going to handle this...

ANYWAYS.... getting off topic... I chose flank steak for my carne asada because it's a nice healthy cut of beef that handles marinades very well. Carne asada marinade has a lot of acid, so it needs a cut of meat that can hold up to it without getting too mushy. Also flank steak just has great flavor and can have a great texture also if it's marinated well. Flank steak and carne asada marinade are perfect for each other!

I like following Tyler Florence's carne asada recipe with my own adaptions: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/tacos-carne-asada-recipe/index.html

Here is his Mojo recipe (carne asada marinade) with my own twist:

• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 jalapeno, minced
• 1 large handful fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 limes, juiced
• 1 orange, juiced
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• zest from 2 limes
• zest from 1 orange
• chili powder
• cumin
• chili flakes

"In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients together. Toss thoroughly. Let it sit for 15 minutes hour to allow the flavors to marry."

• Add chili powder, cumin, chili flakes, salt and pepper to suit your own taste preferences. Feel free to taste the marinade to adjust seasonings as long as it hasn't touched any raw meat yet! I usually add about a nice big tablespoon of chili powder, a few teaspoons of cumin, and a pinch of chili flakes just because I love cumin and spice.

Then marinate your flank steak with this!! Put the steak and marinade in a large ziploc bag to marinate in the fridge for 1-8 hours - turn bag over and massage in to meat once or twice during it's marinating time.

Marinating flank steak!

"Grill (or broil) the steak for 7 to 10 minutes per side, turning once, until medium-rare." I like to baste mine with the marinade as I'm grilling. This way I can spoon some of that yummy garlic, zest, jalapeno, and cilantro chunks on to the steak and let it form a nice little flavorful crust. "Remove the steak to a cutting board and let it rest for 5 minutes to allow the juices to settle. Thinly slice the steak across the grain on a diagonal."

No matter how good this looks, don't touch it until you've given it time to rest so you don't lose all those delicious juices!

Now time for the veggies!! I pretty much took a bunch of veggies I happened to already have at home, seasoned them up, then grilled them.

Delicious healthy veggies

I had sliced white onions, green onions, broccoli, red bell pepper, and jicama. I squeezed some lime juice over all of them, sprinkled some cumin, chili powder, lemon peper, salt, and black pepper, then drizzled everything with a little olive oil.

Raw veggies seasoned up!

For grilling veggies (or other small things), it's nice to use a grill pan, so that your food is able to drain any liquids that come out in the cooking process and can get a nice char without losing your food to the barbeque by them falling through the wide grill grates... so sad when that happens!

I really like this grill pan because it has three different textures: one section with holes, so that liquid can drain through and everything can get a nice char from the direct heat by the flame; a crimped section if you still want to drain the juices, but don't want direct heat from the flame; and a completely flat section if you want to keep the moisture or for tiny things (like finely chopped garlic or onion).

I like to took advantage of the different grill sections to accommodate for different cooking times for each vegetable. First I cooked the broccoli over the section with the holes, then moved them over to the half with no holes to stay warm as I cooked the jicama. Then moved the jicama over with the broccoli and continued in the same pattern with white onions, bell pepper, and green onions.

Finished grilled veggies all mixed together

Final plated dish!

Plate the sliced carne asada and grilled veggies and finish with some fresh chopped cilantro and a final squeeze of lime juice. I had mine with Casillero Del Diablo Carmenere - one of my fav wines that is easy to find anywhere and isn't too expensive ($8 per bottle). This wine has a nice body and some spice that complements spicy steak very well! I also like that it has notes of chocolate and lot of berries in it, so when I don't finish the bottle with my dinner, it still goes well with some dark chocolate for dessert!

Last night's quick, yummy, and healthy (but ugly) dinner

Monday nights are one of my crazy nights... I'll usually leave work around 6, get home around 6:30 or 6:40, then have and about an hour to cook a quick dinner, eat, change my clothes,  and pack up stuff for the night and the next day before I have to leave for Taiko practice downtown for the night (my boyfriend lives close by my taiko practice, so I pretty much always stay with him Monday nights and need to pack up clothes for work the next day).

I like to always have some quick, partially prepared healthy foods on hand for nights like this (very often...).

For last night's random quick dinner, I needed a really filling meal with lots of protein and complex carbs to get me through the next few hours of working out at taiko practice. I was also pretty hungry from lunch because I only had miso soup and a salad that wasn't very big with vinaigrette and no protein for lunch. So when I got home, I quickly microwaved a whole sweet potato and topped it with a little bit of Smart Balance Light with Flaxseed, salt, pepper, and freshly grated nutmeg. I had that with a veggie burger I pulled out of the freezer and cooked (I found some veggie burgers that were made of veggies and all whole grains!) topped with whole grain mustard, vegetarian bacon, and an over-easy egg. Dinner completely done in less than 10 minutes!

Because veggies are super important for you, I snacked on a leftover veggie plate I put together for a party this weekend with some Trader Joe's Spinach Kale Greek Yogurt Dip while I was cooking. I didn't eat this whole plate though... haha!

Quick Dinner

So this kind of goes along with my last post... Meals I prepare when I have no time...

For those of you who know me, you know that I have a 30 minute commute north of my house to work every day . Yes, it is a little bit of a long drive but it's manageable. But I've recently taken up becoming a member-in-training for San Diego Taiko (we have a our mod-year review next week and our final audition will be around November!! Wish me luck!). I have Taiko practices 2-3 times a week 30 min SOUTH of my house... If I drive down there directly from work during rush hour, this can sometimes take me an hour and a half to drive... Luckily practices are a little later and I usually have time to make a quick stop at home (which is right in the middle of the drive) to eat and wait out some traffic. I'll usually have only from 30 minutes to 1 hour at home to eat, change, then leave for practice, leaving me with little time to make something filling and healthy.

I had practice on Monday night so I pretty quickly made an open-faced turkey burger on whole wheat! I happened to have frozen turkey burgers to throw on the grill - perfect because you can throw them on the grill and gave me some nice protein so I could last through my practice and workout. I went for an open-faced sandwich so that's one less slice of bread and less carbs - plus it's always prettier to eat with a knife and fork =P . I spread on a nice, thick layer of garlic kalamata olive spread (from Hani's Mediterranean market and a variation of the garlic chili spread I normally buy), threw on some mixed baby lettuce, and topped with the grilled turkey burger. A satisfying, filling, low-carb, and yummy dinner!