Easy Somewhat Homemade Meatballs (with spaghetti!)

I'm sorry about the terrible photo. I left my camera at home and I took this on my phone.

If you can't eat dairy, you probably don't eat meatballs (or you do, and feel the pain later). This recipe is easy and dairy-free, and totally delicious. I got the idea for using sausages from some cooking show. It works great because the sausage is already pre-spiced and full of fat, so you don't get the golf-ball like dense meatballs that sometimes happens when you use really lean meat. I tend not to measure anything, so this is all approximate. If you like your meatballs softer and less dense, add more breadcrumbs.

Ingredients

• 2 cups uncooked sausage (I used mild Italian pork sausage. DO NOT get sausage that is smoked, or otherwise pre-cooked)
• 2 cups ground beef (I got extra lean. Don't worry, the sausage will provide the fat you need to keep it juicy)
• 1 cup part bread crumbs
• 1 egg

Let's do it!

1. First of all, know that this is going to get messy. Take off any rings you're wearing and maybe put on an apron. And wash your hands, for goodness sake!
2. Squeeze the sausage meat out of its casing into a large mixing bowl. You should have a whole bunch of raw meat with fat and spices. Yay!
3. Add ground beef, bread crumbs and raw egg.
4. Mush it all together with your hands until it's all mixed up.
5. Form balls and put onto baking tray. You can put them close together, but don't let them touch. They will get slightly smaller. Use a baking tray that has a somewhat high lip on it, because these will put out a LOT of grease.
6. Put in the oven and turn on to 350ºF. I rarely preheat my oven, as I feel like it's a waste of energy. Particularly for something like this, where you're not worried about a crisp skin.
7. If the meatballs were small (golf ball or less), 30 minutes should do it, but make sure you test by cutting them with a fork. If the inside is cooked, they're done!

Tip: Let the grease cool down and put it in a small bag and throw it in the garbage or municipal compost (if your city does that). DO NOT put it down the drain, as it will destroy your plumbing. Yes, even if you put it down the toilet. Seriously. You want to hear some horror stories, talk to a plumber. Don't flush dental floss either. Just... don't.

Lunch it up!

I packed the meatballs in a container with some pasta sauce and packed the pasta separately. You can also make meatball sandwiches or cover them in BBQ sauce and serve them as hors d'oeuvres at a party. Or whatever it is people do with meatballs.

Sick at Home Edition: Lazy pho

Okay, it's actually Saturday, but I've been feeling like crap all week and I've decided that the only thing that could fight off this flu/cold is bowls and bowls of hot, spicy pho (rhymes with "whuh?".

Traditional pho takes almost 20 hours and a whole bunch of ingredients that I can't deal with right now, like beef thigh bones, carrots and other stuff to make the broth. Being of compromised health, I decided to cut out the whole broth thing (sacrilege, I know) and just buy it.

This recipe makes a lot of broth. Cook the noodles and beef as you need to throughout the day.

Ingredients
1 carton/900mL beef broth (I used President's Choice organics brand)
1 sirloin steak
1 serving vermicelli (you can buy packs that have them portioned into servings. It's pretty great)
1 small onion
1 hot pepper (or more, or less)
2 star anise
1" piece of ginger, peeled
5 cloves
3" stick of cinnamon
5 black peppercorns
a few splashes of fish sauce
1 lime
Fresh basil (or mint, if you don't have basil)

Note: I was really arbitrary about the spices. Don't worry about being too exact.


Let's do it!
First, bring the broth to a boil and add the star anise, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns and fish sauce. Lower to a simmer and cook, covered,  for at least 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, soak the vermicelli as per package directions.

After 20 minutes of simmering, taste and adjust flavour. If this is purchased beef broth, it's probably going to be pretty salty already, so lay off the salt. Add the onions and hot pepper a this point if you prefer your onions soft and your broth spicy.

Slice the beef thinly. I only used half the steak for my lunch and am saving the rest for dinner.

 

Turn the heat up to a low boil and add the vermicelli. Stir until cooked, a few minutes. Scoop the noodles into a bowl, and add the beef. Boil until cooked to your liking (I like mine rare). Place that into the bowl and top with broth, basil/mint and a squeeze of lime. Enjoy!

Note: I have omitted the raw bean sprouts that usually come with pho because I just don't like them.

Lainey-Style Beefaroni

Sometimes I crave the garbage-food of my youth (okay... early 20s). The problem is, since I'm allergic to dairy, I can't just pick up a can of Chef Boyardee and go to town on it. No, I have to MAKE it. So what is normally a 3 minute convenience food for many becomes an hour-long process0 for me, just to satisfy that one little craving.

Enter, Lainey-Style Beefaroni. All the gooey goodness/badness, none of the dairy, and somewhat less preservatives.

Ingredients
Tomato sauce
1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 package Daiya mozzarella shreds
4 cups or so of cooked Kraft Dinner macaroni noodles, substitute with good pasta if you want.
Bread crumbs

Let's do it!
Brown the ground beef in a skillet and drain. Add to the tomato sauce and simmer while making the pasta.

A note on the pasta: The reason why I have KD macaroni in the house is because my friend came over, planning on dropping off a bunch of food at the grocery store in the donation box. The grocery store didn't have a donation box for some reason, so he ended up leaving it at my house. I noticed that the KD was past its expiry date, meaning they probably wouldn't take it. So I threw out all the seasoning packs and put all the noodles into a plastic container to cook myself. I use these noodles every time I want some garbagey pasta.

Put the pasta in an oven-proof dish with most of the Daiya and the meat sauce. Mix well.

Top with a thin layer of breadcrumbs and the rest of the Daiya.

Place in the oven (or toaster oven) on broil for about 20 minutes. You don't NEED to do this, but I like having some crispy portions to the otherwise soft mess that is this dish.

This isn't nearly as garbagey as the canned stuff, but the processed taste of the Daiya cheese mixed with the beef and tomato sauce hits the right spot for me.

Beef and pepper tacos

I know what you're thinking. "How could you possibly have crispy tacos at work? Do you work at Google?!" The answer is "No, but I do work in a place that has a toaster!" There's a trick to making tacos at work, which I will reveal later on this post. But first, the filling.

Ingredients
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red onion, peeled and sliced into strips
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 steak (or any other meat)
1 tbsp chili powder
salt to taste
hot sauce to taste

taco shells

Optional: Sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, avocados, etc. I am extremely lazy so I had none of these.

Let's do it!
Heat a non-stick pan (I use a seasoned wok, no teflon) with oil on medium high and throw in the peppers. Fry for about 10 minutes to soften. While this is happening, pound the steak with a meat mallet (heh) to soften it up. Cut into thin slices. Toss in the onion and garlic (these burn easily, which is why you see these black bits in my taco filling) and fry until soft. Add the chili powder and sautee for another minute or so. Add the beef and cook for about 5 minutes, or until done. Season with salt and hot sauce.

Lunch it up!
Throw in a container and bring some taco shells to work. We're going to do this!

If you have a toaster at work, then you can have some nice, crispy tacos. If not, bring some flour tortillas. Turn the toaster to the very lowest setting. Put one taco, open side down so that the two sides go into each slot. Watch this carefully, when it starts to turn colour, pop it out. Do the same with the other taco (I'm assuming you're eating two.)

When that one's finished, put them both into each slot, fold side down. Again, watch carefully. When it's done, it might be tricky to get them out. Use a wooden chopstick if you can, or a knife, but BE CAREFUL. Apparently people get electrocuted by putting metal things into toasters. I've never seen it happen in real life, but there were a few PSAs about it when I was a kid.

Next step: fill taco and consume.

Bitter Melon and Beef

I had quite a weekend a while back and my friend, Steph, the earth-to-plate food master, suggested a concoction of bitter melon, cucumber, green apple and some other stuff in order to detoxify myself. Raw bitter melon. For some reason, Asian grocery stores no longer sell bitter melon one by one, instead they sell them packaged in threes or fours. Annoying. I love bitter melon (cooked) so I decided to make a favourite of mine for lunch. Oh, I haven't tried the concoction yet.

Ingredients
1 piece of beef, a bit bigger than my hand, I buy the cheapest steak I can find, usually. If you like more meat, go for it. If you like less, you can do that, too.
2 medium bitter melons

2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 tsp honey
1 tbsp Shao-Hsing wine, a cooking wine that you can get in the Asian grocery store. It has a red label.
1.5 tsp sesame oil
1.5 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 cup water

1 tbsp fermented black beans, rinsed and drained
3 cloves garlic, chopped

Let's do it!
Bitter Melon:
Chop off the sharp ends and slice in half lengthwise. Using a spoon, scoop out all the seeds and pith. Slice diagonally into thin slices. Sprinkle with salt liberally and put in a strainer for 30 minutes while you prepare the other stuff.

After the 30 minutes, rinse off the salt and squeeze the excess liquid out. Boil some water and blanch the melon for a couple of minutes to get even more of the bitterness out. Strain and rinse with cold water. Now it's ready to go.

Beef:
Mix together all the stuff in the middle group of ingredients except for the cornstarch and water. Take the beef and tenderize with a meat hammer (which I didn't do, but wish I did). Slice thinly and mix into the marinade and stick in the fridge until you're all done with the winter melon prep.

Putting it all together:
Heat some oil in a wok. When it swirls around the wok quickly, add the black beans and garlic. It WILL splatter, so make sure you're wearing pants or at least an apron. Trust me on this one. Add the beef without the marinade and mix well. After a couple of minutes, add the bitter melon and mix well. Mix up the cornstarch, water and marinade until the cornstarch is all dissolved. Add this to the mix and stir fry until the mixture thickens. Taste and adjust for saltiness/sweetness.

Serve over rice and enjoy the detoxifying effects of the bitter melon.