Easy Meatballs and Cinnamon Stewed apples

We ate lunch in New Canaan yesterday and while wandering around, stopped into a cafe where they had a platter of enormous meatballs. My daughter said she wanted to buy them and I said, "we can make those".

Here's my easy recipe for homemade meat (or turkey) balls and another recipe for cinnamon apples.

Meatball recipe:
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 tsp. garlic salt
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
2 eggs
1/2 C. bread crumbs
pinch of ground black pepper

1 tsp. olive oil
1 jar tomato sauce
1 package of pasta (Linguine or Spaghetti is great)

In a bowl, combine first 6 ingredients, mix with your hands until well combined.

Heat olive oil in a deep sided pan with a top on medium high heat. While the oil heats, make large meatballs (ours was a little smaller than the size of a tennis ball). When the oil is shimmering, add the meatballs (this makes about 8 meatballs).

Brown the meatballs on all sides, this takes about 5 minutes. When the meatballs are browned, add in the jar of tomato sauce, reduce the heat to medium, cover and let cook for about 20 minutes.

While the meatballs cook, boil water for pasta.

These meatballs are also perfect as a meatball sandwich.

Cinnamon Stewed Apples Recipe: This is like eating the best part of the apple pie!!

3 peeled apple, cored and cut into 1/8Th's
1 1/2 C. water
1/4 C. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. corn starch
1 tbs. unsalted butter

Combine all ingredients into a deep sided pan with a lid, bring to a low boil and cook until apples are soft, and liquid has reduced down about 20 minutes.

We all agreed these apples would be delicious on either:
pancakes for breakfast
vanilla ice cream
with a little granola sprinkled on top for a snack...

Baked apples with maple syrup and dried cranberries

It has been a very busy week here and sad to say, we have been eating out more often this week. We went to the diner one night, the kids had eggs and bacon, and last night we ordered in Chinese food, a delicious soup with chicken, soba noodles and veggies.

I had the kids try bok choi, one didn't like it (surprise, surprise...) and the other one loved it and asked for more. After Saturday, things will slow down a little. Thankfully, we have some frozen turkey chili (I made a while ago ) that we will eat tonight.

I wanted to share a baked apple recipe that I taught today in a soup's class.

1 ½ cups pomegranate juice
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tsp. candied ginger, chopped
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
4 medium Honey Crisp apples, cored
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans

Preheat oven to 375°.
Combine first 6 ingredients. Stir well; set aside.
Peel top half of each apple; place in a shallow roasting pan. Fill centers of apples evenly with cranberries and pecans. Pour cranberry-maple mixture over apples. Bake at 375° for 30-40 minutes or until tender, basting apples twice with syrup from pan. To serve, drizzle with remaining syrup.

Homemade apple sauce

We have a bowl of apples sitting on our counter from our apple picking venture a couple weeks ago. They look too old to eat, but too good to throw out.

I made apple sauce (and bread) this morning and it was the easiest and fastest thing ever.

There are exactly 3 ingredients.

apples ( I peeled and cored about 8)
about 1/2 C. of water
about 1/4 C. of sugar

Throw everything in a pot, cover and let boil until the apples are soft. Using a hand held blender, puree until smooth. I am going to try using agave the next time I made this and see how it turn out. If you try it, let me know.

Transfer to a bowl and cool in the refrigerator. We ate it for dessert tonight and my littlest requested it for breakfast.

The bread I made was the no-knead one I did last year (the recipe is somewhere in the blog) with black pepper and Parmesan. It is easy, but NOT fast. It takes almost 2 days. It was delicious and we enjoyed it fresh from the oven this morning for breakfast.

Dinner was pounded boneless, skinless chicken thighs that I dredged in panko, a little Greek Seasoning and a dash of garlic salt. Brown them in a large nonstick pan with a little bit of oil (I used Safflower).

You don't need to cook them all the way through because they will get transferred to the oven at 350 for about 15 more minutes. I boiled a little pasta and peas with Parmesan cheese.

It is 7 p.m., lunches are made, clothes are put away, and the kids are blessedly asleep. I am going to crawl into bed early and get a good nights sleep.

Try the apple sauce, it is delicious.