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Monday, March 22, 2010

Meatball Souvlaki Recipe


Meatball Souvlaki
By Donna Meadow (Woman’s Day Magazine-Feb 17th, 2010)

Yogurt Sauce
1 cup plain Greek yogurt                       1/3 cup chopped fresh mint
¼ cup water                                         ¼ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp garlic powder                              ¼ tsp salt

Meatballs
To cut down on prep time, buy prepared turkey meatballs. Just roast for the last 10 minutes or use the follow:
1/3 cup plain dry bread crumbs             1 large egg
1/3 cup water                                       1 tbsp dried minced onion
1 tsp ground cumin                               ¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp salt                                              ¼ tsp pepper
1 lb lean ground beef                            1 lb medium zucchini cut into ½ in rounds
2 tsp olive oil                                        1 medium red onion, cut into ½ in thick wedges
3 plum tomatoes, cut into 4 wedges       Warmed pocketless pitas
Lettuce (optional)

1. Position racks to divide oven in thirds. Heat oven to 500ºF. You’ll need 2 rimmed baking pans lined with nonstick foil.

2. Yogurt Sauce: Mix all sauce ingredients in medium bowl, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve with meatballs.

3. Meatballs: Stir bread crumbs, egg, water, minced onion, cumin, garlic powder, salt, and pepper until blended. Add beef; stir with fork until thoroughly blended. Roll rounded tbsps into balls; place on lined baking pan.

4. Put zucchini and red onions on other lined baking pan; toss with oil. Place vegetables on top rack, meatballs on bottom. Roast 20 minutes.

5. Remove pan from oven, turn browned vegetables over, then push to one side, and add tomatoes; turn meatballs. Roast meatballs and vegetables 5 minutes more or until tender; toss together.

6. Serve on pitas with lettuce if desired. Top with yogurt sauce

Per serving :363 cal, 31g protein, 17g carb, 3g fiber, 19 g fat (9 g sat fat), 132mg chol, 450mg sodium  

NOTES: We decided that next time we do this recipe that we are not going to add the water to the yogurt sauce. It was REALLY runny. 

Another thing we learned is that you really do need to oil the foil when you line you pans. Otherwise the meatballs just sticks and makes a huge mess out of them.. It also makes it hard to flip them over like the recipe calls for. 

Also, we didn't put in the tomatoes, since neither of us are huge tomato fans and because we couldn't find an tomatoes that looked good.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Meal Planning

Shaun and I have never been really good at planning what to have for dinner or for actually grocery shopping in general, but we have been trying to be better about plan our meals out and then going shopping for the things that we need to complete those meals. We started by making a list of foods we know that we like and then by going  through recipes of things we would like to try making. We plan two weeks at a time and thus far it has been a great things for us. We having been doing this about a month now and it is a lot easier when it comes to dinner time. It is also nice because we are eating out much less (there are those time that making a meal doesn't happen, like the night that my dad got admitted to the hospital and we went to see him) and it is in turn helping us spend way less money.

Each week we have to try at least one new recipe/things we have never personally made that we try. Some of the new things we have tried thus far are Dockside Mexican Hotpot, Meatball Souvlaki, Chicken Enchiladas, Poppy seed Chicken, Corn beef and Cabbage. (I am willing to post recipes if anyone want them) It has been fun to try new foods or things that our parents have made for us that we ourselves have never made. Hopefully we can keep up with this meal planning and that we will get better at it.

Here are a few pictures of the things that we have made:

Meatball Souvlaki

Pork Chop Salad

 Our version of a "Chubby" 
(We made these before we started the meal planning, I just hadn't posted them so I thought I would)

Navajo Tacos

Pi Day 2010

It is (well it was) that time of the year again... Pi Day! We, of course, had a party in celebration. This year Pi Day was on a Sunday so we decided we would celebrate the night before.

 We had a pretty good turn out this year. There were about 20 people that came (a third of those who came were kids). It was a lot of fun. We had The Pie and pie. Everyone who came brought something, which helped out a lot. We had 5 different types of pizza (The Pie's Greek pizza is REALLY good! I had never had it before, but I loved it!), plus yummy cheese stick and about 5 different types of pies (cheesecake, apple, pumpkin, banana cream, and chocolate cream). Everything was really tasty and it was great to be able to just spend time with our friends talking and getting to know each other better. Pi day is never anything really big, but it is still fun to be able to have the party, one that I would have never of had had I not married Shaun.

Another reason I like this time of year is it marks the anniversary of when Shaun and I first met. March 15th  2 years ago is the day that Shaun and I first met in person. I honestly cannot believe how quickly time has gone by. It has been the best two years of my life. I am so glad that things have happen the way that have, because I have never been happier! I look forward to may more Pi day celebrations with Shaun!