Garlic ‘Pasketti & Balls Bread

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My husband’s loves this spin on a childhood fave food. It consists of a hollowed out bread loaf that’s been brushed with garlic butter, topped with cheese and spaghetti & meatballs. I put more cheese on top and bake it for 10 mins at 350*F. I let it cook for 10 mins, pulled it to rest 10 mins, and then cut it into slices to serve.

Garlic ‘Pasketti & Balls Bread:
1″ Bundle of Spaghetti
Pasta Sauce, of choice
Frozen Meatballs, of choice
Half Bread Loaf, cut lengthwise and middle mostly hollowed out
Garlic Butter
1/2 C Marble Cheese, either slices or grated, or both
1/4 C Parmesan Cheese, grated

Serves two.

Hollow out the bread and brush the cavity with the garlic butter. Lay down half the marble cheese and top it with half of the parm cheese. Roll the cooked pasta in the pot with the hot sauce and balls. (I cut the meatballs in half to make eating them easier.)

Carefully lay the spaghetti & balls over the cheeses and top with more meatballs. Push it down as you add more to condense it and really get that hot sauce melting the cheese to trap the spaghetti in place. Top with the last of the cheeses, and bake on a sheet pan.

It’s a real challenge to eat this without losing any of the balls or strands of the spaghetti, but that only makes it more fun to eat on some random night when you need something fast to make and filling to consume.

Mason Jar Ice Creams

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This morning I made an ice cream base in my blender and dumped it into two mason jars and added some crushed up chocolate covered pretzels and some chocolate covered peanuts. I stuffed them into the big freezer and went to work.

The second I got home, I took those jars out and let them come up to room temp a bit while we ate lunch. I like this blend. I love being able to use my high-speed blender to blitz the base together, but I hated scooping it out. Ugh. That is my only complaint.

Give this very creamy ice cream a go if are in a hurry. It freezes perfectly, and softens quickly enough to have whenever you like.

Sunday Dinner – Meatloaf & Beans

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Made a late simple dinner tonight. I cooked a lovely meatloaf in the air fryer. And as that rested, I cooked some green beans with canned mushrooms, and fried onions as the side. I have made many different meatloaves over the years, but this one is up there with my favourite ground turkey meatloaf that I keep craving.

Here’s what I put in mine:

Jalapeno Meatloaf:
1+ lbs Ground Beef
1/4 sm Yellow Onion, grated finely
1/4 Bell Pepper, any on hand, fine diced
1/2 med Jalapeno, seeded and fine diced
Cracks of Pepper
Pinch of Salt
3 tbsp Everyday Seasoning Rub
1/2 C Panko
1/2 C Dry Breadcrumbs

Everyday Seasoning Rub:
1 1/2 tbsp: Garlic / Onion Powders
1 tbsp: Salt / Paprika
2 tea: Black Pepper / Mustard Powder

(Despite only needing a bit of the rub mix for the meatloaf, the above will net you enough to fill a small mason jar. You can use it with any kind of food group.)

Mix all of the meatloaf ingredients in a mixing bowl by hand. Place fistfuls of meat into a greased pan, and press the meat into the corners first. Add the rest to the middle and spread it all out evenly across the surface.

Place the pan into the air fryer (or on a sheet tray) to cook at 375*F for about 18-20 mins. Pull the loaf when it temps at 158-160* and let the residual heat finish cook the meat. Let it rest on a cutting board in the pan for about 15 mins as you work on the green beans.

Green Beans:
1 tbsp regular Olive Oil
S&P, to taste
1/2 can Mushrooms (for cooking speed), drained
1+ tbsp Dried Onions

Clean out the mixing bowl with soap, and drip dry it. Run your green beans under cool water to rinse off any dirt. Drain them and dump them in the bowl. Assemble the other ingredients over the beans. Roll everything around nicely. With tongs, move the mixture to the air fryer basket (or dump it onto a sheet tray to cook them in the oven, or in a skillet to pan fry). Cook the beans at the same temp as the meat for about 5+ mins.

They are done when you can hold one bean with the tongs and bend it over in a soft V shape. Plate it all and decide if you want any sauce to top the meat with or not. Enjoy.

I Made Natural Peanut Butter!

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Yes, I did! Just like the pioneers! (And the pilgrims, I’m sure.)

So easy, so fast, and you can fully control the taste using salt, oil type, and the peanuts you choose to use.

I used: 1 bag of Unsalted Roasted Peanuts / 3-4 tbsp Oil (I chose veg) / 1/4 tea salt. I threw it all into my high-speed blender and let it go.

My pretty blender. I nicknamed her She Hulk. For the obvious reason.

My pretty blender. I nicknamed her She Hulk. For the obvious reason.

My first attempt with a conservative two tablespoons of veg oil produced a lovely chunky mix, but it was barely spread consistency so I added another tablespoon. That got me a lovely lumpy consistency but I wanted to see what would happen if I added another half tablespoon more of oil and let ‘er rip a full minute.

This! This what I got. I’m am very happy. This is how I love my natural peanut butter. This is the spread I love to use at home. I have long ditched the sugary Kraft stuff my husband refuses to give up. He rarely eats PB & J, but when he does, he gets cranky when there isn’t any in the pantry. I married a child. 🙂

Anyhooch, give this a go if you’re into natural peanut butter like I am, and you also hate the big sticker price of it in grocery stores and bulk food stores. The wild pricing of any commercial peanut butter products is teetering on being a criminal situation. :-\

Sicilian Sheet Tray Pizza

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I like making pizza at home. We like a nice crispy crust, and one way to guarantee getting one every time outside of having a professional pizza oven is to use a sheet tray and regular olive oil. It’s how the Sicilians nonnas do it.

One your large sheet tray, pour out about 2 tbsp of olive oil. You can use your fingers to layer the whole tray in the oil, or you can use a brush. Don’t forget to brush oil up along the sides so the pizza doesn’t stick to it. Watch this clip to see how it’s done.

Drop your room temp ball of pizza dough on the sheet and use your oiled fingers to start pressing and stretching the dough outwards all over the surface. When you think the bottom has enough oil on it, flip the whole dough over to oil the second side. Keep stretching the dough out to the corners from the middle and the dough edge.

When the dough starts contracting back into the middle, stop. Let the dough rest 30 mins. After that first rest, repeat the stretching into the corners. Again, when it starts contracting, stop. Rest it another 30 mins. This may need one or two more stretch & rests before you can start topping the pizza.

I bake mine at 450*F for as long as it takes for me to smell it cooking in the oven and for the cheese to melt in the middle. Pull it out, rest it 10-15 mins, and then use your longest burger flipping spatula to lift the crust off of the sheet to a cutting board. And this should what you see when you sneak a peek at the crust.

Enjoy!

 

Mac & Pizza Casserole

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Sometimes I get tired of pizza because I’m not in the mood to chew a baked crust. And sometimes I also want Mac & Cheese at the same time as pizza. Enter the casserole version!

I mixed up my normal pizza topper ingredients I like (pepperoni chopped up, any veg I have kicking around, loads of grated mozza + marble cheddar plus a bit of parm cheeses), a bunch of cooked elbow pasta, the white mac & cheese sauce I always make (or close enough), and any spices I want (I stuck with the classic Italian blend).

This got baked covered at 375* for about 30 mins to get it hot enough to melt the cheese properly.

Pizza Pizziola

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This is a spin on the Subway Pizziola we used to make back in the day. I love the idea of chicken and pepperoni in the same sandwich, so it seems like it would translate nicely to an actual pizza version. And I was right. This might be the husband’s new favourite.

I’ve made these mini pizzas on naan bread both in the oven and in the air fryer. Both come out roughly the same with not much difference, so bake it in what you have. It’s definitely faster in the air fryer, though.

Here is how I did it: I laid the sauce down on the naan and topped it with a bit of veggies, and then the pepperoni slices. I placed the pulled chicken all over then then topped that will a few dabs of sauce before laying the whole top surface with mozzarella.

After I bake the pies, and I get the colour on the cheese I’m after, I pull them out and top them with Italian Blend spices and cracks of Red Hot Chili Pepper Flakes to finish it.

Fast & Dirty Tartar Sauce

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This is a very scaled down version of the tartar sauce my late mother-in-law used to make every morning when she worked at a big chain restaurant 50 years ago. I make this any time we have fish of any kind where it would be appropriate.

Small Batch Tartar Sauce:
1/4 C: Mayo / Sour Cream
1 Dill Pickle, fine chopped (or 1 tea relish)
1 tea Creamy Horseradish
1/2 tea: Lemon Juice, fresh / Lemon Zest, for colour (opt) / Dried Oregano
S&P, to taste

Give it a good stir and use it immediately, or chill it to marry the flavours further. Store in the fridge for up to three weeks covered. Yield: 4 regular portions, or two big portions.

Low-Carb Pasta Alternative

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Ok, so I found this recipe link for a Low-Carb Pasta Alternative buried in my old Pinterest boards. In a board I haven’t looked at in about six or more years. Otherwise, I would have suggested this long ago.

Use that bagged slaw we use for stir-fries. It’s quite versatile. Anyway, if you’re missing pasta in sauce, this might be up your alley, E.

Air Fryer Smash Sliders

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A few weeks back, I made some cute mini smash burgers at home that, although tasty enough, were a huge pain the butt to make on the stovetop. They had too much clean up time attached after the onions invariably burned while the thin meat patties resting over them steam cooked, and the cheese on top of them finally melted and the bun warmed up. Ugh.

I vowed never to make them that way again. They make a cute pub grub meal, but honestly, I wasn’t into making them the Alton Brown way again. What he does, he does well. But, I’m not Alton. I’m me. And me is really good at figuring out ways to streamline production and assembly methods at work, and at home. Work smarter, not harder!

So with that, I turned to my air fryer. In the back of my head, I was only going to cook down the onions in it (so they didn’t burn) while I pan fried the patties on one side before flipping them and adding the cheese on the second side as the meat finished up.

I ended up poo-pooing the idea of using the stovetop all together when I remembered how fast cooking onions in the air fryer is at 350*F for about 10-12 mins. I could just wait ten minutes and add the patties after removing the onions. From there, 4 mins on the first side, flip, add cheese and cook another 4 minutes while I prepped the buns.

I chose a small dinner roll pack because the grocery store stopped getting the slider buns I was going to buy during the pandemic. I assume the bread maker axed this from their streamlined product line for supply chain issues. Oh, well. The dinner buns were the perfect size in the end.

I laid the onions on a platter in small nests so I could drop a cheesy patty on each when they came out of the air fryer. I placed the tops on each patty so they melded together. On the bottoms, I laid down some somewhat spicy burger/dip sauce I had in the fridge.

We then scraped up each pile off the platter and laid them down onto each bottom, and viola! Done. I really like how these turned out, and how fast they came together. And it was about as much clean up as cooking bacon strips in the air fryer. And none of it irritated me like doing these smash sliders on the stovetop did.

I’m calling this one as a win! Will do smash sliders this way from now on. Recommend.