Mama's Tip of the Day

Ricotta cheese can turn stiff and gluey if you're not careful. Mixing by hand, and making sure you STOP mixing as soon as your ingredients are blended will help it stay light and creamy. Because frankly, once you're past kindergarten, you should stop eating paste.

Basic Baked Ziti

I like recipes that can go straight from freezer to oven, with zero effort on the night you actually want to eat it. Baked pasta dishes, like this one, are perfect for that. This is a nice basic recipe that you can alter to suit your family's tastes or whatever mood you're in. Ground beef or crumbled sausage would be nice additions, or a little spinach or chopped artichoke hearts for a vegetarian version.


1-lb box of ziti
8 oz shredded mozzarella
32 oz ricotta
2 eggs
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp salt
3 cups pasta sauce (about a 24-oz jar. I'm using a vodka sauce - yum.)

• Cook the ziti according to package directions
• While the pasta is cooking, combine half the mozzarella with all of the remaining ingredients except for the pasta sauce and stir until just blended.
• When the pasta is tender, reserve one cup of the cooking water and drain the pasta well.
• Add the pasta, reserved water, and pasta sauce to the cheese mixture. Pour into a large baking dish and top with the remaining 4 ounces of mozzarella.
• Bake, covered, at 375F for 40 minutes. Uncover and continue to cook until hot and bubbly, about 30-45 minutes more.

If you're freezing:

• Follow the first four steps, making sure you're using a baking dish that can survive the freezer. (You can find disposable aluminum pans, which freeze well, in most grocery stores.)
• Cover tightly with plastic wrap, then a layer of heavy-duty foil.
  
• When ready to bake, remove the foil and plastic, discard the plastic wrap and re-cover with the foil, then pick up at step 5.
  

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

This is a great weekend recipe because, although it takes a while to roast the squash and apples, the majority of the active work is at the very beginning and the very end. You can go about the business of enjoying your life in the meantime. This makes a double-batch, about enough for 4 servings tonight and 4 more to freeze for next time.


1 large squash (4-5 lbs)
5 tbsp butter, divided
2 tbsp vegetable oil
3 medium Honeycrisp apples(quartered, peeled, and cored)
1 medium white onion (cut into 1-inch chunks)
3 small or 1 large garlic clove (peeled and roughly chopped)
4 fresh sage leaves
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 c chardonnay (or any dry white wine)
3 c chicken stock, plus a little extra to thin the soup
1/2 c milk or heavy cream
2 large pinches of nutmeg
salt & black pepper to taste

• Preheat the oven to 450 F
• Halve the squash lengthwise and remove the seeds. Place both halves cut-side down on a baking pan. Drizzle the oil and 2 tbsp of the butter (in small pieces) around them, and place in the oven. Set timer for 20 minutes.
• Add the apples, onion, and garlic to a baking dish and drizzle with the remaining butter (melted).
• Remove the thyme leaves from their stem, and roughly chop the leaves with the sage. Add these to the apples and toss everything to coat evenly with the butter.
  
• When the timer goes off, add the apple dish to the oven.
  
• Bake until the squash is easily pierced with a knife, and the apples are tender (about 40 minutes-1 hour more, so about 1 hr-1 hr 20 mins total from the time you first put the squash in the oven). Stir the apples occasionally during baking.
• Carefully (it will be extremely hot at this point!) spoon the squash out of its shell, and add the flesh to a large soup pot over medium-high heat with the contents of the apple dish, wine, and chicken stock. Use an immersion blender* to break down the large chunks until you have an over-all smooth texture. Add a little extra stock if necessary.
• Add the milk, nutmeg, salt & pepper and bring the soup up to a simmer. Give it 5 minutes to let the flavors blend, and serve hot.
  

If you're freezing:

• Follow the entire recipe, then cool in the refrigerator before freezing.
  
• When ready to eat, defrost in the refrigerator, then reheat and serve.

*If you don't have an immersion blender, no worries. Just add the squash and apples in batches with the stock to your regular blender or food processor and then back into the pot they go.

Where've you been, Mama?

You may have noticed a conspicuous lack of posts in the last year or so. Well, first, my apologies. And second, my explanation.

There are a couple of pretty good reasons I haven't been posting.

#1, the whole Meatball family moved out of our teeny apartment and into a space that, while warm and welcoming, wasn't exactly ideal for recipe-testing. That, however, has recently changed. We Meatballs have moved into new (to us) digs over the summer, and have finally settled in to the point where we can stop opening boxes and just go about the business of living here. I have a lovely little 1959 kitchen that I initially wanted to gut and redo, but somehow in the last 3 months I've fallen head-over heels for my miniature 1959 oven (man, is it ever wee. And I'm pretty sure it's original to the house, but it works perfectly) and my pretty little bread drawer (it could use a little love and maybe a good re-tinning), and lately have been feeling happily inspired to really start cooking again. Although not a complete gut-and-redo, the kitchen will be getting a healthy face lift soon enough. More on that later, and I promise to post a few before-and-after pics.

#2, last September, a close friend and I were in a pretty bad car accident. Long story short, we're both fine now, but those first few months afterward were pretty rough, so cooking and creating new recipes took a backseat to healing and returning to our regularly-scheduled lives. The last 12 months have been quite the roller coaster.


Ahem. I missed you, little blog of mine, and I promise never to go away for so long again.

Love,

Your Mama

Three-Bean Chicken Chili

My favorite part of this recipe was a complete accident. I was being a little lazy by throwing the onions into the food processor rather than chopping by hand. When the Baby Prupetta is in the kitchen with me I tend to pay more attention to her than to the food, so said food processor kept on going until those onions were well beyond their normal rough chop. We went with it anyway. That silly onion puree adds a really nice depth and richness that you don't get with just chopping, but we left a few plain chopped pieces just for the added texture.


1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 medium yellow onions, divided
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2-2 lbs ground chicken or turkey
2 1/2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp ancho chili powder, or to taste
2 cans, about 14 1/2 oz each, diced tomatoes, undrained
2 1/2 c chicken stock
8-oz can tomato sauce
1 can each: Cannellini, Garbanzo, and Small Red (or light red kidney) beans

• Chop the onions into long wedges, 8 wedges per onion. Roughly chop one wedge and set aside.
• Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
• While the oil is heating, puree the remaining onion wedges until smooth. (Trust me here, people. The puree is a good thing.)
• Once the onions have begun to soften and brown, add in the oregano, cumin, and ground meat.
  
• Stir until the meat is no longer pink, breaking up any large chunks with your spoon.
• Add the next 7 ingredients (everything but the beans) and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover tightly, and let the chili simmer about 20 minutes.
• Rinse and drain the beans, and add to the pot. Bring it back up to a boil and simmer until everything is heated through, about 5 minutes more.
• Season with salt and a little more black pepper to taste, and serve with sour cream and some shredded Colby Jack.

If you're freezing:

• Follow the entire recipe and let the chili cool completely before pouring into a freezer bag.
• When ready to eat, defrost in the refrigerator, then reheat and serve.