Mangia! Meatballs

A repost from Share: The Brookshire's Blog.

Ever since Lady and The Tramp canoodled over a plate of pasta, spaghetti and meatballs has been, in my mind, a sweet date night dish.

It doesn’t get much better on a Friday night than to sit down with your sweetie over a plate of mouth-watering , homemade spaghetti and meatballs.

I’ve been working on my meatballs and marinara sauce for years. I finally have my marinara sauce as close to perfection as it’s going to get, but I hadn’t yet been satisfied with my meatballs. That  all changed last Friday night.

These meatballs melt in your mouth, which was just the consistency I was going for. In the past, my meatballs had gotten tough, but these are tender, moist morsels. Don’t over bake these beauties; pull them out of the oven when they’re still pink inside and let them continue simmering in your sauce. They’ll infuse your sauce with a savory goodness and the sauce, in turn, adds tenderness to the meatball.

Meatballs
Makes 12 hearty meatballs

Ingredients:1 lb 85% lean ground beef
1 lb bulk pork sausage
1 large egg
1 cup panko
2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbs dried oregano
1 Tbs garlic powder
1 Tbs dried basil

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Mix by hand until well incorporated. Roll gently into rounds slightly larger than golf balls. Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven while the centers are still pink and place into pot of simmering marinara to finish cooking, at least 30 minutes. If you’re not going to use the meatballs immediately, cook through in the oven. These freeze well.

*Note, a friend of mine hates to put her hands into raw meat, so she combines all her ingredients inside a gallon-sized zipper-lock plastic bag and “squishes” the bag until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Repost from the SHARE- Brookshire's Blog

I love Oobleck!!!


http://brookshires.squarespace.com/blog/2012/6/21/family-matters-oobleck.html

Family Matters:  Oobleck

 

 

by Amy Brocato Pearson | Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 4:46PM

On the last day of school one year, my older son, Curt, came home with a bag of slime.

No, it wasn’t the contents of a long-lost lunch bag, it was, as he explained to me in great detail, oobleck.
I watched him extract the green oobleck from the plastic bag, stretching it the length of his arm as he did so. Then he and his brother, Luke, proceeded to play with the oobleck for two hours.

Named for a slime in a Dr. Seuss book, “Bartholomew and Oobleck,” that had the power to gunk up a whole land, oobleck , besides looking like green gunk, has properties of both solids and liquids. Oobleck wiggles and jiggles like a liquid or jelly, but if you squeeze it in your hand, it will seem like a solid. In the scientific world, oobleck is called a dilatant, a substance that causes another to expand. If you slowly lower your hand into oobleck, it will sink, but it’s much, much harder to remove your hand without taking all the oobleck and its container with you. But in the real world, oobleck is just plain fun and easy to make with ingredients you probably have right in your pantry, perfect for a craft – or science experiment – on a hot summer’s day.

Oobleck

Ingredients:

Corn starch
Water
Food coloring (optional)
Directions:

Mix 1 part water with 1.5 to 2 parts cornstarch. Start with 1 cup of water and 1 1/2 cups of cornstarch, then work in more cornstarch if you want a more 'solid' oobleck.

Mix for about 10 minutes to get the right consistency. If you mix oobleck in a plastic bag with a zipper lock, kids can “squish” it to the right consistency.

Mix in a few drops of food coloring if you want colored oobleck.

Try this:

Squeeze or punch the oobleck. The cornstarch particles will not move out of the way quickly, so the oobleck will feel solid.

Mold oobleck in a container, but when you remove the mold, watch the oobleck lose its shape.

Feeling Foodie

For as long as I can remember, I've loved reading about food. Food magazines, cookbooks, you name it.

Over my career, I've gotten to write about food here and there, but now I get to do it a lot more!

I'm so excited and honored to be the newest contributor to Share - The Brookshire's Blog. Starting next week, you'll see my articles appear online several times a week and maybe even find their way into your inbox if you subscribe to Brookshire's newsletters.

As part of this glorious gig, I'll also be a contributor to Celebrate Cooking, the monthly cooking magazine you see at every check-out counter in the more than 150 Brookshire's stores in the South.

Oh yeah, and you might see me around the web, too.