I mean honestly, who wouldn't love to have a big pan of simmering homemade meatballs on their stove (unless they're a vegetarian, of course)? I found a recipe in a cookbook Gail gave me by Arthur Schwartz called "Naples at Table". The recipe is called Polpette alla Napoletana (Neapolitan Meatballs), and with the recipe comes a story about how Neapolitans always used to use moistened bread in their meatballs, a practice which was frequently forgotten once they came to the new country, where meat was cheaper, and using bread to extend the meat reminded them of their peasant days. Unfortunately, Schwartz says, using all meat makes a very dense meatball, as does toasted dry breadcrumbs, which also eventually became popular. So, I used his soaked-bread recipe, which Schwartz assures makes a light, crusty and juicy meatball, and is as follows (I cut the recipe to about 1/3, but I'm including the original measurements here): Soak 3 cups dried crustless bread cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes before measuring in cold water. Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine 3 eggs, beaten, 2 large cloves garlic, finely minced, 1/2 cup loosely packed pecorino cheese, 1/4 cup loosely packed parsley, 1/3 c pine nuts (optional), 1/3 c raisins (optional), 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper. Add meat and the bread, which has been squeezed out. Mix everything really well (Schwartz says not to worry about working the meat too much), then form into balls (he says 1 1/2 inches is traditional, but I like smaller meatballs). Then fry them up in a pan coated with oil until their brown and crusty on the outside and almost done inside, and if you're using sauce, add it and simmer for about 15 minutes.

     I have to say that they did turn out yummy...light, crusty and juicy (in fact, David questioned briefly with his first bite as to whether they were fully cooked). I didn't have any pine nuts, and we don't like raisins, but we did have a bag of dried fruit, so I added a couple of diced prunes and an apricot, which sounds strange to me, as it might to you, until I thought of the time we had dinner at Kim and Todd's and she made a delicious pork stew with prunes and onions http://www.walkernewyork.com/eats/archives/2005_03.html#000936 so I thought it might work, and it did: it added just a bit of sweetness that helped, with the bread, to break up the dense meat.

 

Who knew I'd ever have a reason to buy a can of Del Monte cream style corn? I love the velvet corn soup at Chinese restaurants, and I've been known to order just that for lunch and eat the whole friggin' bowl (it's always listed for 2, and it's a BIG bowl). If you've never had it, it's basically an egg drop soup with corn and most of the time, bits of chicken, and it's got a somewhat velvety texture. I don't know why I never thought of making it before, especially since it turns out to be what I think is a pretty simple recipe. I found it on the web, and with it came an explanation by a woman who said that since canned vegetables came on the market, the Chinese have been using creamed corn to both add texture and flavor to their food. I don't know how accurate it is, but it is pretty yummy, even straight from the can (there's no cream in it, just sugar, salt and some food starch). The recipe is basically: 5-6 cups of chicken broth/stock, 1 can of cream corn (I ended up using two), 4 oz. of cooked chicken (I poached a skinless chicken breast in the broth I was using for the soup and then cut it up and added it back), salt to taste (I definitely didn't need any) and 1 scallion and 2 scrambled eggs added off the heat at the end (add the eggs while stirring the soup to break them up). I still felt it wasn't velvety enough, so I ended up adding a slurry of cornstarch at the end, as I can imagine they do at Chinese restaurants. I really thought it tasted pretty accurate, and I realized the next day, eating a bowl of leftover soup, that all I was missing was crunchy noodles.

 

We gave many bags of apples away from the ones we picked a couple of weeks ago, but were still left with plenty to munch on and cook with. Here are two steps of my venture through the apples: apple pancakes and an apple tart. Looking at the pancakes, I can almost hear the question: Where are the apples? They're on the underside! I made my first pancake by arranging the apple slices in the pan first, then pouring the batter over them, hoping for a pretty design on the top. But, I'm thinking it would have had to be a baked pancake for that to work, b/c it fell apart in the pan. Still tasted good, though! The recipe for the pancakes themselves (minus the apples) came from "New Vegetarian", by Celia Brooks Brown.

The apple tart recipe I got from the web, and the recipe calls for a puff pastry crust (cut into individual heart shapes, for no apparent reason), but I felt like giving it a nutty crust, so I used the nuty pie pastry recipe from my "Pie" cookbook. The recipe consists of poaching the apple slices in a mixture of wine, cloves, cinnamon, honey, and fresh ginger. I used half wine and half apple cider. It came out well, but I still think the apples were a bit underdone and looked somewhat anemic.

My friend Kim tagged me for a meme, and although I have to admit I'm not exactly sure what a "meme" is, I'm flattered. She did give me instructions, though, and what I'm supposed to do is go back to my 23rd entry (which, as Kim accurately predicted, doesn't exist; I'm still too new) and re-post the 5th line and then my current thoughts about it. Well, I came up with a twist that while twisted, still allows me to participate (by my own rules)...I'm re-posting the 2nd and 3rd line from my 5th entry. It's a bit long, but here it is, from just a few months ago (August 12, 2005): Last week, David and I visited my dad and Gail in a house they had rented in Martha's Vineyard, and one of the aspects of the house that really got me going was the suburban-sized kitchen, something I'm not normally accustomed to using, and I suddenly found myself consumed with the desire to grill, bake and traipse from the stove to the counter to the fridge as often as possible. I believe I wanted to cook more often that anyone wanted to eat. This pretty much tells the whole story from the entry, thanks to the run-on sentences. But I still get excited at the sight of a roomy kitchen (and probably always will, unless I have one of my own one day). I remember constantly leafing through the Silver Palate cookbook and the Gourmet magazine we had at the house that week, just itching to whip something up.

 

David and I went apple picking this weekend, and as we were paying for our bag pre-pick ($15!!!), we noticed some women paying for a carton of tiny strawberries. When I asked if they had picked them, I was told yes (wahoo!), and given directions to the patch (which we quickly discovered was harder to find than we thought, but we eventually got there--thankfully David wouldn't give up searching). These strawberries are much smaller than the ones you find in the supermarket (some as small as your fingernail), are red ALL the way through, and have an intense berry flavor.