Three Free Thursday Part I: Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs with Edamame

Happy Three Free Thursday, Blog Readers!   To recap the process, on the first Thursday, I select three free recipes from sources on Twitter.  On the following Thursday, I report back via blog entry the full results of my adventures in the kitchen and let you know if you should try these recipes at home. Enjoy!

Recipe: Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs

with Edamame

Source: @Real_Simple

Link:http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/chicken-teriyaki-meatballs-edamame-snow-peas-00000000006815/index.html

After the last Three Free Thursday adventure with "Pineapple-Ginger Rice with Edamame", I vowed that I would go back to basic recipes for awhile and simply help my readers find classic recipes to add to their overflowing recipe boxes.  However, after some helpful suggestions from @EatingtheWeek and reading this recipe for "Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs with Edamame", I felt I needed to try again.   

Anyone else think soba noodles
kind of look like brains?
Great Halloween dinner. ;-)

Findings:

The recipe is pretty basic and requires a bit of "re-engineering" - in particular adding different types of vegetables instead of just heaping three cups of snow peas into skillet/wok and incorporating different seasonings.  I tried @EatingtheWeek's brillant ideas - serving the dish over a bed of soba noodles and seasoning with red pepper flakes and/or brown sugar - in a few of my experiments. In the end, I settled on my favorite combination - mini meatballs atop a bed of soba noodles, adding a heaping serving of frozen stir fry vegetables in place of half of the snow peas, adding red pepper flakes and fresh ginger to a doubled amount of soy/brown sugar sauce and chilling overnight. 
After experimenting with this recipe, I did end up enjoying the final meal outcome.  It was particularly good as a cold dish for lunch the following day.  The flavors really deepened overnight and the soba noodles absorbed a bit of the sauce.  I'd suggest that everyone start with the basic recipe and my tips and then experiment with frozen vegetables to tailor the recipe to their taste. Let me know what combination works best for you and yours.

Tips: 

• Serve hot over white/brown long-grained rice or serve cold over soba noodles.
• Replace 1 1/2 cups of snow peas with 1 1/2 cups of frozen stir fry vegetables (thawed) and cook for 3-4 minutes before adding the sauce.
• Double the sauce recipe to better coat the rice (or soba noodles) and add stronger flavor to the dish.
• Make 32 mini meatballs instead of 16 larger meatballs to minimize cooking time.   
• Spice it up! Add a small pinch of red pepper flakes or 1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger to soy sauce/brown sugar sauce prior to reduction.

Rating: 3 out of 5  

Thanks for reading Part I of this week's Three Free Thursday! Feel free to send in recipe suggestions for Three Free Thursday on Twitter to @RecipEngineer or by e-mail RecipEngineer@gmail.com

Three Free Thursday Part I: 30-Minute Meatloaf

Happy Three Free Thursday, Blog Readers! This is the second entry of my new biweekly "Three Free Thursday" blog entries.  To recap the process, on the first Thursday, I select three free recipes from sources on Twitter.  On the following Thursday, I report back via blog entry the full results of my adventures in the kitchen and let you know if you should try these recipes at home. Enjoy!

Recipe: 30-Minute Meatloaf
Source: @TestKitchen
Link: http://www.cookscountry.com/recipe.asp?recipeids=3658&bdc=43896

I hate meatloaf. Wow - it feels really good to get that off my chest after decades of suppressing my disgust towards these dry bricks of ground meat masquerading themselves as comfort food.   A meatloaf is either a perfect Stepford-like square loaf that cuts in solid, tasteless slices or an uneven humped hot mess with bits of aluminum foil clinging to its burnt bottom bits. And a meatloaf doesn't last just one meal.  Meatloaf lives on for days as hot, dry leftovers and disgustingly solid cold sandwiches.  Meatloaf may be the worst thing that ever happened to sliced bread. I hate meatloaf.

So why make meatloaf for Three Free Thursday?  First, I aspire for Three Free Thursday blog entries to shake all of us (myself included) out of our usual cooking and eating ruts. Also, I trust @TestKitchen and appreciate their thorough means and methods of recipe testing and recipe writing.  Mainly, it was the challenge of "30-Minute Meatloaf".  I have a love/hate relationship with simplified recipes.  Simplified recipes tend to over-simplify by severely limiting ingredients and minimizing important cooking steps. I personally love dicing and peeling vegetables, using fresh herbs and slowly roasting meats. 

Armed with a hatred of meatloaf and wariness of simplified recipes, I put this recipe to the test.  After a full day of work, followed by an hour of GroupPower gym lifting class, I arrived at my kitchen counter with tired, achy muscles and a cranky attitude. The perfect remedy for my maladies - crushing Saltines.  While others might efficiently pulse the crackers in a food processor, I prefer to crush the Saltines by hand.  The best therapy is watching weak crackers cower in a little, clear sandwich bag while I repeatedly pound them into crumbs.

Findings:

The 30-Minute Meatloaf was the perfect weeknight comfort food.  Every step of the recipe looks and smells delicious.  The meatloaf mix included the usual suspects - fragrant fresh parsley and savory Worcestershire sauce - but utilize garlic and onion powders to speed up the prep work. You honestly won't notice the lack of onions or minced garlic at all.  The recipe produces four hearty meal servings, which is perfect so that you aren't saddled with tons of leftovers.  Great "prep ahead" instructions in the recipe suggest completing the recipe up to forming the loaves and then wrapping up the loaves tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight and then thaw for 20 minutes before adding to the skillet.

Added bonus, I completed the recipe in just over 30 minutes (and that includes a "few" wine and Tweet breaks).  Serve with mashed sweet potatoes & steamed green vegetable for a  tasty, nutrient-rich meal. Turns out, I'm a "30-Minute Meatloaf" believer! Thanks @TestKitchen.

Tips:

• Take the time to form the loaves well.  You want consistent cooking and good cohesion when handling the loaves.
• Transfer loaves for skillet to broiler plate VERY carefully to avoid breaking up loaves.
• Save the extra glaze for leftovers.  It is delicious - a sweet alternative to boring ketchup.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Thanks for reading Part I of this week's Three Free Thursday! Feel free to send in recipe suggestions for Three Free Thursday on Twitter to @RecipEngineer or by e-mail RecipEngineer@gmail.com

Three Free Thursday Part III: Spicy Meatballs w/ Fragrant Tomato Sauce

Happy Three Free Thursday, Blog Readers! This is the first entry of my new biweekly "Three Free Thursday" blog entries.  On the first Thursday, I will be selecting three free recipes from sources like @RealSimpleFood, @TestKitchen, @WholeFoods, @SeriousEats, @FineCooking and many more recipe outlets on Twitter. Feel free to send in recipe suggestions for Three Free Thursday on Twitter to @RecipEngineer or by e-mail RecipEngineer@gmail.com . On the following Thursday, I'll report back via blog entry the full results of my adventures in the kitchen and let you know if you should try these recipes at home.  Also I'll try to add helpful suggestions of ways to improve the recipes and/or tips to avoid my pitfalls re-creating these recipes.  Here is Part III of the first ever "Three Free Thursday Results" blog entry.  Enjoy!

Recipe: Spicy Meatballs w/ Fragrant Tomato Sauce

Source: @FineCooking

Link: http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/spicy-meatballs-tomato-sauce.aspx

The final Three Free Thursday recipe was predictably made as a last-minute cooking assignment for this blog on a weeknight after a long day of work.  Fortunately, it turned out to be relatively easy recipe for meatballs made in a single skillet for quick cleanup.

The recipe for Savory Meatballs with Fragrant Tomato Sauce reads like a typical chili recipe with cumin, cayenne pepper and cilantro all in the mix. The cilantro, in particular, is a nice deviation from the usual parsley element in traditional meatballs. These meatballs also require no egg to bind them together.  Instead, the recipe uses a paste of bread crumbs and milk to adhere the small meatballs.  Therefore, it is vital to handle these meatballs carefully. A few crumbled meatballs early on cemented the need to avoid jostling them when adding meatballs into the skillet for me.  The meatballs cooked up perfectly as they absorbed the sauce and maintained their moisture.  Many homemade meatballs are over-cooked due to extended bake time in the oven followed by additional stove top re-heating time, but the leftover meatballs re-heated well and the leftover sauce thickened nicely.

Normally, I am a traditionalist when it comes to meatballs.  In my opinion, they belong "on top of spaghetti ... all covered with cheese".  However, I decided to give the recipe's suggestion to serve the meatballs over rice or couscous a fair shot.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the meatballs and sauce were perfect over a long-grained brown rice.  The rice soaked up the spicy sauce well and invoked the same comfort food-level of a stuffed pepper dish.

In future iterations of this recipe, I would certainly also experiment with ground turkey, ground chicken and/or the typical meatball mix of ground pork, ground veal and ground beef. I was also struck by the idea of making mini meatloaves from this meatball recipe.  Alas, my procrastination left me with inadequate time to also test a meatloaf recipe for this blog.  Expect future blog updates on this recipe's meatloaf possibilities. 

Findings:

Spicy Meatballs w/ Fragrant Tomato Sauce

The Spicy Meatballs and Fragrant Tomato Sauce was the ideal winter comfort food - perfectly hearty and savory.  Using cumin and cayenne pepper in the meatball recipes gives the dish just enough spice without offending mild taste buds. The Fragrant Tomato Sauce was delicious and truly fragrant, but there wasn't enough sauce to adequate serve with all of the meatballs. Double the sauce recipe and consider adding more chopped onions and/or bell peppers to give the sauce more dimension.


Tips:

• If you do not use fresh bread crumbs to make these meatballs, add an extra tablespoon of milk to soften packaged bread crumbs into the desired paste consistency.
• Double the recipe for the tomato sauce. Remove half of tomato sauce to a saucepan over low heat prior to adding meatballs to the skillet.
• Serve meatballs over rice, couscous or wide egg noodles.
• Freeze meatballs in tomato sauce in air-tight containers for up to three months.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Thanks for reading Part III of this week's Three Free Thursday! Send your recipe suggestions for the next Three Free Thursday by Wednesday, February 2nd.

Follow me on Twitter @RecipEngineer