What wonderful meatballs! They melt in your mouth with just the right amount of spice and whiskey! I did make them a bit larger and still got twenty from a pound of meat. I also used ground beef and ground pork from Tony’s. Yumm-o!

Stolen 100% from Smitten Kitchen.  And sooooo good.  Will even liked these– and he “doesn’t like” eggplant.  I made these to go with Roasted Red Pepper pasta.  Great vegetarian meal!

1 medium eggplant, about 3/4 pound, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil plus additional for oiling baking sheet
1/4 teaspoon salt
Black pepper
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1/4 cup crumbled crumbled feta
1 scallion, thinly sliced
8 1/2-inch slices of baguette, brushed with olive oil (I used 1-inch slices in the photos, then decided they were too thick)
1 small clove garlic, peeled and halved

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lightly oil a baking sheet or roasting pan. Toss eggplant, 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt and a generous amount of black pepper together in a medium bowl until evenly coated. Spread on prepared baking sheet and roast for about 25 minutes, moving pieces around occasional so they evenly brown. For a cold salad, let the eggplant cool a bit before mixing it with red wine vinegar, feta and scallion. For a warm salad where the feta glues itself to the eggplant a bit, toss the vinegar, feta and scallion together when the eggplant just comes out of the oven. You’ll want to eat the warm salad quickly.

Broil or toast baguette slices then rub them with a garlic clove before heaping on eggplant salad.

I made this as an appetizer for Bunco, but I wanted to make it my own.  Lots of recipes called for Puff Pastry dough, and if they called for tart dough, they didn’t have apples or something.  So, I read a bunch of recipes and came up with this one.  It is tasty!

For the dough:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 12 Tbs. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 7 Tbs. ice water

For the topping:

• 1 1/2 TBSP Olive Oil
• 1 TBSP Butter
• 2 small onions
• 2 Granny Smith apples
• 1 TBSP Balsamic vinegar
• Kosher salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 egg yolk

Betsy and I enjoyed some queso this afternoon and she encouraged me to post it on here. I give credit to my mom for this simple recipe.

What you need:

1 can Rotel

1/2 block Velveeta

1 can evaporated milk (this keeps the queso nice and creamy)

1 tbsp butter

1 clove of garlic

Dice up the 1/2 block of Velveeta into about 1 cm squares. Mince the garlic and saute it with the butter in a saucepan for a few minutes. Open up the can of Rotel and drain out the liquid. Now put the diced Velveeta, can of drained rotel, and the whole can of the evaporated milk into the saucepan and set the heat to medium. Constantly stir the mixture until all of the Velveeta squares are melted. Enjoy!

This queso is extremely addictive so be sure to only pour as much as you really intend on eating into a bowl and eat it from there. If you put too big of a bowl in front of you, you WILL end up eating it all 🙂