spaghetti Archives - Mamma's Cooking

Italian Stuffed Meatballs

A week later and its time to forget about turkey for a little while and switch up your menu! Try these Italian stuffed meatballs and leave your family and friends asking for seconds and thirds! Thanks to my family and friends who tested this for me 🙂

These meatballs would be great for a weekend dinner or even holiday appetizers meal! If you in the mood for Asian flavors, try these Bahn Mi Meatballs.

Italian Stuffed Meatballs

italian-meatballs-with-sauce

Ingredients

About 3.5 lbs ground beef, chicken or pork (I like to use 2/3 pork and 1/3 chicken thighs or 2/3 beef and 1/3 pork for the best flavor)

3 pieces of bacon, chopped finely (or pulsed in the food processor)

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

½ teaspoon onion powder

2 teaspoons oregano

1 teaspoon garlic paste (or 1 clove of garlic, minced)

2 Tablespoons fresh basil, chopped finely

1 egg

1/4 cup of bread crumbs (use gluten-free breadcrumbs if making this gluten free)

6 to 8 oz of mozzarella, cut into ½ inch cubes

2-3 Tablespoons of olive oil

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl mix salt, pepper, onion powder, oregano, garlic, basil, egg and bread crumbs. Place meat and bacon in a large bowl and add the egg mixture. Get your hands dirty and mix it all together.

italian-meatballs-ready-to-be-cooked

TIP: Cook a small patty of the meat mixture to taste and adjust seasonings if you need before stuffing and cooking the whole batch.

Roll meatballs. Take a cube of mozzarella and stuff it into the center of the meatball, making sure it is completely encapsulated by the meat mixture.

italian-stuffed-meatballs

Heat a large not stick-pan to medium-high, add olive oil. Brown meatballs and transfer to a baking rack that sits on top of a cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes. You can skip the browning step if you like and just add about 5-10 minutes of baking time.

italian-meatballs

Serve with your favorite tomato sauce and spaghetti, make meatballs subs, serve as an appetizer or freeze for another night when you need an easy meal.

Now, let’s talk ground meat. I grind my own meat using this attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer. I love it. The meat tastes so much better when freshly ground. You can ask a butcher to do this for you, just make sure if you are keeping gluten free that they are taking necessary precautions to not cross contaminate the meat with marinated meat or spices that contain gluten.

One post down and 30 to go! A post a day until the end of December! Posts filled with gluten-free holiday treats, easy meals and ideas for your holiday gatherings through the new year that everyone will enjoy!

Here are some links to past holiday posts with the regular disclosure that if it was written before April 2014, it may not be gluten free.

Last minute holiday prep!

Rethinking my cooking bucket list and looking forward to 2015

3 Easy 10 Minute Meals

The election is now behind us and whoever you voted for, we can all agree its time to move forward! Now we can occupy our brains with the holidays instead! Which unfortunately for many can be just as stressful, especially when you cannot rely on take out. I, like many of you have a endless list of things to do: keep the children alive and fed, go to school meetings, do laundry, clean, pay bills, juggle all the activities, work and do more laundry, so I completely understand that dinner needs to be done in 10 minutes time most nights. Especially with the holidays coming, our time is even more limited. These are three of my go to super fast recipes for when dinner needs to be on the table ASAP and hopefully help keep your stress levels down!

Kielbasa and Peppers with Mashed Sweet Potatoes

kielbasa-and-sweet-potato-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

1 Turkey kielbasa (make sure it is GF if you need it to be), diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 package of already made mashed sweet potatoes (I like Wegman’s) or a couple of large sweet potatoes

Directions

Heat your cast iron skillet (or sauté pan) over medium heat with the olive oil in it. Once hot, add kielbasa and peppers, stirring occasionally. Cook for about 5-7 minutes. While that is cooking follow the instructions on your mashed sweet potatoes (or just microwave a couple of sweet potatoes-remember to poke holes with a fork!- and serve with a little butter, salt and pepper). You can either leave out the kielbasa for a vegetarian meal or substitute leftover turkey, chicken, steak or your favorite already cooked sausage.

Asian noodles are always a hit in my house and are a great option for an easy weeknight meal. Healthy, tasty and a great alternative to take-out.

Asian noodles with shrimp and broccoli

asian-noodles-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1 package of Maifun Rice Sticks or your favorite noodles (GF if you need them to be)

1 pound of shrimp (frozen or fresh, even faster if already cooked!)

1 head of broccoli, roughly chopped

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup rice vinegar

¼ teaspoon fish sauce, optional

¼ teaspoon sesame oil

2 teaspoons of ginger (either this stir-in paste from Gourmet Garden or minced fresh)

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon onion powder

3 Tablespoons lime juice

4 Tablespoons brown sugar

Directions

Cook noodles according to package. Add the broccoli to noodles with 3 minutes left in cook time. Drain all. Mix the soy sauce, vinegar and rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Toss noodles and broccoli with sauce. Toss in cooked, peeled shrimp and its ready to serve. I serve it with fresh cilantro, chopped peanuts and a couple splashes of siracha. A squeeze of lime juice is also a great way to finish the dish.

If shrimp are fresh or thawed and not cooked, this can still be a quick meal, as long as they are cleaned and deveined! Here is a quick delicious way to cook them. Mix 1/8 cup vegetable oil, splash of sesame oil, 4 cloves of garlic – minced and juice of ½ a lime. Toss with the shrimp and cook for 3 to 4 minutes each side in a 400 degree oven. Cool, peel and toss with noodles.

This dish is extremely versatile. It would also be great with, zoodles (zucchini noodles), rice or cauliflower rice in place of the noodles. You can easily substitute tofu, scrambled egg, leftover chicken, steak or even turkey from Thanksgiving. It is good hot, room temperature and cold.

Having these jack-of-all trade meals in your back pocket will make dinner easier to make with what you have on hand.

Pasta with Pink Sauce

pasta-with-pink-sauce-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1-16 once package of spaghetti or your favorite pasta (gluten free of course if you need it to be)

1 jar of pasta sauce (or one 15 ounce can of tomato sauce)

4 ounces (1/2 block) of cream cheese

Directions

Cook pasta according to package. While water is boiling, pour pasta sauce into sauce pan and heat on medium. Add cream cheese and stir until combined. It will be clumpy. While pasta is cooking pour pink sauce into a large serving bowl and then add drained pasta. Stir and serve.

This is a great base to add whatever cooked vegetables, leftover turkey, chicken or shrimp if you like. I recently made this and served steamed green beans on the side. Stop and Shop steam in the bag green beans. My husband liked them more than when I buy green beans, clean them and steam or roast. Lesson learned! I don’t need to exert the energy!

These three easy dinners will hopefully make your busy nights less stressful and your holiday leftovers easier to finish and disguise! What are your favorite ways to use leftover holiday food? Comment and let us know! I am working on creating Pins for Pinterest for these recipes, so for now just follow me on Pinterest or follow this page and you will be the first to know when you can save these recipes!

Spaghetti Night!

Your kids have decided this week that they do not like tomatoes or you have to cut them out of your diet, can you still eat spaghetti? Of course! Here is a great recipe I adapted from the KCTS 9 (King County public television) Cooks Family Favorites cookbook (2010). [My Quinoa Butternut Squash Risotto recipe can be found on pg. 323]

Spaghetti with Chinese Sauce (Thank you Lori Lockrey, Scarborough, Ontario!)

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 lb lean ground pork (I used ground turkey)
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
2 cloves garlic, finely minced (I use jarred minced garlic as a timesaver)
1/2 cup cold water
salt
1/2 lb of spaghettini (I used whole grain spaghetti)
2 Tbsp dry sherry or white wine (optional) [I used white balsamic vinegar, which in general is a good substitute for sherry or white wine. You could also use white wine vinegar]
2 Tbsp cornstarch
cooked lobster or shrimp (optional) [I didn’t use, but if you have leftover, go ahead and throw it in]
1/4 cup sliced green onion [I didn’t have any, so I added about 1/4 tsp of onion powder to the ground turkey]
red pepper flakes (optional)

1 cup frozen edamame
1 tsp grated ginger

Heat oil in large frying pan. Add meat and brown. Add broth, soy sauce, sugar and garlic (and onion powder if you don’t have green onions). I also added the ginger at this point. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Bring a large pot to boil with water. Once boiling add salt and spaghettini and cook according to package directions. Drain when done.

Blend the cold water, sherry or wine or vinegar with cornstarch, stir into frying pan. Simmer until thickened. At this point if you are using shrimp or lobster or frozen edamame, add in to warm about 2 – 3 minutes.

Either stir drained pasta into frying pan or dump sauce over drained noodles, and mix and serve. to with green onion (if you are using) and sprinkle with red pepper flakes (if using).

My kids all ate this up! and my husband did too 🙂

If you are ok with tomatoes, here is a quick 15 minute meal that I made tonight (with whole wheat rotini). I conquered my fear of the microplane! This is the first time I have used it since I cut myself twice trying to assemble it and use it Christmas Eve. Granted that was after 2 glasses of champagne 🙂 I set it up and julienned 1 zucchini! So proud!

I sauteed the zucchini in some olive oil with salt, lemon pepper and a little garlic powder. Then added about 3/4 of a jar of tomato and basil spaghetti sauce with a splash of white balsamic vinegar and just heated through. Toss this with pasta + a little mozzarella cheese. Very tasty! Very easy!