Cheese Stuffed Chicken Meatballs with Marinara: For Friday night dinner, I riffed on my glazed chicken meatball recipe, substituting the spices for garlic powder, Italian seasoning, dried basil, and added in ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese. I cut queso fresco into small cubes (fresh mozzarella, pizza mozzarella would both work too), and formed the meatballs around the cheese. I cooked them in the pan, added Rao’s Marinara sauce to finish. Be sure to check the internal temp (should be 165F), as stuffed meatballs take longer to cook. Served with pasta tossed with olive oil, minced garlic and parsley - *chef’s kiss*.
Other things I cooked:
NYT’s Spanish Tortilla: I follow this recipe as a rough guide for ratios, reading the comments for some technique tips. Love this for brunch!
Hetty McKinnon’s Sheet-pan Pierogis with Brussels Sprouts and Kimchi: wow this recipe is definitely going into regular rotation for me. I love pierogies and this was such a flavourful, veggie-forward way to prep frozen pierogies. So good!
Julia Turshen’s Stuffed. Cabbage (pg. 40 in Simply Julia): loved this version of cabbage rolls - the sauce tastes fresh and tangy, the filling is gently spiced and I loved the addition of raisins. Very different from the cabbage rolls I grew up eating but I liked the twist!
Julia Turshen’s Orange Greek Yogurt Cake: a go-to when I need to use up greek yogurt - tastes like a creamsicle in loaf form!
Eat Cho Food’s Pork and Cabbage Dumplings: I loved this recipe so much! The dough was so simple to make and was springy, with a great chew. I used ground chicken for the filling because I didn’t have pork - it was flavourful and moist. This will now be my go-to dumpling recipe!
Cellymaemah’s Sweet Soy and Ginger/Scallion Oil: for sauces to go with the dumplings I made her condiments in her Hainanese chicken highlights - were perfect with chilli crisp.
Drinking
Mango Bubly. We got our hands on the new flavour, I like it a lot! Grapefruit is still my number one, but this is a close second.
Reading
Chef Boyardee Was a Real Person Who Brought Italian Food to America
Following
@okonomikitchen love her reel style and all of her recipes look so delicious. I have her miso pesto saved to make soon.
Listening
Every Shade of Blue by The Head and The Heart.
Using
Cabbage Patch Kimchi. If you are in Nova Scotia, definitely try out this locally produced kimchi. So delicious!
Thinking
About Google search rankings. I remember when I first started making homemade dumplings 7+ years ago, the recipe I followed was Alton Brown’s which called for ketchup and yellow mustard in the filling. I followed this recipe partially because it was one of the first results in Google, but also because I didn’t think critically about what it meant - why was the top-ranked dumpling recipe on Google from a white man? Is it traditional to put… ketchup in the filling? Over the last few years, I’ve been trying to be purposeful around slowing down and researching the background of dishes that aren’t from my culture and to seek out voices in food from that culture first before the top-ranked recipe. It’s so much more enjoyable too - to learn the stories behind the recipes, not just the functions of it.
Laughing
January:
Have a great week,
Kaleigh