One of the Dirtiest Pages... Sweet & Tangy Meatballs

This originally came from my Life's on Fire cookbook which is... well loved. The cover is falling off it's so well loved. The neat thing about her cookbooks is that she's incorporated a whole meal into the recipe so, at the end of it, you have the main, the sides, all of it. It's pretty cool because she's also flagged each of the components so that, if you're just wanting to make the main (as in this case), you can still do it.

So get a big pot of water to boiling. Once it's at a rolling boil, take 2 pounds of lean ground beef (I think the recipe calls for 1 1/2 pounds but I round up and enjoy the extra). Using your hands, break off small chunks of beef and roll them into tight balls, dropping them into the water as you finish each one. Once you drop the last one in, set your kitchen timer to 7 minutes (she's a huge fan of cooking by kitchen timer and most of her stuff is ready in under 20 minutes prep). When the timer goes off, drain the meatballs in a colander then return them to the pot.

Mix 1 cup ketchup, 1/2 c brown sugar, 1 T Worcestershire Sauce, 1 small, finely chopped onion and about 1/4 c water (this is a bit less than her original recipe but I like a thicker sauce, if you like a thinner sauce, by all means go for the 3/4 c water that Sandy originally called for). Pour it over the meatballs and stir to coat. Bring it to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Tasty, tasty. This page in the cookbook is covered with ketchup stains and dashes of Worcestershire. That's how you know it's good.

BLT Bites

You won't believe how hard it was to get a good picture of these little buggers. I made these for the Alpha Celebration Dinner tonight. They were really easy but I wish that I had started them earlier in the day because they could have done to sit in the fridge chilling for a bit longer. I wasn't sure how many people were going to be there so I cut them a little smaller so that this recipe cranks out about 54 little bundles. You could make them bigger if you wanted though. As you will see, I even went so far as to stick little 70s-bridge-party frilly toothpicks into them. What a hoot.

1/2 c mayo
4 oz softened cream cheese
2 T thick and chunky salsa
1/2 T Epicure Sundried Tomato & Herb Dip Mix
1 t dijon mustard
6 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
9 tortillas (you could totally do fewer tortillas though, I was trying to stretch them a bit)
1 c finely chopped and seeded roma tomato
1/2 c shredded romaine

I went fancy on these, I trimmed the tortillas until they were square. I also used spinach, tomato, and cheese tortillas so there were some nice colours going on. Mix the mayo, cream cheese and flavouring stuff until well blended, then stir in the bacon. Spread the bacon mixture evenly over the tortillas. Evenly top with lettuce and tomato (you should have seen how finely I shredded the lettuce, I did a chiffonade. Very cool.) tightly roll them up and wrap them securely with cello wrap then put them in the fridge for at least an hour but definitely not overnight (I'm pretty sure that the lettuce would wilt a lot if they were in there for a really long time but I'm thinking 8 hours would be the max).

Cut them into 1" rolls and secure them with a toothpick. Cool beans.