Turkey Meatballs

I had been in the mood to cook meat recipes the past couple of days. The other day I decided to cook the ground turkey that was in my freezer for a few months already. I planned to make egg rolls out of it but then I changed my mind. Instead, I made some meatballs. It was my second time to make this recipe and I was so delighted with the outcome. My hubby commended me for this recipe and he's been eating it with his vegetable salad. I plan to make this again in the days to come. It is so simple and easy to make. Here's the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 (20 ounce) package ground turkey
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1/3 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
* 1 onion

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish with the olive oil, and place it in the oven while preheating.

2. In a medium bowl, mix together the ground turkey, egg, and bread crumbs using your hands. Using an ice cream scoop if possible, form the meat into golf ball sized meatballs. Place about 1 inch apart in the hot baking dish. Press down to flatten the bottom just slightly.

3. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, then turn them over, and continue baking for about 5 more minutes, or until somewhat crispy on the outside. Serve with pasta and sauce or however you'd like.

Boutique Wine Imports

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of weinherr for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

To be honest, I don't drink because I don't like the taste and the effects afterwards especially the hangover. People drink, and it’s usually for a reason like celebration, loneliness, depression, insecurity, stress, or the worst of all, boredom. I’ve rarely seen people drink for reasons other than those. Some people drink because it goes well with food, and that isn’t bothersome to me. If you drink and you’re happy about it, then that’s great for you. I recognize that there are benefits to drinking as well. I heard that Czech and Moravian wines are unique and it's currently being introduced in the US.  I read that wine in the Czech Republic is produced mainly in southern Moravia although a few vineyards are located in Bohemia. However, Moravia accounts for around 96% of the country's vineyards, which is why Czech wine is more often referred to as Moravian wine. If you are interested to import Boutique wines to the US, better contact weinherr.com. Sure a glass of wine a day is supposedly good for you. There are really good quality wines winning competitions worldwide like Czech and Moravian wines but they are virtually unknown in the U.S.A. Time to spread the word.

Go Healthy

It's been six years already since I started to change my diet. I opted to eat healthy foods after I went to see a nutritionist when we were in Texas. That was after I had a stroke. I followed the advise and recommendations of my nutritionist and after just a few months, I lost 34 pounds. Of course I exercised too everyday. My diet consisted mainly of organic vegetable salad, fruits and vegetable and fruit juices fish, lean meat from free range and grass-fed animals but no pork. I preferred using olive oil instead of the regular cooking oil. I used the extra virgin olive oil in my vegetable salad. I ate pasta sparingly but when I do, I like to use corn pasta. My hubby loves to eat so I had to learn how to cook different healthy recipes for him and for me. I baked most of the time and my all time favorite is banana bread. I had to lessen the brown sugar though. I like to put some extracts in my baking to add flavor.

The only draw back in eating healthy foods is that it's kinda expensive. Organic foods are a pain in the pocket. I had to search the internet some websites where I can buy some healthy foods and I just came a cross OliveNation. Just reading the website's name, it made me think of olive oil. They got most of the healthy foods that I've been looking for. For those who love mushrooms, they have porcini mushrooms in their site. You maybe on a diet but it doesn't mean that you will deprive yourself from eating great foods. Just buy from OliveNation and when you order before noon, they will ship it that very same day!

Black Beans With Bitter Melon and Meat

Hubby and I love beans, like pinto, navy, mungo, white and black beans. We love variety so we don't get tired eating the same beans, lol! I love beans mixed with veggies like malunggay, squash flower and bitter melon leaves or the fruit. This time, I cooked black beans with sliced bitter melon mixed with the leaves. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups black beans

1/2 lbs pork, sliced (but I used ground beef instead)

10 cups water


4 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1 root ginger, sliced

1 pork boullion
 cube

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 medium pcs of bitter melon, sliced

cooking oil

1/2 tsp salt

How to cook black beans with bitter melon:

1. In a pot, sauté onion, garlic and ginger in cooking oil.

2. Add the meat.and salt. Saute for another 3 minutes.

3. Then add water.

4. And the black beans.

5. Bring to a boil. Stir occasionally. Remove scums as it rises.

6. Add the pork or beef bouillon and the fish sauce.

7. Simmer until the beans are soft.

8. Add the sliced bitter melon. Simmer for 5 minutes.

9. Serve hot with steamed rice.

ANNIVERSARY DINNER

The Author of this post is Solomon Dejesus

I have been searching all over the internet using my wichita falls wireless internet connection for the perfect dress to wear for our tenth anniversary dinner! I can’t believe that my husband and I have been married for a decade! It really seems like we were married just last year! It has been wonderful! We are going to visit San Francisco for our anniversary. I have never been, and my husband went once when he was in college with his family. He has picked out a “surprise” restaurant, for our actual wedding anniversary. He told me to wear a cocktail dress, so I want to find something that is just perfect! I have narrowed down the color that I want to wear, red, but unfortunately, I can’t find the perfect dress! I guess that I am going to have to keep searching the web. I don’t have too long because we are leaving on our trip in two weeks from Thursday! I just can’t wait for my surprise dinner, I want to look the best I have ever looked!

Ginisang Bulaklak Ng Katuray (Sauteed Corkwood Tree Flower)

I bought the katuray or corkwood tree a couple of years ago and it's now yielding flowers. I planted it in front of our house, outside the fence. This is a seasonal vegetable and the tree yields its flower during summer. It gives a lot of flowers almost everyday. It's best to cook it as salad or ginisa (sauteed). Most Ilocanos love this veggie and I don't know if it's true but they said it's good for people with high blood pressure.

Ingredients:

2 handful of bulaklak ng katuray

2 tablespoon fish sauce

3 tomatoes

1 onion, sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon cooking oil

1/4 cup water

Cooking Instruction:

1. Remove the pistil or the long stem-like on the central portion of the katuray flower

2. Cook the flower in boiling water for about 2 minutes. Remove from water and set aside.

3. Heat cooking oil in a pot, saute garlic, onion and tomatoes until soft and fragrant.

4. Add fish sauce

4. Add the flower and mix.

5. Serve with rice.

I Love Cheesecake

I love cheesecake but I'm not into sweets lately because I'm trying to lose weight, lol! Hubby love sweets but I don't make the effort to make cheesecake because I haven't tried making one yet. Also one reason is that making cheesecake is one of those things that seems far too time consuming to me. I have quite a few recipes printed out for it as well as those in my cookbook collection. Now I'm thinking to make them because, well, I love cheesecake but there’s that lazy thing. I like things I can throw together and while I realize logically that other than the crust, you do just throw cheesecake together, I have this weird “it’s too much trouble” mind block going.

But just now while looking at cheesecake.com, I suddenly have the craving to eat a delicious and yummy cheesecake. Oh my, the photos in that site are very inviting and right now I'm drooling for cheesecake. The site is selling different kinds of cheesecake so for those who have no time to bake, you just can buy from their website. You order and they will deliver. They also have a lot of cheesecake recipes for you so you can learn how to bake cheesecake. I just bookmarked the site so I can go back to it when I'm ready to make my first cheesecake.