Sweet and Sour Meatballs

I loooooove meatballs. Little looooooves pineapple. The Coach just loooooves good food. This one made us all happy.

To make the meatballs, mix 1 pound of ground turkey or chicken breast, ½ cup breadcrumbs, smoked paprika and black pepper to taste, and ¼ cup reduced sodium soy sauce. Form meatballs and brown in a drizzle of olive oil in a dutch oven or cast iron skillet, flipping once. After the meatballs are brown on the outside, add ¼ cup beef broth, 1 can pineapple chunks (with juice), 2 Tablespoons brown sugar, and 2 Tablespoons bbq sauce. Bring to a simmer, cover, and transfer to a 400 degree oven to finish cooking. Serve over rice with steamed broccoli and glazed carrots.

Enjoy!

Honey Chicken, Vegetable Tian, and Buttermilk Biscuits

I'm totally ripping off three different sources for this meal...
Honey Chicken adapted from "Healthy Meals for Less" by Jonni McCoy
Vegetable Tian adapted from For the Love of Cooking
Buttermilk Biscuits adapted from Eating Well

This was a really good and satisfying meal. The chicken was super tender and flavorful, the veggies were perfectly roasted, and the biscuits were too good to be not totally unhealthy. Now, this meal was a little time-consuming, but I can afford to have things cooking at different times because I stay at home. So I cooked the chicken first, removed it to the stovetop while I cooked the veggies and biscuits, and then put it back in the oven to warm before we ate. But I think you could play around with the time versus the temperature if you needed to have it all cooking at the same time. Or, you could always cook the chicken with a different side dish that doesn't also require oven time at a different temp. Anywho, here's how it went down for me...

For the honey chicken, I mixed up 1 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp pepper in a dutch oven (or casserole, whatever you have). To that I whisked in 1/2 cup honey, 3 Tablespoons canola oil, and 1/2 cup water. I put in a pack (about 1.75 lbs) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, coated each piece well, covered the pot, and put it in a 300 degree oven for 1 1/2 hours.

For the veggies, I sliced and sauteed one small sweet onion for about 10 minutes. Last minute I added some minced garlic, then transferred the mixture to the bottom of a greased casserole dish. On top of the onions, I arranged a plethera of sliced veggies: yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes - seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, and olive oil, and cooked in a 375 oven for 30 minutes covered, and 30 more minutes uncovered. Here is what it looked like after it was done...


And for the biscuits, a simple and familiar recipe with a little adjustment on the fat. First, meaure out your "buttermilk". If you're like me and have a child who is allergic to cow's milk, or if you just don't keep buttermilk in your house, here is what you can do: Measure out 3/4 cup milk (I used almond milk), and add 1 tsp vinegar and let it sit for about 5 minutes. For this recipe, you also need to add 1 Tablespoon of canola oil to the milk. Set aside. In a medium bowl, mix 2 cups whole wheat or white wheat flour, 1 Tablespoon sugar, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt. Cut in 1 1/2 Tablespoons butter with your hands, 2 knives, or a pastry cutter. Mix in the buttermilk/oil until everything is wet, then knead lightly until it all comes together as a nice dough. Flatten it out and cut your biscuits. I used a 1/3 cup measuring tin to cut mine, and it made 11 biscuits. Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes. (At this point, if you have taken out your chicken to cook your veggies, you could put everything back in the oven to warm up to serve.)

Okay, I know that was a lot of work. But here is the finished product...


And it tastes even better than it looks. Enjoy!