Yuku free message boards

Made some seriously yummy sweet and sour meatballs last night. Let's see, recently:

tilapia with lemon juice and capers
lamb stew
turkish lamb burgers (with feta cheese)
Asian dumplings with turkey, ginger, and cabbage
A side dish of butternut squash with cinnamon, nutmeg, apple cider, some chicken broth, brown sugar, and butter (served with roast chicken and rice)
chicken with peaches, basil, and ginger
pasta with a smoked salmon and cream sauce

Here's the salmon recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Smoked-Salmon-Vodka-Cream-Sauce/Detail.aspx

And here's the meatballs:

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Preheat oven to 350

Meatballs
1 pound ground turkey*
1 egg
Quaker Oats oatmeal, ground up (about 1/2 C)**
2T apple juice or apple cider
salt and pepper

Combine ingredients in bowl and let rest for 5 minutes

Form mixture into meatballs and place in low-sided oven-safe pan. Bake for 5 minutes. (if you don't feel like turning on the oven, saute the meatballs in a frying pan for a minute or two)

Sweet and Sour Sauce
2 cans Hunts or Contadina tomato sauce
juice 1/2 fresh lemon
couple shakes Heinz chili sauce***
2T Polaner all fruit seedless blackberry jam
couple shakes of onion powder****
couple squirts Tabasco sauce
couple squirts Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper

Simmer sauce on stove for 5 minutes. Remove meatballs from oven and add to sauce. Simmer until cooked through.

* Don't use the all white meat, it doesn't taste right. You can use beef or ground chicken too.

** You can use bread crumbs, but you may have to adjust the quantity. Meatballs should just hold together.

***If you don't have chili sauce, use ketchup and add more onion powder, tabasco and W-shire sauce).

****This recipe was invented "on the fly" one night when my parents were here, so the amounts aren't exact. I do it by feel and by taste at this point.

My grandma used to make them that way (with grape jelly). I don't like grape, so I used the blackberry.

She also used to roll two meatballs at a time (and cook two crepes at a time too).

In answer to the apple question, when they say "cooking" apple, they usually mean for pies, applesauce, or baked apples. They're not as sweet (generally). For baking, use: Rome, Empire, Winesap or Cortland. For eating out of hand, I like Gala, Honeycrisp, Fiji, and Mutsu.

My mom puts cheesecloth or a fresh dishcloth soaked in butter over the turkey.

I'm making dinner this year -- no turkey at all! I'm thinking either cornish hens or chicken with forty cloves of garlic (there's a recipe in the Silver Palate cookbook that my mom and I modified slightly - sooo good).