The carb lovers diet - giveaway

I'm not one to ever go on a "diet" I'm all about eating in moderation all the time... but when the people from The CarbLovers Diet Cookbook asked me to review their new cookbook... I was really intrigued. I mean come ON this blog does have an entire page dedicated to muffins... and John jokes that I basically am already on my own version of the carb lovers diet... hey I love carbs... what can I say??

I wouldn't necessarily suggest following the diet laid out, although reading through it, it wasn't bad. No cutting out entire groups of foods, it really is a "diet" teaching you to eat in moderation and choose HEALTHY carbs. This isn't a white bread and pasta diet people... so don't get your hopes up ;)

I WOULD suggest getting the book for all the delicious recipes though!!! You should see how many pages I have flagged with post-it notes.. no joke. I can't wait to share more with you!! But for today, I'm going to share the turkey meatballs. John inhaled these things, they were DELICIOUS!

I mean how could you say no to THAT?? They said to serve it on whole wheat rolls, but I had this delicious whole wheat baguette laying around just screaming to be used for some sliders.

Now for the giveaway! You can win your very own copy! 150 mouth watering, delicious recipes!!! You know you want to enter :) (Open to US residents only, sorry my international peeps) Just leave a comment saying your favorite thing to eat, yup that's it. Easy cheesy.

You have until Tuesday at noon EST to enter. Good luck and happy eating!

And now for the recipe! Click to enlarge.

Tweet

Your email will never be displayed publicly, so don't be scared to comment! :) Oh and make sure you type in your blog link so I can click over to you! There is a spot you can type it in.

Big sauce night

Awhile back John and unofficially made sunday "big sauce night" basically we'd have some kind of pasta with red sauce. We got out of the habit for awhile but we brought it back last night with a bang!! It was a beautiful day here, the perfect kind for raking leaves. Crisp blue skies, a slight chill in the air, beautiful. Last night the menu was thin spaghetti with turkey meatballs. I've taken a recipe that was originally from my Aunt and switched it up a bit, I LOVE these meatballs, perfectly garlicky and tender, what more could you ask for??


Turkey Meatballs (adapted from Aunt Carols recipe)
1 lb. ground 99% fat free turkey (Aunt Carol uses... beef or a combination of beef, veal and pork)
1/2 cup grated cheese (Parmesan, Romano or a combination of these) (I used part skim)
1/2 cup panko (Aunt Carol uses Italian flavored breadcrumbs)
1 egg
1 medium onion, chopped or diced fine
3 or 4 good size garlic cloves,put through a garlic press or diced very fine
1 rounded tablespoon (about) finely minced parsley
Salt, pepper and Italian seasoning to taste
(Taste the mixture before adding salt. The cheese and breadcrumbs contain salt)
1/2 cup chopped fresh mushrooms (I added these to keep the moisture level up since we got rid of a lot of the fat by using the lean turkey)

Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. If mixture is a little dry, add some water, a little at a time, until proper consistency is reached. Roll into meatballs, fry lightly on each side in a small amount of olive oil (I used olive oil in a mister spray bottle). When almost all the way cooked through, add spaghetti sauce and cover to steam cook them until done.

Note from Aunt Carol: You can double, triple, etc. this recipe. Also, I find that the beef, veal and pork combination make a softer meatball. Hope you like them!

Weekend Baking

I did a lot of baking and cooking this weekend. Which is always fun! I made some fantastic pancakes that I will have to post about once I get the pictures off of John's camera, I was too lazy to take them off so far. Sunday has become sauce night and we had HUGE bowls of whole wheat spaghetti with yummy turkey meatballs. I also made up some poose cookies, and some banana bread. Lots of cooking, no pictures... sorry guys!

I also made up some more roasted brussles sprouts, this time I used some potato spice grinder that I won in a giveaway over at Sugarlaws!! How exciting is that! I love winning stuff :) The spice grinder came from the spice depot and tasted great ground up on my sprouts!

After all that I was still in the kitchen and walked into the living room stirring something in a bowl. John looks at me and asks "wait what are you cooking now? aren't you done?"
Me: "nope, I thought I'd make some peanut butter pie"
John: "for who?"
Me: "us"
I start walking back into the kitchen as he starts laughing and says "you are going to make me so fat aren't you!!" Ahhh yes that is what the gym is for right? :)

So back to the peanut butter pie .... it wasn't really a pie like I normally do, I didn't put it in a crust, I just put it into containers to eat like ice cream... and I used honey to sweeten it... it came out... YUM! Follow the recipe and at the end instead of the splenda start drizzling in honey, stir it up and taste it, if it needs more, add some more :) Sorry I didn't bother measuring how much I used!

Mmmmm don't you love chowing weekends :) I don't have any chow pics but here is a cute one of John and me after a long day called Thanksgiving...

Healthy Turkey Meatballs

Even though it's summer time sometimes all I want is a BIG bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. If you go to some Italian places they will give you a delicious HUGE portion floating with oil... If you come to my house you'll get a delicious flavorful bowl of YUM! I'll have to write another day about making pasta, it is much easier then you think but definitely takes some time. I didn't have that kind of time this weekend so I used some box whole wheat spaghetti for this recipe. Nice quick and healthy! The meatballs come from my Aunt Carols recipe. Aunt Carol makes AMAZING food! I'm always trying to steal recipes from her. Since John doesn't eat red meat so I've adapted her recipe a bit to use lean 99% fat free turkey meat but keep the nice juicy flavors and textures. Onto the turkey meatballs!! Italian

Turkey Meatballs (adapted from Aunt Carols recipe)
1 lb. ground 99% fat free turkey (Aunt Carol uses... beef or a combination of beef, veal and pork)
1/2 cup grated cheese (Parmesan, Romano or a combination of these) (I used part skim)
1/2 cup Italian flavored breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 medium onion, chopped or diced fine
3 or 4 good size garlic cloves,put through a garlic press or diced very fine
1 rounded tablespoon (about) finely minced parsley
Salt, pepper and Italian seasoning to taste
(Taste the mixture before adding salt. The cheese and breadcrumbs contain salt)
1/2 cup chopped fresh mushrooms (I added these to keep the moisture level up since we got rid of a lot of the fat by using the lean turkey)

Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. If mixture is a little dry, add some water, a little at a time, until proper consistency is reached. Roll into meatballs, fry lightly on each side in a small amount of olive oil (I used olive oil in a mister spray bottle). When almost all the way cooked through, add spaghetti sauce and cover to steam cook them until done.

Note from Aunt Carol: You can double, triple, etc. this recipe. Also, I find that the beef, veal and pork combination make a softer meatball. Hope you like them!

I cheated and used boxed whole wheat pasta (I like Ronzoni) and Wegmans Diavola sauce, it's an amazing spicy sauce and if you have Wegmans near you TOTALLY GET SOME!!!! (Don't however get Wegmans whole wheat pasta... kinda tastes like cardboard haha) Super fast healthy turkey meatballs, enjoy!

How to make fresh homemade pasta will come another day...

Chow!

john's version with shredded mozzerella and parmasian on top

You can also use this recipe and add it as a meat layer in lasagna! YUM!