Beef AND LAMB – it’s what’s for dinner!

A combination of beef and lamb makes for easy and delicious meatballs with just a few simple additions.

The basic recipe:

1 package lamb
1 package ground beef
1.5 T lemon pepper (T = tablespoon)
1.5 T Italian seasoning
1/2 cup finely diced onion (about 1/2 of a medium onion: yellow, white or sweet onion)
1/3 cup breadcrumbs (you can also use cracker crumbs)
1 egg

Mix all together. Refrigerate for an hour if possible but no problem to cook immediately.
Form meatballs golf ball sized.

To cook, you can bake them on a sheet pan, or “fry” them in a fry pan and then cook in gravy or tomato sauce.

For baking: 425 oven for 15-20 minutes to internal temperature of 160 or until they are NOT pink inside.

Below are the step by step instructions:

The meat.

The rest of the ingredients.

Mix the meats, spices, onion, breadcrumbs and egg.

Your hands are the best tool for this!

Roll mixture into golf ball sized meatballs.

See recipe above for different cooking options.

I baked at 425 for 18 minutes. Internal temperature was 178 and…

If you don’t have a meat thermometer, cut one open. It should look done with no pink inside.

Serving options:

You can make a gravy from the drippings and serve over rice or noodles.

OR

Add the meatballs to tomato sauce and serve over spaghetti or any pasta OR in a roll for a meatball sandwich.

OR

Split them and serve on small rolls – Sliders!

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May flowers from April showers: Glacier Lily

May 1, walking with Bear and Auggie…

Those tire marks are from the woodsman who worked in my woods and then obtained a permit to cut wood on the state land adjacent to my woods. It is hard to tell from the photo, but it is a bit of a downhill to the lower level of the state land.

We walk down that little bit of hill and out a little ways before turning left (south) toward the house.

In those tracks…

I saw the first Glacier Lily.

Beautiful little flowers, one to a stem with pretty leaves at the base. The flower is turned down, but with the front camera on the phone I didn’t have to lie down on the ground to see the blossom – yea!

Arriving back home, I had to laugh, because there in my own yard, just by the front porch was another.

May flowers from April showers: the first and second Glacier Lilies on May Day!

Sun, snow, banana bread and asiago rolls

It doesn’t look sunny, but it was early. It was clearly going to become sunny and it was warm AND it was my first morning coffee on the front porch.

The next morning we woke to a dusting of snow. I juiced the last of this year’s Meyer Lemons, fed my sourdough starter and enjoyed a snow squally morning.

I’m not sure the chairs enjoyed the snow…

… and the morning coffee routine was much cooler!

The remainder of the week went back and forth between sun and snow … sometimes multiple times during the day!

Today, Sunday, we woke to snow and it has snowed, rained, snowed and now is doing a bit of a wintry mix as I write.

A fragrant brown butter cardamom banana bread (baked as mini-loaves) from Andrea Bemis’ blog: Dishing up the dirt warmed up the morning. (The three loaves with the dried cherries on top have some crystallized ginger bits as a trial addition. Ok but did not add enough to use them again. The recipe as written is wonderful.)

Andrea’s book, also ‘Dishing up the Dirt’ has become a favorite. I’m not a cookbook buyer usually, but the photos and the memoir aspect enticed me to buy this one. I have no regrets. It is a beautiful book with wonderful recipes and I liked it so much that I bought the Kindle version as well so I always have the recipes with me to refer to.

Almost two weeks ago, I saw Mel’s Kitchen Cafe recipe for asiago bubble bread . Mel’s recipe is based on her own french bread roll recipe . I’ve made those rolls and they are very good, but I looked at the King Arthur flour recipe that Mel said inspired her adaptation and decided to make the King Arthur version adapted to use my wild yeast (sourdough) starter and some discard starter.

It worked very well!

Both the rolls and the buns are soft with asiago cheese in them and a crunchy asiago herb top.

Auggie says: “More sun, less snow, please!”