mini turkey meatballs - baked

This is one of my favorite go-to Sunday meals.  So easy to make and equally delicious. Colton LOVES them, so I usually freeze some in individual batches so that I can pull them out and throw them in the microwave for him. Easy Peasy!! I took the original recipe from my BFF Giada.  Instead of frying them in oil, I bake them in the oven.  Let's get to it, shall we.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground turkey meat
• 1 small onion, grated (I do minced instead)
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs (I use Italian bread crumbs)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley (I used curly parsley)
• 3 tablespoons ketchup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.

2. Place all ingredients into a bowl.



3. Mix together thoroughly using your hands.  Make sure your mixture isn't too wet or dry.  (I used about 1.25 lbs. of turkey, so I adjusted the ingredients a little bit; i.e. more cheese, more ketchup, etc.

4.  Roll mixture into a small meatballs.  Place on the baking sheet.

5.  Place the meatballs in the oven for 15-20 minutes, depending on how 'crispy' you like your meatballs.  I love a good crust on mine, so I leave them in for 20 minutes.

6.  After the 15-20 minutes, take the meatballs out and turn them over.  They will look a little gross at this point, but don't worry.  It is just the fat oozing out!  Place them back in the oven for another 15-20 minutes.

7.  After the 15-20 minutes (again, depending on your like of the 'crispy'), take out of the oven and you are done!

I usually throw these in some homemade sauce and let them sit on the stove until dinner time.  These are super healthy and delicious.  The best part about this recipe is the cleanup, there is virtually none since you line the baking sheet with foil!  They really are the best meatballs I have ever made. Enjoy!



holiday photos

2 years ago when we brought our beloved Weimaraner, Gunner, home in November, I had the brilliant idea of taking his picture in front of the Christmas Tree and putting him front and center on our Christmas cards.  Sounds easy, right? WRONG.   Let me explain:

Year 1: Gunner was only 2 months old at the time. If you have ever dealt with a 2 month old, high strung puppy, you know the drill.  It probably took about 45 minutes to get 2-3 good shots of him.  Here is what we settled on for the card. (every time I look at this, I want 233 more puppies. my husband would.kill.me)

Year 2:  Gunner was a year old and Colton was about 4 weeks old when I decided that it was time for the Christmas photo shoot. It was relatively easy, in that we could get Gunner to sit beside the tree (using about 89 milk bones, mind you) and then sit Colton beside him in his little bouncer.  After about 20 minutes, I finally got a usable shot. (i laugh every time i look at this and see Colton's 'bitch, please' face)

Year 3: Gunner is now 2 years old and Colton just turned a year old a few weeks ago. Since he is no longer interested in walking, only running, I knew this was going to be tons of fun (insert sarcasm here).  It literally took us 2 days to finally get a shot of my boys together.  This is actually a very accurate depiction of my life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  





 



Then they finally started pulling it together. There may or may not have been Milk Bones, Cheerios, and Phineas and Ferb involved. 

 

enchiladas, verde style

This has the be the easiest chicken enchilada recipe ever.  I make this at least 2-3 times a month, it's that delicious! Let's get to it, shall we!

Enchiladas, Verde Style

 Ingredients:

• 2-3 chicken breasts
• 1 small onion
• 2-3 cans of green enchilada sauce
• 1 small can diced green chiles
• 1 lb. bag Colby jack cheese (or your favorite Mexican cheese)
• low fat sour cream
• tortillas

1. Take your chicken breasts and place them in your crock pot.  Slice up the onion and place on top of the chicken.

2. Take your enchilada sauce and green chiles and pour over the chicken/onion combo.  Depending on your chicken breasts, you may only need 2 cans. I like a lot of sauce, so I went with 3.  You can use any brand you like; I was at Target and didn't feel like going to the grocery store, so I bought their brand.

3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours (or high for 4 hours). I usually turn this on around 7am and turn the crock pot off around 4pm when I get home from work.  I usually start making dinner around 5, so I just let the chicken hang out for about and hour before I start assembling.

4. Once the chicken is cooked, remove from the crock pot and shred with a fork. The chicken will pretty much fall apart on it's own at this point. Once shredded, add chicken back to the crock pot. (of course I forgot to take a picture)

5. Take one tortilla and add some of the chicken and onion mixture to the center.  Add some sauce and cheese to the chicken mixture. Tightly roll the tortilla and place into a glass dish (add some of the sauce to the bottom of the dish so that the enchiladas won't stick).

6. Continue until you have no chicken left!  Cover the enchiladas with the remainder of the sauce from the crock pot.  Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the enchiladas.

7. Place into a 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and bubbly. 

I usually serve with with a little sour cream over the top and it is to DIE for.  Can't forget about the beans and rice to go with it! Enjoy ladies :)

happy birthday, babycakes

I cannot believe that my little babycakes is 1 year old today. I keep sitting here at my desk thinking about how this time 1 year ago I thought a long walk with Gunner would help my 'cramps'. 7 hours later I had the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. I would be lying if I said I didn't tear up on the way to work this morning!

This weekend we had a family birthday party for the babycakes in our home town. 

We rented a helium tank and blew up around 100 balloons for the party.  Actually, the husband blew up and tied each balloon shut.  I just tied the strings on! Here is a good idea of what the bundles looked like.

Here is some of the food spread.  I made the candy apples, caramel apples, and the chocolate covered marshmallows.

I was in LOVE with the cake! It was exactly what I asked her to make and was delicious.  The top layer was red velvet and the bottom layer was banana.

Babycakes was only interested in the icing. He was picking off the little yellow dots and shoving them in!



When it was time to sing happy birthday, he turned into such a shy little guy! This picture captures his little smile perfectly!

Here are a few shots of him opening some gifts.  I should really say of ME opening the gifts, because he could have cared less.  He was more interested in climbing up and down on his new Mickey Mouse rocking chair!

Happy Birthday Babycakes, Mommy loves you more than you will ever know!

back at it

I originally started this blog after stalking many, many blogs and thinking 'what the hell, I can do this'.  I guess my life was just too hectic to actually commit to blogging, so I stopped.  Things have calmed down (kind of) so I figured I would give it another try.  Who knows if anyone will actually read this crap, but here it goes!

In the past 2 months, a bazillion (is that even a word) things have happened. Where do I even start?

-My dog, Gunner, was one of the main reasons Blue Buffalo put out a recall on their dog food.  To make a long story short, their food almost killed my beloved Gunnies! They basically were putting too much Vitamin D in their food, shutting down the kidneys of dogs who ate the food.  They were pretty much giving my dog RAT POISION. After a long battle with us, a couple other dog owners, and the Michigan State University diagnostic team, Blue Buffalo did the right thing and recalled the food.  I am still waiting for my $1000 vet bills to be reimbursed!

- The main sewar line on our street backed up into the basement, AGAIN. Yes, this is the 2nd time in 2 years this happened. Almost 2 years apart, to be exact. Weird, no.  Someone on our street has been dumping straight up grease into the sewar. I can't even begin to explain how disgusting this is. How gross are you that you are using that much grease in your cooking!!  The guys who unblocked the main line said there was about 600-700 lbs. of grease blocking the main line.  They had never seen this before! So, we are having the basement re-done AGAIN.

-Two weekends ago, we were at Texas Roadhouse (yall know you love the cinnamon butter, don't judge) any my poor babycakes received 2nd degree burns from touching hot butter in a sweet potato.  The server put MY plate directly in front of Colton and he stuck his finger in the bubbline butter on the sweet potato. WHO THE HELL puts a scalding hot plate in front of an 11 month old ?!?! I saw him putting the plate down but it was too late by the time I pulled it away from him; Colton had already grabbed it. Talk about a screaming child for over a hour :(  I am in the midst of fighting with the coroprate office over this one as we speak.

I plan to make a separate post about each of these with pictures so yall can have more details.  This blog could turn into something fun afterall. After I find a decent blog design. The shiz I have going on now is pretty ghetto fab, if I do say so myself.