Great Greek Meatballs with Orzo

A nice change from spaghetti and meatballs. 

I've said this before, but the last time I cooked with orzo pasta it congealed into one large lump of pasta, so I was extra careful while cooking it this time and it came out perfect!

This recipe gives you a little freedom to choose your marinara sauce. I used a jar of home canned tomatoes from the Richmond's garden in Clarksville. Guaranteed fresh and no preservatives. 

Since I used this, I had to turn it into a marinara with some onions and italian seasoning. 

The recipe was fairly easy. I've always hated forming all of those little meatballs. My hands turn to ice from the freezing meat, and you can't stir it up with a spoon, that never works, you have to use your cold hands to mush it all together. This recipe is pretty much spaghetti and meatballs, but uses orzo and feta cheese. 

It was quite tasty. It is supposed to make 6 servings, but Bradley had seconds each time he ate it so it only yielded 4 servings for us. It was very good. 

Sous Chef gives it: 

1 thumb up!

Speedy Chicken Chili

To quote sous chef "if there's one thing Holly does well, it's soups."

He's right about that. We had Speedy Chicken Chili this week because the canned vegetables were on sale for $.50 this week at Kroger, and there were 4 cans of vegetables in this recipe.

I just can't say enough how genius I think it is to use salsa in dishes like this. It adds so much flavor and spice, and you don't have to chop onions and bell peppers. 

It was hard to get a good picture because all of the good stuff kept sinking to the bottom of the bowl. 

This recipe made about 8 servings for Bradley and I, which was nice because that was 4 nights of cooking and cleaning pots that we didn't have to worry about. 

This dish was super easy to prepare. You can buy pre-cooked chicken and not have to do a thing, but I used frozen chicken. The dish only takes one large pot and that's about it. No clean up required, we put the pot in the fridge with the leftovers and enjoyed it all week. 

Sous chef gives this:

One thumb up!

Greek Shrimp

Before the invention of this cookbook I never cooked with shrimp. They were something special for eating out at restaurants, so I've really been enjoying eating the shrimp recipes. 

This dish was delicious and delightfully different from all of the others.

A healthy serving of vegetables is included with the tomatoes, peas, olives and onions. The recipe makes 6-8 servings, for us it was 6. We enjoyed it over angel hair pasta the first two nights, then basmati rice the 3rd night. I liked it best with the pasta, sous chef liked it best with the rice. Either way you serve it's still delicious, especially with the feta cheese on top!
Prep time was about 10 minutes. Everything came from the freezer or a can. All I had to do was chop an onion. 

Shrimp Dumplings with Asian Sauce

I was really nervous about making this recipe. It's quite tedious and unlike anything I've ever made before. 

First I had to google won ton wrappers because I haven't been able to find them at the store. My google search showed that you have to look in the refrigerated health food/soy section. That's where I found these:

Once I had all of my ingredients I put them in the food processor and made a spinach and shrimp paste:

Then I filled the won ton wrappers with the paste and twist the top:

A tip I figured out after I had finished was to wet the edges of the wrappers so they stick together easier. As you might imagine this part took a while. 

Once they're all filled and pinched you cook them in water:

Then serve them with the Asian sauce:

We had this dish with the left over Asian pasta I had made the night before. They went quite well together. 

I made the dumplings in the morning on a day off. It took about an hour to from start to finish, so definitely save this recipe for a day off. I had time to have the kitchen cleaned and once it was time for dinner it took about 15 minutes to prepare, all I had to do was boil them in the water and cover with asian sauce. 

Sous Chef not only gave this recipe two thumbs up, he said it was the best recipe in the cookbook thus far. Of course his favorite would be one of the hardest to prepare. 

The recipe made about 5 servings which brings the cost to $2.60 a serving. 

Italian Wedding Soup

Sorry for the relative absence. Sous chef has been out of town this week. I cooked one recipe for myself that I didn't think he'd miss, but I was wrong. I've never heard of Italian Wedding Soup, but I googled it and apparently it's pretty common. There were a lot of different recipes for it. It's awesome! I had all of the ingredients at home, so no extra trips to the grocery (I left out the celery). Spinach and carrots leftover from recipe last week, pasta was on sale at Kroger for $.99 a carton a few weeks ago so I stocked up on all the pastas I thought I would ever need. For the broths, I like to use bouillon cubes because I can keep that stocked in the pantry without taking up much room. 

It includes a side recipe for mini meatballs that are delicious:

Combine all other ingredients into a large pot then add the meatballs. 

I love the orzo pasta in this soup. I've cooked with it once before and I accidently overcooked it making a big block of pasta. I've been afraid to use it again since that little incident. 

The recipe makes 12 servings and I've been eating about 2 servings a day. You can freeze some if you want, but I was saving some for when Bradley gets home. 

Calories: 153, fat: 3g. I love it!

I give it two thumbs up!