This recipe is based on my original recipe that appeared on the front page of the food section of the Phoenix Arizona local paper picked by the food critic.

Today I had extra mini corn tortillas and ground turkey to use and that is how I came up with this recipe. For me this made 18 appetizer portions and I also made 9 extra plain meatballs for I had enough leftover for a dinner for two.

Ingredients for 18 appetizers

18 street sized corn tortillas

around 1/2 cup canola oil to soften the corn tortillas (you can save the un-used oil)

1 lb ground turkey (today I used 99% lean)

1 cup cooked rice (I used leftover take out rice)

2 eggs – beaten

1 teaspoon chipotle in adobo and a little of the sauce) – fine chopped

5 roasted garlic cloves – chopped (or you can use around three cloves ground to paste…The roasted garlic has a nice smokey taste and is much sweeter….I just roasted some yesterday and happened to have them)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground annatto

1/2 cup peppers & onions – diced and cooked

1 Tablespoon ground black pepper

1 Tablespoon sea salt flakes (preferably smoked …I used my homemade smoked sea salt)

1/2 cup of preferably home made salsa

Non stick spray

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray muffin tins with non stick spray.

Get a medium sized microwavable bowl. Brush each tortilla well with oil. Sick them up in a bowl and microwave about two minutes. The tortillas will be hot so be careful and use a spoon and lower each tortilla in a muffin section of the pan.

In a large mixing bowl mix together the turkey, rice, eggs, chipotle, garlic, cumin, annatto, peppers, onions, pepper, salt. *****at this point I pinched off 1/2 a teaspoon and microwaved it to taste and bumped it up slightly with a half a cup of my home made salsa that is very good.

Then I used my meatball scoop and filled each cup.

They went on the middle rack of a preheated 350 degree F oven till cooked. (In my oven this took 20 minutes)

Feel free to top them as you like.

I’m doing scallions, cilantro, and my home made pickled onions……Some people would love sour cream, salsas and cheese…… Or you can put all those things on the side.

ENJOY!!!

Today I just roasted a cauliflower. I came up with a great spice paste and just mixed up the florets into it. Then I spread the cauliflower out on sheet pans and in only a half hour they were done and then I gave them some optional toppings. Serving size WILL DIFFER….We all like different sizes for servings and also the size of your cauliflower will differ…..Lately I usually find very small cauliflowers but got lucky and found an extra large one. Mine will make a good 6 servings but it is rare that you find the extra large cauliflowers so I will say 4 servings. I do also note that you will have some extra roasting sauce from the cauliflower that is delicious that you should use for either a protein or couscous or rice with the cauliflower.

Ingredients for around 4 servings

1 cauliflower – break down to florets

2 shallots thinly sliced

4 garlic cloves – peeled and thinly sliced

1 1/2 Tablespoons sea salt

1 Tablespoon dried dill

1 Tablespoon ground cumin

1 Tablespoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

6 oz. tomato paste

2 Tablespoons pomegranate molasses

1 Tablespoon urfa pepper

3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Optional – fresh pomegranate to taste for finishing

Optional – Feta cheese to taste for finishing

Optional – roasted pistachios (or hazelnuts, or pine nuts) to taste for finishing

Optional – cilantro to taste for finishing

Optional – tahini to taste for finishing

Directions

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F

In a large mixing bowl mix everything except the cauliflower and mix well. Then mix in the cauliflower till it’s coated well. Spread the cauliflower in a single layer on sheet pan(s). This goes in the middle rack of the preheated oven till lightly browned and the cauliflower is cooked. (in my oven this took 30 minutes but oven do differ and your timing could be more or less.)

This is delicious as is…….I added some extras fresh pomegranate, feta cheese, roasted pistachios, and some cilantro. I held back on adding tahini because my husband hates tahini.

ENJOY!!!!

Don’t laugh….OK you can laugh……I tried to make ground turkey balls taste like corned beef and I thought that would be great for a party in meatball sized cabbage balls. I used the spices that I guessed would be good for corned beef but my fatal errors were not using Prague powder (stuff that turns beef pink) and also maybe not using beef. ANYWAYS they came out fragrant and tasty but didn’t taste like corned beef. I made a spice blend and used 1/2 in the meatballs and 1/2 all over the cabbage to flavor it. This recipe takes two days to prepare so the cabbage can stay wrapped on the meatballs.

Ingredients for around 4 servings

1 cabbage

1 quart stock or soup base (vegetable, chicken, or beef)

1 lb ground turkey (I used 99% lean)

2 eggs – beaten

1/2 cup panko

1 Tablespoon (heaping) Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Soup Base reduced salt

1/2 cup already cooked peppers and onions chopped

4 garlic cloves – ground to paste

1/4 cup dark brown sugar – SPICE BLEND

1 + 1/2 teaspoons sea salt – SPICE BLEND

1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper – SPICE BLEND

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon – SPICE BLEND

1/2 teaspoon ground mustard – SPICE BLEND

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves – SPICE BLEND

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice – SPICE BLEND

6 juniper berries – ground to powder – SPICE BLEND

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger – SPICE BLEND

1/2 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning – SPICE BLEND

Directions

Day One – Either boil or roast the cabbage till soft. Let cool on a counter.

Mix up spice blend. (brown sugar, salt, pepper, cinnamon, mustard, cloves, allspice, juniper berries, ginger, and Old Bay Seasoning. Split this in half. Half of the spice blend goes in a large that you will mix the meatball mix in.

In a large mixing bowl with 1/2 the spice mix add the ground turkey, eggs, panko, garlic, pepper & onions, and mix well.

Assemble

When the cabbage is cool remove one leaf at a time from the core and remove only the very thick veins of the cabbage. Scoop a meatball into the cabbage leaf.

Place this on plastic wrap and twist it into a ball shape.

Repeat till done.

These NEED to sit on the refrigerator over night.

Next day

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove plastic wrap from meatballs.

Spread out the meatballs for cooking.

Sprinkle remaining spice blend all over.

Cook till well done about 20 minutes give or take.

ENJOY!!!

Cheese Blintzes are crepes that are usually filled with fruit, farmer’s cheese, or potato and then fried in butter. Some people like them sweet and other people like them slightly savory. Some people serve them like dessert with powdered sugar and whipped cream. Other people like them topped with sour cream.

I was shopping at Sprouts and farmer’s cheese was at an incredible price that I could not pass up so I decided to make cheese blintzes today. Latter I went back to Sprouts and purchased fruit to make a fruit sauce for the blintzes.

It’s best to make the cheese filling the day before so you can drain some liquid out of it.

Anyways my recipe made me 11 crepes so I will say 11 servings. I did have maybe enough cheese left over for one more crepe.

Ingredients for around 11 servings

4 eggs

1 cup water

6 Tablespoons sweet butter – melted

2 Tablespoons Greek Yogurt

couple drops vanilla extract

1 cup flour

2 Tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

2 Tablespoons butter – to fry blintzes with

2 cups farmer’s cheese – for filling

1 cup whipped cream cheese – for filling

1/4 cup sugar – for filling

1 egg – for filling

1/2 lemon – just the fresh juice – or more to taste – for filling

1 teaspoon vanilla – or less to taste – for filling

pinch sea salt – for filling

Directions

Make the filling first.

In a medium bowl combine the cheeses, sugar, egg, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt. This goes in a paper towel lined colander over night. The top you can loosely plastic wrap. In the morning I changed the towel so it could drain some more. Keep refrigerated till ready to fill blintzes.

Make the crepes. In a large bowl combine the eggs, water, melted butter, yogurt, vanilla, flour, sugar, and salt.

Melt 1/2 the butter on medium heat in a non stick pan.

Use a serving spoon to measure the batter. One serving spoon seemed to be the perfect amount of batter for my pan. You don’t just pour the batter in you have to turn the pan on its side to shape the crepe around the pan………..Once you get a nice round crepe you wait till it looked cooked and flip it and leave it on heat maybe 1/2 a minute more.

I had a pan lined with plastic wrap to collect the crepes. Between each crepe I used more plastic wrap so they wouldn’t stick together.

Repeat till done and add butter as needed.

When you are ready to make the blintzes.

Either pipe or spoon out the cheese.

You roll it up like a burrito.

Bottom and top of crepe over the cheese.

Now you roll till rolled up.

Repeat till done.

Fry the crepes in butter on medium heat on both sides till slightly browned.

You can enjoy now or add sour cream or preserves. Some people like them sweet with powdered sugar……

I made a mixed fruit sauce. It was a pint of blueberries, a pound of strawberries, and 10 ounces of pitted cherries. I added 2 ounces of butter and about 1/2 a cup of sugar. I mixed it together and this went in a 350 oven in two pans for around an hour.

Enjoy!!!!

The Sprouts Grocery in NORTH LAS VEGAS has some really great surprise sales. I walked in and they had BIG BAGS of two kinds of broccoli on sale for 99cents a bag. In case you don’t know Yotam Ottolenghi is a multi award wining and James Beard award wining chef, restauranteur, and cook book author. I figured that he would have a great tender stem broccoli recipe and he did on his website. I didn’t want to change anything in his recipe but I had to change a few things due to what I had around the house. So I made a few substitutions and left out one ingredient that I didn’t have. I also doubled the amount of brown sugar peanuts because I knew I would want more than a 1/4 cup. This came out different and delicious! It might be something that you might want to try? This made four generous side servings for me.

Ingredients for around 4 servings

2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar – peanuts

2 teaspoons soy sauce – peanuts

2 teaspoons olive oil – peanuts

1/2 cup peanuts – peanuts

non stick spray – peanuts

1/2 cup peanut buttet – dressing

2 teaspoons gochujang – dressing

1 Tablespoon soy sauce – dressing

1 teaspoon dark brown sugar – dressing

1 lemon – just the juice

2 teaspoons – fresh grated ginger – dressing

2 garlic cloves , ground to paste – dressing

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

3 Tablespoons water

1 Tablespoon chives – to finish

1 pound broccoli (You can use whatever broccoli you want)

Salt to boil water

Directions

Set oven to 325 degrees F.

Get a small sheet tray ready and spray it with non stick spray.

In a small mixing bowl mix together the brown sugar, soy sauce, and oil. Then mix in the peanuts. Pour this out on your sprayed baking sheet in one layer and spread it out. This goes in the preheated oven for nine – ten minutes.

Put a pot of water on to boil and salt the water.

Mix up the dressing – in a small bowl mix together the peanut butter, gochujang, soy sauce, sugar, lemon juice, ginger, garlic, salt, and water. Put to the side.

When the peanuts come out of the oven they will be molten hot. You might want to break them up a little before they set and lump up together.

Boil the broccoli for three minutes. Drain the broccoli and either serve or if for latter put in an ice bath to stop the cooking process.

Serve with peanuts and sauce either on the side or drizzled on and finish with chives.

A Special THANKS!!!!! To Yotam Ottolenghi for his Tenderstem Broccoli with Gochujang Dressing Recipe so I could come up with what I got here.

The Cook’s Country Recipe for Potato and Cheese Pierogis can’t be beat. Today I made the Pierogis with sweet potatoes and I thought cranberry salsa matcha would be great with them. This made 32 pierogis for me. I did have extra filling and scrap dough left that I put together and made a crazy kind of small 2 serving lasagna with. Serving size is difficult to determine because I don’t know if you want this for a side serving or a whole meal…….I like this for a side serving so I’ll say at least 10 servings.

Ingredients for around 10 side servings

2 1/2 cups bread flour + extra for lightly flouring surfaces

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup sour cream

1 egg

1 yolk

salt to taste

4 average to small size sweet potatoes – peeled

1/4 cup whipped cream cheese

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

dash nutmeg

sea salt – to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

The sweet potatoes go in a pan or. baking dish with about a 1/2 cup of water. The pan or dish gets covered and they stay in the oven till fork tender. (about an hour)

The bread flour, baking powder, sour cream, egg, yolk, salt go in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Mix at medium-high speed for 8 minutes. Cover the dough so it doesn’t dry out. This needs to rest about 30 minutes. You can chill it but then you will have to let it warm to room temperature.

While the sweet potatoes are hot mash them with the cream cheese, butter, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

Roll out about 1/3 of your dough on a board or rolling mat. If desired use plastic wrap over the dough so it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin. (us flour as sparingly as possible.)

Roll around 1/8 inch.

Remove scap dough and either use for something else or toss because it is much tougher second time around.

Fill about 1/2 meatball size and pinch the middle shut.

Then finish closing it up.

Repeat with rest of dough until done.

Place the pierogi on trays that are oiled or sprayed with nonstick spray because they might stick.

Boil them in batches in salted water till they float.

You don’t need to fry them but if you want to fry them I do one stick of butter with a splash of canola oil. If desired fry on each side on medium heat till done.

I usually make my own cranberry sauce but picked up a can. I forgot how bad canned cranberry sauce taste and added some of the salsa matcha I made that is published on my website……These days you can buy salsa matcha at the store if you want but this one here is very good.

A Special THANKS!!!! To Cook’s Country Magazine so I could do what you see here!

I had a spaghetti squash to use and wanted to find a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe. I wondered how he would do a Spaghetti Squash? Oh and incase you don’t know he is a multi award wining chef, restauranteur, and cookbook author. His recipes that I’ve done so far are all unique and uniquely FORKING DELICIOUS…..ANYWAYS>>>>>I couldn’t find a spaghetti squash recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi so I used one of his pasta recipes as a guild for Spaghetti Squash……Besides swapping spaghetti squash for pasta I made a few slight changes. Maybe the other biggest change was to use much more spinach than for the pasta recipe. I just felt it needed it. Serving size is difficult to determine because I don’t know if you want a tiny dish or a big bowl full. I think that this will be at least 6 servings. But some people will get more servings.

Ingredients for around 6 servings

3+1/2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil + a little extra to spray squash pan

1 small onion – fine chop

3 garlic cloves – crushed and fine chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 Tablespoon thyme – chopped

7 anchovies – chopped (about half a 2 ounce can ….you can freeze what you don’t use)

1 medium lemon – juice and zest

2 – 15 oz cans chickpeas – drained and rinsed

1 teaspoon dark brown sugar

1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (I used vegetable)

1 spaghetti squash – If you can cut in half but not long ways and remove seeds and membranes……..I note that this is hard to do and you can get injured. If this is too chancy just cook the spaghetti squash whole…..and remove the seeds and membranes when it is cool enough to handle…….It might take slightly longer)

12 oz bag frozen spinach

1 tablespoon parsley

1 1/2 teaspoons za’atar

sea salt – to taste

black pepper – to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Spray pan with olive oil.

Put either whole squash or half squash (cleaned out) on pan.

The squash usually needs 45-60 minutes on the middle rack. Or cook till soft to touch.

While the squash is cooking.

On hight heat cook the onions, garlic, cumin, thyme, anchovies, lemon zest, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper till golden in color 3-4 minutes.

Reduce heat to medium. Add the chickpeas and sugar. Fry 8 minutes.

Add stock and lemon juice. Simmer 6 minutes.

Stir in frozen spinach. Give it about 2 minutes.

Add spaghetti squash.

Serve and finish with za’atar and parsley.

It’s FORKING DELICIOUS!!!!!

A Special THANKS!!!! to Yotam Ottolenghi for his Gigli with Chickpeas and Za’atar recipe so I could come up with what I did!

I had a bag of fingerling potatoes that I had to use. On my mind I was thinking about the lack of Indian Restaurants in Las Vegas. There are a few Indian Restaurants in Las Vegas but not near the amount in even just North Phoenix Arizona. This came out mildly Indian-ish. Day one it’s the most flavorful. I guess the potatoes soak things up and I thought the next day it needed more salt and pepper. Serving will differ some because we all have different appetites. This will make around 4-6 servings.

Ingredients for around 5 servings

1 1/2 lb fingerling potatoes cut in half longways

2 cups tomato puree (preferably from Italy)

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

1 onion sliced very thin on microplane

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground mustard

1 teaspoon coriander

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon Chile powder

1 teaspoon sea salt + more to taste

1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper + more to taste

non stick spray

optional – 1/4 cup cilantro for garnishing

Directions

Set oven to 400 degrees F

In a large bowl mix together the spices (ginger, garlic, cumin, mustard, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, salt, pepper), tomato puree and the onions.

Spray you baking dish and lid with non stick spray.

Place the potatoes cut side down.

Dump and spread evenly the spiced tomato onion mixture.

Cover pan with sprayed lid and cook on a middle rack in oven until the potatoes are very tender. (90 minutes or slightly less depending on size of potatoes. To finish add the optional fresh cilantro.

The potatoes came out creamy, flavorful, and fat free! They are delicious and slightly Indian style. I do note you might want to add more salt and more pepper.

Enjoy!!!