all things veggie

Hey everyone,

I haven't blogged in a while.. Sometimes life gets in the way....Its August. And you know what that means, It means that my favorite time of year is right around the corner. I  know I know, You're probably saying its way too early to get excited about the fall season. But that's not the case with me....oh how I can't wait for fall.

I haven't done much cooking lately. The other day i decided to make a veggie meatball and pasta dish. my recipe writing skills aren't the best so bear with me. I don't always follow an exact recipe so that is definitely something I will be working on in the future. I saw a recipe in "vegetarian times" for Greek veggie meatballs. It called for seitan, and mint and dill. I'm not a fan.  So I altered the recipe and stuck to the traditional Italian flavors that I feel meatballs are supposed to have. (minus the meat of course).

I bought this texturized vegetable protein (gimmelean brand) in ground beef style. I added ricotta cheese, Italian bread crumbs, two eggs, salt, pepper and garlic. It took a while for this to come together. The "meat" was hard to mix up. i added some water to loosen it up and eventually it all incorporated. I made my meatballs the size of golf balls and browned them in some canola oil. After they were nice and brown  I put them in a casserole dish with some of the tomato sauce I made and baked them off at 350 for 20 minutes.

The texture was that of a very soft meatball. Keep in mind I haven't had a real meatball in 15 years...so I was just going by my old memories. I wasn't exactly fond of the flavor and the texture. It was too smooth i think to mimic a real meatball. And it definitely could have benefited from some Parmesan cheese. I think next time I will use the sausage style gimmelean and add the parm. I think it might have a better flavor. When I get the recipe to where it has to be I will definitely post it. Ive been busy working on my cakes for Saturdays festivities ;)

I'm making a tres leches coconut cake,  strawberry kindergarten cake and a banana cake. I did a test run on Ree Drummonds "the best frosting i ever had" and I have to tell you It was the best frosting I ever had. lol.

It stares off with flour and milk...which I know sounds a bit odd....but there's a whole science to why this frosting works.lol...Ive actually seen this technique for frosting in quite a few blogs and books. I think its the first type of frosting that was originally on a Red Velvet cake. Then somewhere along the line someone decided to pair it with a cream cheese frosting. I'm a fan. in fact, Ive never met a frosting I didn't like. Ok honeybees and honeybears...I'm totally goofing off at work...so I must go. Will keep you posted on that "meat"ball recipe when i get it to where it needs to be

TaTa