The Yum Yum Factor

I make my  Instant Pot Butter Chicken  fairly often but I don't always plan well enough to marinate the meat overnight and I do believe that an overnight marinade is essential to achieve a rich depth of flavour in the final dish and avoid it tasting like bland chicken plunked into delicious sauce. My theory was that if I added the chicken marinade ingredients INTO the meatballs, it wouldn't have to sit for so long before I can cook the finished dish. We also really, really love meatballs. A quick search for meatballs on The Yum Yum Factor will reveal my obsession with these orbs of tender delight so it stands to reason that I eventually try to meatballify every favourite recipe at some point. I have been mulling a meatball conversion with Butter Chicken for a while but I have been so busy cooking at work, that I have barely cooked more than scrambled eggs in my own kitchen all year but I finally got around to making it this week. don't be alarmed by...

More Meatballs! My last recipe was for these crazy delicious Korean Meatballs and this time, I am showing you how to whip up a big batch of tender meatballs that you can bake off and then freeze because, I know you don't want to hear it, but SUMMER IS ALMOST OVER. Time to stock the freezer for September when life goes back to the daily grind and nobody has time to come home from work or school and make these puppies. So, the difference here is that I use a combo of ground beef, ground pork and Italian sausage and that give me a really tender, moist meatball that has enough fat content that it doesn't get all tough when you reheat the frozen balls of deliciousness down the road. I make this giant batch and throw some of them in a nice, light tomato sauce to eat that day and freeze the rest. The best way to freeze them is to lay them out on parchment lined baking sheets that fit in the freezer. Once they are hard, you can pop them off the tray and throw them in a f...

Oh my, what a spring/summer I have had. For the last year I have been working as a hired gun, cooking for a local caterer, teaching classes as well as hosting pop ups and private dinners around Toronto.  To be honest, I have had a hard time balancing this new schedule so it was not a huge surprise when i fell ill, mid April. What was not expected was spending  6 weeks on my ass with a lung infection followed by a family situation that took me away from home for the last month. At this point, I kind of feel like a brand new, baby blogger, brimming with fun ideas for some new, tasty treats and I have promised myself I will slow down a bit and make time for The Yum Yum Factor as well as washing my hair regularly and eating while sitting down. First up are these Spicy Koreanish Meatballs that I served with this addictive  Kimchi Fried Rice by fellow blogger, Diversivore  . These babies are sooooooooo good. The sugar/chili pepper coating is a spin on my ...

I made some really delicious Manchego Stuffed Meatballs with Romesco recently to serve as tapas style appetizer. In fact, they have been such a huge hit that when I found out that Mushrooms Canada was holding their annual mushroom appetizer contest for the members of the Food Bloggers of Canada, I looked no further, although it required a bit of tweaking. The original recipe called for serving meatballs on a plate, sitting on a thick smear of romesco, the Spanish sauce made from almonds, bread, olive oil and roasted peppers. Don't get me wrong, I love serving them like this but it really only works when we are actually sitting down to dinner as the whole idea is that you spear one with a fork and drag it through the sauce on it's way to your plate. For this contest, I know they are looking for an appetizer that can be eaten out of hand so what could make more sense than using an actual mushroom cap as a little bed for the meatball right? It's not like ...

I am on a mission to come up with a bunch of tapas style dishes that I can whip up for my summer entertaining because although I love to have guests over, I get in trouble for spending too much time in the kitchen while they are here. I have vowed to serve fewer items, served at room temperature or cold and that require very little last minute prep. Your guests want you to spend time with them, not leave them alone while you make magic happen in the kitchen, right? One quick search of this blog will tell you two things: I LOVE a meatball and I love to add mushrooms to my ground meat a la Blend and Extend. Inspired by my most recent  recent farm tour with Mushrooms Canada and Ontario Beef  , I couldn't stop thinking about doing a meatball stuffed with a bit of Manchego and served on a smear of spicy Romesco sauce. It's all the flavours of Spain that I love - nutty manchego cheese, garlic, smoked paprika and the ubiquitous, slightly chunky romesco sits somewhere be...

As one of the ten chefs participating in the Ten for the Next Gen Series at Harbourfront's Hot and Spicy Food Festival   I was tasked with coming up with something that would fit the themes of sustainability and passing traditions on to the next generation. Since I can't really draw on my own family traditions, unless I wanted to pass along my mom's delicious Sherif's lemon meringue pie and, don't get me wrong, she made a mean Sherif's lemon meringue pie, I was going to think outside the box and come up with something of my very own. photo: Shack Shackleton Some of my Blend and Extend Recipes: Blend and Extend Beef Patty Pops Shroomy Beef Keftedes Spicy Mushrooms with Pork Chicken Mushroom Salsa Verde Besides coming up with recipes for Mushrooms Canada and their Blend and Extend program, I have totally embraced the philosophy in my own kitchen and you will almost never find me using any sort of ground meat without adding in a huge whack of grou...

Oh, it's all blend and extend all the time in this house right now. Last week, I finally got around to trying this method of adding ground mushrooms to ground beef in order to make your meat go farther and add a serving of vegetable to dishes while you are at it. The result were these  Jamaican Patty Pops  and I have to tell you, I was actually kind of amazed at how much the addition of the mushrooms worked as far as texture and and keeping the meat moist was concerned. I spent the rest of the week perfecting these Middle Eastern Inspired MeatBalls, which had been my runner up idea for the appetizer challenge until I got it right. These little meatballs are also great on their own and made a nice little dinner served with a  dollop  of  tzatziki, a greek salad and a chunk of bread. If you are lucky to live near a store that sells middle eastern groceries, you can find the preserved lemons, pickled turnip and sumac there and some larger grocery ch...