The Yum Yum Factor

Earlier this week, I whipped up The King's Crashed Potatoes  using a bag of Blushing Belles, little yellow fleshed, pink skinned creamers from The Little Potato Company . We ended up eating those little crashed potatoes all week - with dinner, with breakfast and as a snack.

What do you do with three cups of leftover risotto al nero de seppia ? Make arancini, of course. Although everyone in the house loves these crispy little risotto balls, I rarely make them because, frankly, I am still terrified of deep frying. The odd time I make them, I either bake them or pan fry them in a shallow pan with a bit of oil and although good, they aren't amazing. To really enjoy an arancini, you need the crispy crust that you crack to reveal the soft, creamy rice innards and you can really only get that crust by deep frying them. Now that I am 50, I have decided it is high time to face some of my fears in the face so I pulled out a small pot, a bottle of canola oil and my instant read thermometer and did what needed to be done. I am not going to tell you that it was a walk in the park, emotionally, but I buckled down and heated that damned oil all the way to 350F and deep fried these arancini like a boss. The panko adds a bit more substance to the coating but...

Who doesn't like meatloaf? You know who doesn't like meatloaf (apart from people who don't eat meat of course)? People who haven't eaten a delicious meatloaf, that's who. We eat it prepared in a few different ways to keep it interesting. One of our favourites is Italian Meatloaf  and Italian Meatloaf take 2  , we do a Korean Style Meatloaf  and a cranberry glazed turkey meatloaf that is full of thanksgiving flavours without the hassle of roasting a big turkey. I promised The Kid that I would make it this week. I am always looking for new ways to jazz things up a bit when I came across my smoked paprika. Hmmmm. What about doing some Spanish flavours in there? I am kind of all about Spanish food right now, ever since I did a tapas spread for our Christmas Eve soiree. I spent some time living and working in Madrid in my former life and these were the flavours that still linger in my noggin. I went out and got a bit of Spanish Manchego cheese and some quince ...