Vivi's Awesome Meatballs

I say meatballs, but this makes a great hamburger too! Oh, and this post is from memory, so forgive us if it isn't 100% perfect. when we make them in the future we'll take special care to use this recipe as written and make any corrections. You're welcome to do the same! Please post your discoveries.

So, here's whatcha need:

ground beef, 1 pkg (2lbs)
bread crumbs, 1/3 cup
eggs, 2
salt, 2 tsp
dry cheese, 1/4 cup (this can be romano, parmesan, goat cheese, whatever you like)
fresh minced onion, 1/8 cup OR 1 tbsp dried onion flakes
fresh diced garlic, 3 cloves
Cholula brand pepper sauce, 2 tbsp (though what, and how much is always up to you on this one)
red pepper flakes, 1/2 tsp
dried basil flakes, 1/8 tsp
dried oregano flakes, 1/8 tsp
dried marjoram, 1/8 tsp
white pepper, 1/8 tsp
merlot, 1 tbsp (thank you, mom, for teaching me about wine in cooking)
finely chopped bacon, 2 slices

Add all ingredients except bread crumbs and eggs, and churn away with your hands (get a couple of sandwich baggies for gloves if you like) until it's evenly blended. Then add the eggs and blend again, following with the bread crumbs and blend again.

Put a bit of olive oil on your palms and grab chunks of meat from the bowl and roll into balls between your hands. You'll wanna re-coat those palms every 6 balls or so. Place them on a sheet of aluminum foil spread over a broiling rack, in a broiling pan lined with aluminum foil (these cook messily, and we wanna save ourselves from as much cleanup hassle as possible here), and cook at 350 for about 20 to 25 minutes depending on the size of the ball. A meatball that's about 1½" in diameter will be about 25 minutes.

Vivi's Incredible "Sauceless" Pasta

This is just the recipe for the amazing base of most of vivi's pasta dishes. It's amazingly versatile, and you can top it with just about anything. We recommend tomatoes, fresh basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, but you don't have to stop there.

1 package pasta of your choice (we like Linguine and Rigatoni)

2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 stick butter/margarine

1/2 tsp garlic salt

3 cloves fresh garlic (pressed or chopped)

small handful of fresh Parmesan

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box/bag, taking care not to overcook (if it says 6 minutes, you time it, darnit!) adding some garlic salt to the water, as well as a bit of olive oil.

Drain promptly and heat up the pan to medium-high (chef's best friend), and toss the pasta with the butter, cheese, oil, garlic, and that half teaspoon of garlic salt until it's coated.

These amounts, as always, are flexible (we don't measure usually), so feel free to tinker with them to get the taste you're looking for.

Hah! and you thought you knew good pasta! If you can't eat it without sauce, it's not worth eating!

It's here! Our "Better than Yo Gran'mamma's" white-wheat bread!

Okay, so by a week, I meant a month... School's hard, so cut me some slack!
anyway, here it is:

note: there are special instructions after these, so pay attention

2 cups wheat flour
2 to 2.5 cups white flour
2 or so cups hot water
.25 cups brown sugar
1.5 tsp salt
2 tb yeast
1 stick butter (that's right, a whole stick), softened
1 egg (optional)

If you haven't already, put the butter out on the counter to soften.

Put the yeast in the bottom of a mug, with the brown sugar packed on top to insulate it from the hot water. Get the tap going good and hot (like, scalding) and fill the mug to about an inch below the top (not a centimeter: a whole inch - you wanna be able to stir this) and stir it. This gets maximum heat to to the yeast without killing it. Let that sit until your mug looks like a mushroom from the foam created by the yeast. It's usually about 10 minutes.

While you're waiting, put the whole wheat flour into a fairly large bowl, 14 or so inches in diameter should give you enough room to work. When the 'mushroom' is ready, add it to the flour, using the same mug to get another cup from the tap. add the butter mix it up. It should be like pancake batter now.

Now, we've come to a really important stage in preparation: the salt.

Salt is a mystery, and you can never really know how much to put in your recipe, it seems. Most recipes tell you to put far too little and you end up with a nasty, dry and heavy bread. Who wants to eat that!? Honestly... so add a teaspoon of that salt and mix it in.

Taste the 'batter'. I know, it sounds gross, but it tastes just like the bread (wonder why...). If it doesn't taste rich yet (and it most likely won't at this point), add more salt, using your judgment until you reach that point where you taste it and say "dang! this is gonna be good!" Again, it should taste rich, not salty. If you start treading into salty territory, all is not lost! Add some sugar. and water if you have to (careful with that water though, it'll get out of hand if you aren't).

Once you're satisfied with the flavor, stir in the egg, and then a cup and a half of the white or unbleached flour. Mix it with a good stout wooden spoon until ye can't stir no more!

Then take the rest of the flour and put some of it on the counter. Dump your now-sticky dough on top and toss some flour on top of that. Knead with palms, pushing the dough away from you and 'into' the counter, flipping it back again and again, patting your hands in flour now and then to keep them from sticking to it.

Eventually it should stop sticking to the counter (though not entirely, or you've gone too far). Pat it with flour and form it into a ball, placing it back in the bowl from whence it came.

Cover that bowl with a plate, or cookie sheet or something, making sure to spray the underside of whatever you choose with cooking spray (don't be stingy or it won't have any effect).

Let it rise for an hour or so, punching it when it gets too uppity. Then take it out, cut it in half and form into loaves, and put it in buttered/greased/oiled/whatever bread pans and let rise in a warm spot with a thin towel or cloth napkin to cover it for between 30 to 45 minutes.
when you're satisfied with the size (it'll grow a bit in the oven too, so about a half inch above the lip of the pan should do) bake at 350-375.

When you start to smell bread strongly in the air, it's time to check them (usually about 25 minutes.) If the tops are darkened, then take one out, cut it in half, and if you're satisfied, take'em out. If not, put it back in its pan and keep cooking (I'd love to give you a specific time, but really that just doesn't work. It just takes experience.)

A use for the blog

Haha! I have it! I'll share my awesome recipes as I perfect them! This'll help me document them as well, since I often forget the details down the road and end up scratching my head ("How did I do that?"). That said, next week expect my awesomer than awesome white wheat bread. Seriously, your grandma's isn't even this good.

Sure, why not

well, I originally made this thing as an experiment to see if it would double as a fileshare. it didn't, so I kind of just abandoned it. Given that there are actually 4 views on this that means that family must be trying to find something out about what the heck's going on in my life. So, I suppose I'm going to have to actually use this thing once in a while. Lame... Who knows, maybe I'll learn to like it. Facebook has always been enough though, so I may just refer you there =).

so I'll just ask you guys straight up (all one or two of you, since three of those four views were probably me...): should I work with this thing?