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Mozzarella Sticks

Domestic

Mozzarella Sticks are standard pub fare and often accompany pizza on family game night with garlic bread, because when are you ever going to have time to make them yourself – and why would you? They must take hours right? And you can’t just make it with stuff you probably already have in your pantry RIGHT NOW, can you? I swear, these little snacks go from passing thought to burning your greedy fingers in less than 30 minutes. No, honest. I have seen versions of them kicking around online but I didn’t trust that any recipe I could make myself would come close to the glorious fried gooeyness Mr So Very Domestic adores so much. And you know, given that I clearly refer to myself as ‘so very domestic’, I take kitchen fails as crushing blows to my womanhood a little harsher than most others. Ahem.

Then my husband got me The Pioneer Woman’s cookbook and this little gem was in there! I adore Miss Ree so much I’d never reprint a recipe from her book – however, she first posted this on her recipe site Tasty Kitchen over 3 years ago, so I think it’s ok. 😉

I am all over any excuse for my husband and I to play around in the kitchen (no, not like that). He especially likes to offer up help with frying, shaping and any cutting that looks the least bit complicated or fun (hello scalloped potatoes and my mandolin). When we make these, we save even more time by working together so we can get back to the movie watching / Chinese checker playing / whatever silly thing we are doing at 1am while making food we shouldn’t. We have been known to even make these for the kids, but since only 1/3 of them likes them it’s still a pretty self indulgent endeavour. I set up the bowls of flour / egg / crust and he opens and cuts up the cheese.

I bread a few while the oil heats up and then he fries as I finish breading. Match made in heaven, really.

Here are the deets!

Mozzarella Sticks

Mozzarella Sticks via The Pioneer Woman
16 pieces string cheese, (removed from wrappers)*
½ cups flour
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
canola oil (for frying)
2 cups panko bread crumbs

*you’ll get two mozzarella sticks per string cheese, so just use as many as you need

First, unwrap all the string cheese you need and cut each piece in half. We’ve also experimented with making the sticks smaller by cutting each string cheese in three pieces. It works better that way for a crowd so you have more pieces but if there are just two or three people, halves is fine. Then prep the bowls. You’ll need one with the flour, one with the egg and milk and one with the panko and parsley. Just like when you’re making fish and chips, roll the cheese first in the flour, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs. Make sure each piece is well coated each time so it all sticks!
Mozzarella Sticks
Mozzarella Sticks
PW flash freezes these before she fries them but really ain’t nobody got time fo’ that!, so we just jump on in. Fry as many at a time as you feel comfortable with. We usually do about 6 or 8 at a time, but we have been known to be snacky and impatient (a dangerous combo really) and make them all in two batches. It doesn’t take long to cook these babies! The entire operation in the pan is under two minutes for sure. Just marvel as they turn a lovely golden brown about 45 second after you drop them in the oil, poke them a bit to turn them over around the one minute mark and take them out before the two minute mark.
Mozzarella Sticks
Mozzarella Sticks
I know right?!
Mozzarella Sticks
My husband eats them with nothing at all, I love them in marinara sauce or a sweet and sour sauce. Our one, lone mozzarella stick loving child (how are the rest even related to us?!) looooves them with ketchup. She’s 4, so ketchup is still socially acceptable on pretty much everything, right? No matter what you eat them with, they’re crazy amazing and so much better than they are at restaurants or from frozen.
Mozzarella Sticks
Mozzarella Sticks
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BBQ Meatballs

Domestic

Happy Canada Day!! I know, I know, meatballs have nothing to do with Canada Day, but I swear after I make something appropriately Canadian this afternoon, I’ll show it to you tomorrow. 😉

I made these for a going away party for my friend and her littles before they left California last week and they were a serious hit. Usually I take a pot luck as an opportunity to test out a recipe I’ve bookmarked for later. Ok, pinned for later. Does anyone really bookmark anymore now that Pinterest has taken over the internet? Anyhoo, instead of doing that, I opened the cupboard and saw a can of green chilies that I had mistakingly bought for a recipe from the new Pioneer Woman cookbook (I was supposed to get chipotle peppers in adobo sauce whoops, big diff). After setting the can of chilies on the counter, I kept poking around in there to see what else wanted to leap into these meatballs. I spied a pouch of ranch powder that I had used half of in a ‘ranch burger’ experiment a few days before (the experiment went very well, thanks for asking) and decided to use that too. I already knew I wanted to serve the meatballs in a barbecue sauce and when I do that I like to have a little taste of the sauce in the meatball itself so I also used a squirt of the base hickory barbecue sauce and mustard to make sure it wasn’t too sweet.

The final meatballs included the usual onions and garlic but I also used a couple of small shallots to mix it up a little, paprika and a healthy dose of chili power. And salt and pepper, duh.

The sauce is a very simple little combo I learned from my dad years ago that will give you so many different flavors depending on what combination you use. equal parts barbecue sauce and chicken stock! Voila! You’ll want to adjust that depending on how thick your base barbecue sauce is, and of course how thick you want your finished sauce to be. With all the different ways to make barbecue sauce (vinegar, whiskey, hickory, brown sugar, molasses etc etc etc), and all the different ways to make chicken stock (endless combinations of spices to be spicy or sweet, different flavors from strictly chicken bones to whole carcasses and veggies etc etc) make it a very versatile sauce for meatballs. I’ve used it with meatballs made from pork, beef, chicken and turkey and they all were total winners! Honestly, they are even better the next day!

BBQ Meatballs

Meatballs:
3lbs ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
2 small shallots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3-4 tablespoons hickory barbecue sauce (or whatever)
1 11 oz can green chili peppers
2 tablespoons mustard
1 egg
1/2 package ranch powder
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup breadcrumbs
Sauce: (for simmering and serving)
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups hickory barbecue sauce

Get right in there and use your hands to mix up the ground beef with the onions, shallots and garlic. Add and mix in the barbecue sauce, green chili peppers, mustard and egg. Then add the ranch, paprika, chili power, salt and pepper and of course, the breadcrumbs. Mash it all up until it holds together, adding more breadcrumbs if you need to.

BBQ Meatballs

Roll them into cute little meatballs and arrange them on a parchment lined baking sheet. I think the smaller the meatballs the better (without them being clearly too small, ahem), because they will cook quickly and evenly in the oven, allowing more time to soak up the sauce they’ll simmer in later. Also because if you make twice as many small meatballs as big ones, more people will have a chance to taste them and go back for more. 😉

BBQ Meatballs

I warmed up the chicken stock and whisked the barbecue sauce into it and then plunked my finished meatballs in the sauce to simmer a while. My husband and Wee One #1 were in the kitchen, loitering (as they do when they smell something good happening), and they each wanted to taste one. Of course, I obliged, but assumed the weird ranch + hickory + green chili peppers combo would be dismissed as ‘too weird’. I was way mistaken. Way. First my husband said he wasn’t sure if he was ok with me taking them to the potluck and then our son was all ‘omg they’re not for us?’ haha. Sorry kid, but I swear I’ll make them again just for you guys!

BBQ Meatballs
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