I pick free therapy.
I couldn't pick just one subject at college and I certainly can't nail it down now. I switched from "English Major" to "Liberal Arts & Sciences" within minutes of discovering this option at orientation weekend. Picking three minors was infinitely easier than narrowing down my field of interest to just one thing. While I maintain my life has changed drastically since graduating from high school and university, I think maybe I haven't changed all that much at all. I still dabble in multiple interests and achieve above average results in most of them, while not hitting expert level in any of them - in my opinion. I guess perception is part of this. When I compare myself to the celebrity chefs I am certainly not at their level, but I have friends and family who would probably call me a whiz in the kitchen. I love watching The Chew and then taking one of the recipes I see and adapting it to my own taste or time constraints. Pinterest is also helping me feed this habit.
I recently had two out of town friends over for dinner within the same week, and offered them a sampling of the same dish - something that I had made in advance for quick & easy reheat of a home cooked meal (for those times when The Hubs drags in from work after 8pm and the rest of us are all done for the day.) I got the idea from this pinterest blog and adapted it for my family's taste - plus I think ground turkey by itself is a little bland. Thus "Meat Muffins" were born in my kitchen and on the request of BOTH friends that I send them the recipe - and I used "recipe" loosely because dishes like this I make differently almost every time. Once I made it with turkey & lamb, then with turkey & pork - but I liked the first recipe better so I went back to the turkey & lamb. Below is my "recipe" - follow it if you can. :-)
"Meat Muffins"
Preheat oven to 375
Cook veggies & spices in butter on stove top until the veggies are tender.
Mix all ingredient together.
Spray muffin pan with non-stick stuff. I used a large scooper to put the same amount into each muffin pan and it worked out pretty well to make 24 "muffins."
Sprinkle with parmesan then panko
Bake for about 25-30 minutes - watch for burning on the edges. Serve warm - or save for last minute add-ons.
Ingredients:
(feel free to substitute any form of ground meat, or veggies - I just found that this combo platter works best for our taste)
1 pound ground lamb
1 pound ground turkey (mostly all I can find is the 99% lean so that's why I mix with either ground lamb or ground pork - need the fat to keep them moist)
panko
shredded parmesan
sweet curry spice mix
turkish seasoning
sandwich sprinkle
tuscan sunset
finely chopped veggies:
celery (2-4 stalks)
onion (about 1/2 a medium onion)
zucchini (if you want - it's in everything I cook these days
carrot (I buy the matchstick carrots and chop those up even more)
2-4 tablespoons butter
1-2 eggs, depending on how much butter you use, and how big your handful of oats is.
handful of quick-cooking oats
Final consistency of mix should be like bread dough - not soupy, sticking together, etc.
This is a poor photo of the meat muffins themselves, but here you can see their adaptability - I put four of them on a bed of pasta and poured tomato sauce over them for one of those "easy reheats" that I mentioned.
Enjoy!
And watch for further installments of "I wish I had a cooking show"
:-)
