Silence of the Lambs

It's been almost a year since I moved into my Baltimore apartment and officially began to call Maryland home. Even after a year, it's still slightly surreal to me that I start several mornings a week running around Baltimore's Inner Harbor. As a child, the harbor was my absolute favorite place and one of the things I most looked forward to during our summers in Maryland. We'd usually only make it down to the harbor once during our stay (sometimes twice if I was well behaved enough to convince mother to take me on an outing sans sister) and I would work my hardest to ingrain a photo of that place into my memory for the next year.

Sister and I circa 1993 enjoying some play time at the harbor

My year in Baltimore has brought a lot of changes and new people into my life, but I couldn't be more pleased with my decision to give Baltimore a chance to win over my heart.  One of the few things that hasn't changed for the better since moving from DC is my commute time to work. It's incredibly unpredictable, especially if any sort of precipitation is involved. Sometimes it takes me 45 minutes to get to or from work, others it takes an hour and a half, and if it's really not my day it takes 2+ hours. One random day a couple weeks ago I got to work in 35 minutes and I could barely contain my excitement. While I can't control my commute time, I can give myself things to look forward to after my commuting for the day or week is done. Typically, this includes wine, good food, and even better company.

Since I'm back on the blogging train, at least for three weeks now, I've started to step up my Tuesday night dinner menu a little bit, much to the delight of all involved. It all started when I stumbled upon this recipe on Pinterest. I don't want to jinx myself, but I sometimes feel like one of the only people who can pull off things that they find on Pinterest. Maybe I'm secretly Pinterest talented and should start listing it on my resume under special skills, or maybe I am just really good at choosing recipes and projects that I can conquer.....it's impossible to know. Whatever the case, after gaining inspiration for the non-meat part of the dish, I had to spend some time coming up with the perfect meat accompaniment. This is where the former vegetarian in me would've just eaten dish #1 as a meal, but since I had others to consider, I felt the need to create a more well-rounded meal.

Since returning to meat, I've done chicken a lot  (most recently, last week), despite the fact that the texture of raw chicken creeps me out, but I didn't quite feel ready to churn out any sort of beef-related creation. I also had to rule out salmon because I cooked a gorgeous piece of salmon at some point in December (and really wish I'd at least photographed it) and wasn't ready to try and top that masterpiece yet. Choices, choices. While flipping through the Smitten Kitchen cookbook that Sister gifted me a couple Christmases ago, inspiration struck! We would have meatballs.

The recipe that caught my attention was for turkey meatballs, but after reading some of the reviews for the recipe online, I began to feel worried about loosing my focus and ultimately having them come out too dry, or worse yet, falling apart into a million pieces. For a little context here, I don't have the best history with meatballs. Back when I was a teenager and first starting to show a slight interest in cooking (which mother did not encourage...sorry mom, but it's true), I found a recipe on the interweb, courtesy of FoodNetwork, for meatballs and decided that I was going to make them, along with mashed potatoes and some sort of vegetable (I don't remember this component of the dish, likely because that's the only thing I didn't royally screw up) for the family. The meatballs didn't stay together in the slightest, due mostly to my failure to include the eggs that the recipe called for, and the mashed potatoes were a hard, lumpy mess. It's also likely that the grand finale to that meal was me storming off in a vertical huff and vowing not to cook again for a very long time.

Cut to present day. While I've come a very long way in the last 15 years with my cooking, I was still slightly skittish about diving back into the world of meatballs again, especially with a non-traditional meat.  After doing a little more research, I found another Smitten Kitchen recipe that I liked even better--Greek lamb meatballs. So, not only was I going to try my hand at meatballs yet again, but I was also going to take on a meat that I'd never in my life cooked.

Culminating the trifecta of reasons why this recipe was a perfect fit was the fact that it called for olives to be used in the meatball sauce. The olive is my food of the year circa 2015 (this will be discussed more fully in a future post devoted to the olive once I've conquered it), but any chance I have to start working it into things I'm all about. With my apprehension about making meatballs being what it was, I ended up making this meal more of a team effort than my dinners usually are and recruited a sous chef. He executed his assigned elements (browning the meatballs) perfectly and in time, my vision came to fruition and dinner was served.

Greek Lamb Meatballs with Roasted Beet, Tomato, and Lentil Salad

Ingredients

Greek Lamb Meatballs
Courtesy of Smitten Kitchen

Meatballs

• 3 Tbsps water
• 2 lbs ground lamb
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/4 cup Panko breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 3/4 tsp salt
• Pinch of red pepper flakes
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 Tbsps chopped parsley
• 2 Tbsps tomato paste
• Zest of half a lemon
• 2 Tbsps olive oil

Sauce

• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1-2 garlic cloves, minced
• A couple glugs of red wine 
• 1 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• Zest of half a lemon
• 3/4 tsp salt
• A couple pinches of red pepper flakes 
• 1/3 cup pitted and chopped kalamata olives
• 2 Tbsps roughly chopped parsley, plus some additional for garnish
• Juice of one lemon
• 1/4 cup crumbled feta

Preparation

1. Combine all meatball ingredients, sans olive oil, in a large bowl and mix until well combined.

2. Roll into 2 inch balls. This can be done the night before if pressed for time (as I often am on Tuesdays) and stored overnight in a an airtight container.

3. On cooking day, heat a large skillet over medium heat and add olive oil. Carefully space meatballs around the pan, turning them slowly so they become dark on all sides. This is where my sous chef truly excelled. One of my great regrets with this meal was not better documenting his efforts. 

4. Once meatballs are browned on all sides, remove from pan and place on a towel lined plate to rest while the sauce is prepared.

5. For the sauce, save 1 Tbsp of the fat from the skillet and return the skillet (or wok if you're like me and prefer to do as much as possible in the wok) to medium heat. First add the onion and garlic, cooking til they begin to soften (about 5 minutes). 

6. Next, add wine and cook mixture until most of the liquid disappears.

6. Add tomatoes, oregano, lemon zest, salt, red pepper flakes, olives, and parsley to the skillet/wok. Bring mixture to a simmer and add meatballs.

7. Cover and cook at the lowest simmer for approx. 20-25 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through. 

8. As the grand finale, squeeze fresh lemon juice over the sauce. Top with fresh parsley and feta after plating and before serving. 

Meanwhile, over on my side of the kitchen....

Ingredients

Original recipe found here

• 1 cup green lentils (A word of caution, the original recipe calls for 2 cups and it's an insane amount of lentils. No one needs that many lentils.)
• 2 cups warm water
• 1Tbsp lemon juice
• 2 beets, skinned and diced
• 2 cups red and orange cherry tomatoes 
• A couple Tbsps goat cheese (this is more of a taste preference....a shared love of goat cheese caused us to use a decent amount)
• Olive 3-4 Tbsps honey
• Sea Salt and fresh ground black pepper
• Few springs of fresh thyme 

Preparation

1. The night before, place lentils in a large bowl or pot along with warm water. Let sit over night, draining any remaining water, which won't be much, before use the next day.

2. Trim the stems from the beets and boil in a large pot of water until slightly tender. Preheat oven to 250F.

Hello food of the year circa 2014

3. While beets are cooking, wash and halve tomatoes and harvest (if necessary) fresh thyme. I grow thyme and a couple other herbs in one of my apartment windows, so my sous chef also got to assume the role of herb harvester. 

4. Once beets are tender, drain and remove skin with a knife. Dice peeled beets and place on a baking sheet covered with foil or parchment paper.

5. Add tomatoes to baking sheet and generously drizzle the beets and tomatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

6. Roast veggies for approx. 20 minutes, until the tomatoes start to brown. 

7. Remove from oven and  combine with lentils in a large bowl, topping mixture with lemon juice and honey. You can also add more olive oil, salt, and pepper if desired.

8. Plate and top with fresh thyme and goat cheese as the grand finale. 

I really couldn't ask for a better color combination

Finished product

And if you find yourself with leftover meatballs, they made a great addition to my pre-run pasta the following night!