Turkey Meatball & Mozzarella Sandwiches

 

Do I have a great dinner for your families tonight! This is a quick and easy meal that could probably be on your table under 30 minutes! (It was for me a few nights ago.) It was kind of a default dinner because I was missing a few ingredients for what I had originally scheduled….oops! It happens to the best of us. Anyways, I got creative and picked a few things from my garden. Then I defrosted the ground turkey I had, mixed in a few things and that was it! Even though it stresses me out to realize I’m missing an ingredient or two 30 minutes before Gordon gets home from work, it’s at these times that I create some of the tastiest meals! 

**Side note: Let me just take a minute to say that I LOVE my garden–especially the herbs! It is SO much cheaper than buying them from the store. When I originally was purchasing my plants, all the organic ones ended up being cheaper than the non-organic ones! Bonus! Plus, because it’s a garden the herbs keep rejuvenating themselves! Duh! Of course they keep growing! Come fall, I’ll be moving them inside so I can have fresh herbs through winter too. So, moral of the story: growing your own herb garden will save you money and will make all your food taste fresher and therefore more delicious! I am a garden advocate. Ok. The end.**

For this recipe I used fresh basil and parsley as well as a few green onions straight from my garden. Just rinse and chop! Regular yellow or white onions and dried herbs would be fine as well, just don’t use as much! They should be just as moist and delicious. I also baked up some frozen dinner rolls and jazzed them up with some melted butter and garlic salt. Fresh garlic rolls out of the oven is heaven! Plus it makes your house smell great! Those frozen dinner rolls are a life saver sometimes! 

Anyways, these Italian sandwiches are delicious and we all cleaned our plates! It is a meal that will please your entire family and should keep you happy because you’ll only have to spend about 15 minutes at your stove. Also, don’t feel you need to be limited to these sandwiches. Heat up some marinara and have spaghetti & turkey meatballs! They would be delicious as an appetizer too, but I would limit the cheese because things tend to get stringy once the mozzarella is melted. So, enjoy this healthy and fast dinner! Your kids are sure to love it!

Turkey Meatball & Mozzarella Sandwiches

yield: 15-20 meatballs, enough to feed 4

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons milk

1 slice bread

1/2 lb. ground turkey

1 tablespoon fresh basil, finely minced

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely minced

2 green onions, chopped (use all the white and most of the green part)

1 clove garlic, finely minced

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese

2 cups prepared good quality marinara

8-10 frozen dinner rolls, defrosted

1 tablespoon melted butter

garlic salt

Directions:

Break apart slice of bread into small pieces into a large bowl. Pour milk over bread and let soak 1-2 minutes. Stir to break bread apart more. Stir in turkey, basil, parsley, onion, salt, pepper and garlic until well combined. Form mixture into 15-20 small meatballs (I use a cookie scoop). Preheat large skillet to medium-medium high heat. Pour in olive oil. Fry meatballs 3-4 minutes per side until deep brown. Reduce heat and pour marinara over meatballs. Stir to coat. At this point, the meatballs probably are not cooked thoroughly. So, be sure to simmer covered at least 10 minutes before serving to ensure doneness. (You can simmer this longer until you are ready to serve–just be sure to add splashes of water here and there to keep the sauce at a consistency you like) Two minutes before serving, top meatballs with grated cheese and cover to melt. 

For the rolls, before baking, brush with melted butter and sprinkle garlic salt over the tops. Bake according to packaged directions. Brush hot rolls with any remaining butter.

To serve, cut rolls in half and fill with 2-3 mozzarella covered meatballs. 

My FAVORITE Sandwich

So, here I am in my new apartment with some very unripe hard avocados and all I want to do is make (and eat) this sandwich. I was reminded of it as I was looking through some pictures from my guacamole post. I made this fabulous sandwich with some remaining guac and it was absolutely delicious. Basically, its a california club but better because its full of garlicy guacamole! That plus bacon, turkey, mayo and tomatoes and voila! Pure bliss in my mouth. I really really like food. I know its a problem…..and I know I say this about every recipe I make, BUT…..gomakethisrightnow!!!!!! You will thank me!

You’re welcome, America.( and Canada 🙂 )

My super awesome totally stellarly delicious California Club Sandwich

(sorry guys, not much of a recipe!)

Ingredients:

2 pieces of good quality bread

mayonnaise

MY GUAC

bacon and lots of it

tomato slices

deli turkey slices

cheese is optional

Directions:

Build a sandwich using the ingredients above. Easy, right pumpkin?!

Egg Salad….emphasis on salad

Confused as to what to do with all those darn hard boiled eggs that you all inevitably have from Easter? The obvious choice would be egg salad. The not so obvious would be awesome egg salad….lucky for you I’m here to share my recipe….and its the awesome one.

Back in my younger years when I’d stay up past 10 pm, my brother was usually around. Come 1 or 2 am, he’d get hungry and make himself a snack. Sometimes it was PB&J, other times it would be straight up celery and on occasion it would be a quick trip to McDonalds. BUT, one Friday night, he made egg salad sandwiches. At this point in my life, I hated egg salad because (1) it just seemed like a weird/disgusting concept to me and (2) the whole hard boiled egg smell wasn’t exactly pleasant. Well, have I got news for you. Egg salad is not disgusting!!!–that is when you make it correctly. That evening, my brother explained the science behind his recipe. (Ok, maybe not science)

Here’s the trick–brace yourselves–you need practically equal parts egg to salad (meaning all the crunchy vegetables you add in like celery and onions). Thats it! Life becomes a little brighter when you’re eating an egg salad sandwich (or egg salad with crackers!) that has a little crunch. I like a lot of things on crackers….especially egg salad.

Anyways, the moral of the story is make this and fall in love with egg salad. Its a good one.

PS–This recipe is baby approved!

Egg Salad

yield:4-5 sandwiches

Ingredients:

6 hard boiled eggs, peeled

1/3 cup finely chopped onion

1/2 cup finely chopped dill pickles

2 large stalks celery, finely chopped

1/3 cup mayonnaise (I use Helman’s….NOT low fat)

salt

pepper

Directions:

Chop up hard boiled eggs or use this handy dandy little contraption. Place into large bowl with remaining ingredients. Stir to combine. Fill a sandwich, a pita, a wrap or a tortilla with this stuff…..or do what I do! Use crackers. YUM.

Recipe TIPS:

-Here’s the easy way to cook the perfect hard boiled egg that will be easy to peel! Put all your eggs into a pot and cover completely with water. Cover and bring pot to boil. Once water has boiled, turn burner off and leave the pot alone (whilst still on the hot burner) for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, the eggs are done! Now, here’s the important part that makes your life easy or hard when it comes to peeling those shells off. Remove lid and drain hot water while still leaving eggs in the pot. Turn your faucet on and place pot underneath in the sink to shower eggs in cold water. You want to shock your eggs as quickly as possible to shrink the membrane between the egg and the shell. Keep faucet running over top eggs for 2-3 minutes. You may even want to add a little ice to the pot too. Once eggs are cool to handle, crack them open and peel away!

French Dip Cheesesteak Sandwich

We’re home! It was a loooooooooong drive, but we made it! It feels great to be back and even better to be sleeping in our own beds! Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas vacation with your families! We had a great time with lots of food, friends and family! Its sad it all had to end, but we’re happy getting back into the swing of things.

Well, today, I have a fabulous sandwich for you! You might say its a love child from a French Dip and a Philly Cheesesteak. I LOVE both sandwiches so much that I put them together and created one of the best (and easiest) dinners of all time. My husband could not get enough! My pictures really don’t do justice as to how incredible the flavors are together. REALLY…..INCREDIBLE.

Did I mention I have a cold? I can barely taste the food I eat and after eating this for dinner, it blew my mind as to how good it would REALLY be when my tasting ability is back up to 100%. Definitely will be making this one again. OMG so good!

So, the secret to getting this one on the table under 20 minutes (thats right- I said UNDER 20 minutes) is buying your pre-cooked, pre-sliced roast beef from the deli and getting one of those dry mix packets of Aux Jus (you know….the ones you just have to add water to). Then you just boil the aux jus, cook the veggies, and assemble the sandwich. Easy!

I promise this dinner will not disappoint.

French Dip Cheesesteak Sandwich

for 2 sandwiches

Ingredients:

2 fresh Hoagie Rolls (or any roll thats crispy on the outside and soft on the inside)

10 big slices roast beef (from the deli, sliced pretty thin)

4 tablespoons butter, softened

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 green pepper, sliced

1/2 onion, sliced

1/2 cup grated cheese (use whatever you want/whatever you have– I used cheddar but I would recommend swiss!)

1 dry packet Aux Jus mix

Directions:

Slice Hoagies in half lengthwise. Turn broiler on. Place rolls cut side up on baking sheet and put under broiler until golden brown. (Be careful! It won’t take long!) In small fry pan, preheat oil to medium high heat. Cook onions and peppers 5 minutes or until crisp-tender (or to your liking). Spread 1 tablespoon butter on each half of sliced rolls. Rub garlic clove onto buttered rolls. Divide cooked vegetables between both sandwiches. Place on bottom half of rolls. Top with 5 slices beef and 1/4 cup grated cheese per sandwich. Place back under broiler to melt the cheese (exclude the tops of the rolls). Make Aux Jus according to packaged directions. Once cheese has completely melted, remove from broiler. Top with other hoagie half. Slice sandwich in half. Serve with prepared Aux Jus.