Making everything for the first time
I was feeling particularly adventurous. Baked mussels and tomatoes are okay. But oats?! I first used oats in meatballs and I’m fascinated about using it in a dozen other ways now that I know how versatile it is.
I previously made garlic butter baked mussels using a more traditional recipe. While I wanted to eat baked mussels again, I didn’t want to eat the same exact dish so soon. So I decided to experiment.
I was a little nervous but, thankfully, it wasn’t the horrible dish I feared it would be. The oats lent a nice crunch to the soft mussels. I ate it with half a cup of white rice. What’s your side dish of choice?
Recipe after the jump.
Remember the pasta recipe where I used IKEA meatballs? Chris kind of made fun of me because I didn’t know how to make my own meatballs considering that they were (allegedly) easy to make. Dad told me that he wanted spaghetti but he was too sleepy and lazy to cook. (Don’t let this statement mislead you, Dad cooks way more often than I do.) Considering that I had a couple of hours before he wakes up, I decided to try making meatballs from scratch.
The first thing I thought was: “$h1*, I don’t have breadcrumbs! ” Google saved me again and informed me that oats would be a healthier substitute for breadcrumbs in meatballs.
For the sauce, I used a variation of Bitch&Bake’s Three Ingredient Tomato Sauce. I wondered if butter is considered unhealthy but when I thought of worse alternatives like hydrogenated oil, lard, and vegetable oil, I happily dropped in the little block of butter.
This is also the first time for me to eat romano cheese with pasta, at least at home and not in a restaurant. There are evil canisters of romano alternatives in the supermarket, which try to convince the buyers that they’re cheap and just as good. Until you notice that there’s a tub of perfectly genuine shredded romano (but made with cow’s milk not ewe’s) beside it that is ironically cheaper than the fake version. *rofl*
My verdict: For a first time effort, it’s not bad at all. I thought it was reeeaally yummy but then I’m horribly biased. Sure, it could probably be better but this isn’t exactly a perfect-product-after-100-tries blog.
Hi, I'm Steffi. I'm a 30-something who's learning how to cook. Or trying to at least. This blog is a chronicle of my progress and a way of sharing recipes that I like to everyone. (And try not to visit the Stonehenge just after winter. They might run out of picnic blankets to wrap around you.)
