Asian Turkey Meatballs for Bunheads and Go USA!

Oh Oh Oh Olympics.  I watched the opening ceremonies Friday night.  Well, I fell asleep by the parade of nation's M's. Mauritius, I believe it was.  Missed the U.S. completely.  That was a hell of a long show.  But since then, and as happens every four years, I've become very involved in random sports such as skeet shooting, water polo (go Betsy Armstrong from Ann Arbor), cycling and tennis.  Plus swimming and gymnastics, of course.  And synchronized diving.  What an amazing random sport is synchronized diving.  Also table tennis.  Not ping pong by a long shot.  Those kids are getting a workout.  I'm loving it all.

Is there any chance that loud flip-flop walking may become an Olympic sport?  If so, I feel pretty confident about some medalists in our home.  Good GOD they clomp along.  I've held off getting them flip-flops until this year because I feared they'd trip and fall, much like their mother.  They don't fall, but they sound like a pack of elephants.  My next purchase will be ballet slippers x2.

Speaking of ballet (there's a new sentence lead for me), the boys caught a promo for a show called "Bunheads" on ABC Family and they laughed hysterically.  Like it was so close to butthead but somehow perfectly acceptable.  So now they're calling each other 'bunhead.'  But it seems to come out at perfect moments, like we'll be playing tennis in the driveway and one will launch a ball into the trees.  The response as of late has been, "Nice one, ya bunhead."  It is so impossibly hard not to laugh.  And then I have to reprimand with, "Please don't call your brother a bunhead," which just makes me laugh more.  Oh my God, they're going to be derelicts because of me.

Thankfully, their impossibly loud flip-flop clomping, bunhead-calling leads them to the dinner table with this family-friendly hit (from skinnytaste.com):

Asian Turkey Meatballs with Carrot Rice and Roasted Broccoli


1/4 cup panko crumbs
1-1/4 lbs 93% lean ground turkey
1 egg
1 tbsp ginger, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 scallions, chopped
1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil


Dipping Sauce
4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp chopped fresh scallion

 All Aboard.  Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

 Ready to bake

Add 1/2 head of broccoli on a separate baking sheet.  Coat broccoli with a mixture of garlic, hot pepper flakes and olive oil.  

Add meatballs and broccoli to the oven, cook for approximately 15 minutes. The broccoli roasts in the exact time the meatballs take to cook.  Strategery.  

 Carrot Rice with Cilantro

 Ready to serve

Plated

Rice
Cook according to directions one cup of long-grain rice with two cups water. When done, add one cup shredded carrots about a tablespoon of chopped cilantro.  Gets a little more veg into the meal and it looks pretty.  Stir to incorporate.  If you're feeling crazy, add 1-2 teaspoons of rice vinegar. Adds a little zing.  In my awful New York accent: "and who doesn't love a little more zingggg?"

Add the Dipping Sauce (or, Pour Over the Meatballs and Rice Sauce) and serve it up.

Even the Bunheads will approve of this one.  Go U.S.A.!

The days are long...but at least there's Tahini, Lemon and Dill Dressing

Since the boys arrived on the scene one of the phrases I think of most often is, "The days are long; the years are short."  Well these days of intense heat and drought and "whatcanwedoooooo?' have been really really very extremely long.  They're refusing all offers to go to camp.  Any camp.  Swimming and tennis lessons are over.  I looked at my watch yesterday thinking SURELY it was dinner time...it was 3:30 p.m.  Even here at del Boca Vista, that's a bit early.  

I was needing an activity last week when the temperature was around 100 degrees and the pool would've been miserably crowded.  Plus I would come into contact with at least one stray band-aid.  There's little that grosses me out more than stray band-aids.  (We just got Angry Birds band-aids and the incidence of band-aid needing injuries spiked 165% 'round these parts.)

Anyway, inspiration struck and here's what H. occupied himself with for a almost an hour.  

Look at that smile!  He was thrilled.  It was totally not like the time I asked them if they wanted to go someplace really special and fun (the zoo) and D. got really excited and asked, "Like TARGET?"  That was kind of sad.  But H. loves vacuuming.  Asks to do it all the time.  It's all I can do do muzzle an exuberant, "YESSSS!" when he asks.  Now for the other 13 hours to fill...

Beets from the garden.

I've been occupying myself with these gorgeous beets from my garden.  If I were to write like I spoke, the above caption would read, "BEEEEETS FROM MYYYY GARDEN!!!!!!!!!!" As though I invented the damn things.  Carter learned his lesson about my profound and perhaps disproportionate excitement at what the garden has produced on his birthday.  The timing was maybe unfortunate but I took the first perfectly ripe cherry tomato, hid it behind my back and said, "I've got a very exciting surprise for you!"  Turns out we have differing descriptions of "very exciting."  And also "surprise." To his credit, he recovered quickly and pretended to love that birthday tomato as much as I loved presenting it to him.   

This evening's dinner - for me - was a roasted beet and spinach salad with toasted walnuts and goat cheese.  Not much of a goat cheese fan, except when it's paired with beets.  It was really good and made even better by my new obsession: Tahini, Lemon and Dill dressing.

Tahini, Lemon and Dill Salad Dressing

1/4 C. Tahini

1/4 C. water 

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tablespoons chopped dill

1 tablespoon chopped chives

2 teaspoons sugar or honey

Salt and pepper to taste

Is there a fair around here where I can enter these beauties?  Feeling new-gardener confidence...

Dinner for the boys (they had their new favorite and super easy pasta which I will share at some point, probably when school starts) and myself was finished and cleaned up by six o'clock.  This summer I am one giant white visor away from retirement.  Del Boca Vista indeed.  

There's a toilet in my bedroom + summer favorites

We're finally, finally re-doing our master bathroom, a.k.a. the "you cause me depression" room.  Seriously, starting every day faced with Brady Bunch-era cocoa brown wall tiles and 1960's special coordinating floor tile wasn't pleasant.  We ridded the house of much of the 60's touches when we moved in.  For example, our living room which had some fantastic mauve carpet with matching walls.  But it was ok because the trim was DARK mauve.  Nice contrast.  So that's gone, as is 95% of the wallpaper.  Ugh, the wallpaper.  It was everywhere and it was hideous.  

So the renovation is underway.  The toilet has moved from the bathroom to a corner of our bedroom, which is lovely.  There's a fine layer of drywall dust over everything.  We are now sharing a bathroom with the boys, which is a little bit shock and awe for me.  I was brushing my teeth one morning when H. came in to use the bathroom.  He was doing his business and saw a squirrel through the window and then turned his DOING HIS BUSINESS body away from the toilet to track the squirrel.  Shock and awe.

Looking good, future shower.

There's a pocket door separating the shower area from the vanity and Carter's been keeping the door shut to avoid more drywall dust escaping.  But I can't help peeking.  And he called me out on it: "Do you keep opening that door expecting Nate Berkus to pop out?"  Me: "Don't be silly."  But secretly, Yes. YES I TOTALLY DO.  And well done, Carter, for knowing who Nate Berkus is.  

Some of the things I've been loving this summer:

We went to the Toad Hollow tasting room in Healdsburg, CA, and had a nice time.  A really nice time. So nice of a time that we ended up ordering a case of a past vintage of this wine to be delivered to our house in Chicago.  It arrived and, strangely, it didn't taste as nice as it did in Healdsburg.  We suffered through.  I was shopping for a good summer Rose (no accent on Blogger) and found my little Toad friend again.  This vintage is really good.  Served ice-cold it's been our summer go-to wine.  (Ann Arbor friends it's at Plum Market for about $8 a bottle. Bar-gain.)

American Spoon (nice Michigan company) Cherry BBQ Grilling Sauce.  This makes everything better.  Shrimp kebabs, salmon, chicken, pork, all your fish and meat items.  It's really, really good.  Summer staple.

Arizona Tea Arnold Palmer Iced Tea & Lemonade Stix (even though 'stix' is not a word).  Loving these little guys.  Just enough caffeine to power through a late afternoon slump.  I took a couple to the lake today and they helped me be "fun mom" as opposed to my usual, "you guys know how to swim so I'm going to sit in the shade and read my book - mom."  

Smoothies.  The boys and I have one a day and I jam so much good stuff in them they have no idea. Greek yogurt, 2-3 cups of frozen fruit, a raw egg (Salmonella be damned), a little OJ, water and at least two cups of spinach.  I know.  The first time I heard of spinach in smoothies I recoiled a bit. But then I tried it and it adds no taste but plenty of fiber and vitamins.  And the boys haven't even noticed. Suckers.  Just kidding.  But not really.    

What?  SPF 110?  That's totally normal.  Carter calls it liquid denim.  And it kind of is.  I need a spatula to scrape this stuff off at the end of the day.  But after my dermatologist suggested that, due to my red-haired-fair-skinned gift, that it's not "IF but WHEN" I get skin cancer, I'm going to hedge my bets.  

Whell, Hillbilly Handfishin' is coming on and I must go watch my stories.  Until next time...

Poor Golf and Nicoise Salad. Happy Summer!

Carter had a birthday a week or so ago.  He likes to golf so I got a sitter and made a tee time.  Nice, right?  I'm not all about me.  Except that I hadn't been golfing since the month after the twins were born, which is closing in on SEVEN years.  Mymymy.  My grasp on my LPGA card is sliding.

At least someone was happy...

So yes, I was confident I would be great.  Good one.  Thankfully, the course was empty so I had only one witness of my poor shots, of which there were many.  It was also a course that had just opened the back nine after clearing the debris from this spring's tornado, so some holes looked like you were playing the apocalypse course.  Trees 12 feet in diameter were uprooted like a pulled beet.  The destruction was wild.  

I recalled the day I'd played in Carter's work outing in Chicago.  We were at the turn on the 10th hole, right by the clubhouse, where a lot of people were eating lunch on an outside patio.  I can't reaffirm how important it was that there were a number of people eating lunch on the outside patio.  It haunts me to this day.  

Carter hit his tee shot and it was nice.  Just about where he wanted it to go.  Then I proceeded to tee off from the women's tees because why wouldn't I?  I'm a woman after all.  And I shanked the shank of all shanks.  My drive, from a driver, hit a steel bridge about 30 feet away.  It sounded like a gunshot and had an echo worthy of a car backfiring in the Grand Canyon.  ALL heads turned and I froze like a deer in headlights.  At which time Carter hit the pedal on the golf cart and started to drive away.  Without me.  He got as far as the bridge before he reversed and we both collapsed in laughter.  We often come back to the phrase, "At least you came back."

Happy Birthday to my friend who came back.

Right after his birthday we left for Minnesota and some family time.  It was great.  It was bloody hot.  It was also full of heavy meals.  Well, maybe not heavy meals, but just full of meal-to-meal time, which I feel happens a lot when visiting family.  When we host people in Ann Arbor it's the same thing.  Meals become a ground zero from which all is built.  What is that?  I feel like maybe we're establishing an equalization between hosting and feeding?  That's up for further discussion.  

What's up for discussion now is the Nicoise salad.  Yes, I know there's one of those accents in the 'C' of Nicoise, but I don't know how to do that on blogger.  So we'll go without.  But we'd been fed very well in Minnesota and we need to begin our cut-backs (i.e. no more ribs of any kind.) We're full into salad mode as of now.  

So I present the gorgeous lettuce from our yard.  It's called a spotted something (I don't remember) and it is quite good.  

Spotted lovely lettuce?

Plated.  One with egg, one cluckless. 

Close-up Nicoise-ness.

Nicoise Salad (for 2)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Scrub and chop 4 small Yukon Gold potatoes into an approximately 1" chop.  Oil a baking sheet and roast potatoes for 30 minutes.  

1 can of the best Italian tuna available

2 cups assorted greens

2 cups baby spinach leaves

1/4 cup of a red onion, sliced as thinly as possible

2 hard boiled eggs, peeled and cut in quarters

1 cup haricots verts (skinny green beans steamed for three minutes in the microwave and rinsed in cold water)

1. Arrange greens on two plates

2. Add divided tuna, onion, eggs, roasted potatoes, par-boiled haricots verts, and tomatoes to each plate

Combine vinaigrette:

2 tsp anchovy paste

2 Tbsp grain mustard

2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Drizzle over arranged greens and serve.  

This will make more dressing than you'll probably need; save the rest for your salad tomorrow. 

In other news, we saw an armored truck (at a TARGET) in Rochester and I looked at Carter and asked him if the did the same thing I do every time I see an armored vehicle:  immediately scan the area for suspicious cars and/or men wearing Ronald Reagan masks.  He just shook his head and did that thing where he looks to the heavens for an answer.  Am I sensing a trend?  

Yep, The End.  Thanks.