Honey Garlic Meatballs and Spaetzle

Honey Garlic Meatballs and Spaetzle

ingredients:

1-1.5 pounds of ground beef
handful of bread crumbs

1 egg
2-3 cloves garlic
1 tsp cayenne

1/4 chopped onion
ground pepper
salt

1 red, orange, and green bell peppers

store bought honey garlic sauce
or
soy sauce
honey
garlic

directions:

1. In a large bowl, put your ground beef in and mix it up and break it up with a fork. Crack one egg into it, as well as sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Add 1 tsp of cayenne pepper, but you could omit it if you don't like heat. Also, dice up a little bit of onion and put it into the ground beef. Crush 2-3 garlic cloves and also put them into the bowl. Mix it around. Sprinkle in some bread crumbs. Just enough so that it isn't completely wet. It will just make it easier to form them into balls.

2. After you are done mixing, form the mixture into balls. About the size of a golf ball. Put the meatballs on a baking tray. You could fry the meatballs in a pan. But I've found doing them in an oven on a baking tray is much easier. As it doesn't require any flipping around and they cook more evenly. Put the tray in an oven at 400 degrees for maybe 20 minutes. You'll know they are done when the fat has oozed out and is surrounding the balls at the bottom of the tray.

3. Cut up some colourful bell peppers. Whatever colours you can find. And toss them in a frying pan to cooking them through. Once cooked, put in your meatballs which you have taken off your tray. Stir in some store bought garlic sauce, or diana sauce. OR make your own sauce in a small pot with honey, soy sauce, and some crushed garlic.

4. Serve on top of spaetzle, or rice.

Honey Garlic Tofu with Quinoa Pilaf

Honey Garlic Tofu with Quinoa Pilaf

One of the fastest and easiest ways I found to cook tofu was to fry it, and sauce it. This honey garlic tofu was a play off of those sesame chicken dishes I used to eat a lot in university.

ingredients:

1 block firm tofu
2 tbsp corn starch
pinch of salt
pinch of ground pepper
oil

1/4 cup soy sauce
2-4 tbsp honey
2-4 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp ginger
sesame seeds

directions:

1. Cut firm tofu in half, or use the whole block, depending how many people you are feeding. Cut into small cubes, about 2 centermetres each. Dredge the tofu cubes in a mixture of corn starch, salt and pepper. The corn starch coating will help create a crust on the tofu, and help the sauce adhere to it.

2. Pour a little oil into a frying pan or wok, and toss in the tofu. Mix and flip the tofu around to make sure all sides get cooked. You don't want uncooked corn starch.

3. In a small pot, combine soy sauce, honey, garlic, and ginger, and boil. Then simmer and reduce it down into more of a sauce if needed. If you want, you could add corn starch to thicken it up. If you are really pressed for time, or don't feel like making sauce, just use store bought. You can use honey garlic sauce, or even BBQ sauce.

4. Toss fried tofu cubes with sauce and make sure everything is evenly coated. Drizzle with sesame seeds for a little crunch, and to make it more presentable.