food, recently.

Not a whole lot has been going on around here lately, since the boys' birthdays are over and our trip to Colorado is over (still need to finish off and develop a roll of film I took with me!). My sister has been busy though, because she got married this past Sunday! It's also almost October, which starts off my favorite time of year! September can't really be considered fall, especially out here, because it's so darn hot still. But October is really fall to me, even if SoCal insists on being hot, and also, my birthday is in October so it gets an instant win in my book. November is great because of Thanksgiving but also that's when Luke and I got married. :) And December? Christmas, naturally.

Anyhow, now I'm rambling and really I just wanted to show you pretty pictures of yummy food.

Macarons. They're slightly crunchy, melty soft in the middle, filled with whatever you want (in this case, Nutella) little almonds cookies. They're good. And surprisingly not as hard to make as I originally thought.

Lemon turnovers I made recently. I'd completely forgotten about the turnovers I'd made before, and Luke reminded me. I made the dough in my food processor and then did all the letter folds to make it perfectly flakey, and it was.

Mini meatballs for Italian Stracciatella Soup. The original recipe is here, but it's a little complicated and hard to figure out which ingredients go where. So here's my easy version. I made a few tweaks to the original recipe after making it a few times.

Meatballs:

1/2 pound ground beef (or you can half and half with beef/pork)

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

2 T. breadcrumbs (Italian flavored, or plain & add Italian seasoning)

1 minced garlic clove

1 egg

Salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl, roll into mini meatballs, about 1/2" wide. 

Soup:

Boil 6 cups of good chicken broth (if you can, make your own. If not, buy the good stuff.), add the meatballs and cook until they are fully cooked, about 8 minutes. Add 1 pound of tortellini, cook through, about 6 minutes more. Keep at a rolling bowl. Beat an egg in a bowl; you're only going to use about half the beaten up egg. Pour in a slow stream into the boiling soup while you whisk it rapidly with a fork. 

Put a handful of torn spinach in each soup bowl. Pour the soup over the spinach and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan. Enjoy!