Week 25, Recipes 2-4: Greek Meatballs in Wine Sauce, Hummus III Recipe, Sean's Falalfel & Cucumber Sauce

Greek Meatballs in Wine Sauce
Courtesy of Rachael Ray

• 3/4 pound ground lamb
• 3/4 pound ground beef or ground veal
• 1 small yellow skinned onion, minced or grated with hand grater
• A handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon (1 turn of the pan) extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 lemon

Preheat a medium skillet over medium high heat.

Combine meats, onion, parsley, salt, and pepper. Add butter and oil to pan and begin rolling small, bite-size balls, adding balls to pan as you roll them. Cook balls 10 to 12 minutes, shaking pan occasionally to brown equally on all sides. Deglaze pan with wine and allow wine to reduce by half, 1 or 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat and squeeze the juice of 1/2 lemon over the meatballs.

Serve in a bowl.

Results:  Very yummy and very easy!  With the cucumber sauce from the recipe below, even better!

Hummus III
Courtesy of All Recipes

• 2 cups canned garbanzo beans, drained
• 1/3 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cloves garlic, halved
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pinch paprika
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh parsley

1. Place the garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, salt and garlic in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Transfer mixture to a serving bowl.
2. Drizzle olive oil over the garbanzo bean mixture. Sprinkle with paprika and parsley. 

Results:  MMMMM.  Yummy even without the tahini since it was the one unusual ingredient I left at home when I brought my giant bags of cooking stuff with me to my mom's house.  She did have sesame oil so I used that in conjunction with the olive oil.

Sean's Falafel & Cucumber Sauce
Courtesy of All Recipes

• 1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 dash pepper
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup dry bread crumbs
• oil for frying

• 1 (6 ounce) container plain yogurt
• 1/2 cucumber - peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried dill weed
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1. In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don't use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. In a blender, process onion, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into mashed chickpeas.
2. In a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties.
3. Heat 1 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry patties in hot oil until brown on both sides.
4. In a small bowl combine yogurt, cucumber, dill, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Chill for at least 30 minutes. 

Results:  SO GOOD!!!!  I was very impressed by the ease and deliciousness of this.  I didn't use mayo in the cucumber sauce or dill and it was still very delicious.  A very picky 16-year-old boy (loves hot dogs, hamburgers, & green beans... almost exclusively LOL) really liked the falafel.  This after he exclaimed, "I feel rich!" as he looked at the table's spread of things he had either never eaten, never heard of and/or never wanted to hear of.  LOLOL.

*I'll get to the rest of that goodness on that first plate in another post.  Didn't want to overwhelm you! But I went CRAZY over Mediterranean!  :)