Dinner at Adrian's

Tonight, I took a shot at making some pork and beef meatballs and baking a cake from scratch. Well, I'm lying because I've made bunt cakes and cheesecakes and such but a cake cake, no.

Here's my meatballs with Mostaccioli pasta... topped with a homemade Ragu and Alfredo sauce.



My Meatball Recipe

2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork or italian sausage
1 large egg
1/2 c. plain bread crumbs
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp dry basil or freshly cut (or... 2 tbsp dry basil if you love it like I do!)
clean hands

Preheat oven to 400. Combine ingredients well. Shape 3 tbsp of meat into a ball and place on cookie sheet brushed with olive oil in rows. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until juices run clear. Don't mess up like I did and over cook them by 15 minutes... you will be sorry! Serve with favorite pasta and marinara or white sauce. In this house, we love both! I'd tell ya my ragu recipe now but you'll have to wait. I'm tizzired.... and...

I'm lazy. I didn't make any steamed veggies or bread or nothing! Just pasta and meat! (sigh) It's not like I did a whole lot today besides sit here with a bunch of back pain. It didn't stop the craving for cake, however.

Having a craving for coconut, I found out that most everyone in the house liked coconut, too! Woohoo! There's a lot of people who don't like it. I only know because I made these awesome cupcakes for some coworkers several years ago and the ones topped with coconut were the only ones left!

Even so, I went for it. I nabbed this recipe from the Barefoot Contessa on Foodnetwork.com after reviewing a few recipes from Paula Deen, Alton Brown and The Neely's... this looked like what I wanted.

Coconut Cake

Well, it wasn't.

The whole family loved it but I thought that some of the reviews were right... it was just yellow cake with coconut on top! Yes, indeed. Next time, if there is a next time, I'll add coconut extract instead of almond. I guess for the time of night and the sweet tooth that was about to get ugly, it supressed the craving and terrifying outburst.

I think I'll try the Neely's coconut bunt cake next.

Here's the pictures from my attempt at the cake. I used my macro lens, available light and hand held it! I wish I had a prettier kitchen with better lighting. :)