Sunny with a Chance of Thai Meatballs

Since Christmas, I have not written a new post.  This mostly stemmed from Yes!Chef! spending quite a bit of time out of town for his day job and so he really didn’t do much cooking.  This was a tragedy for me, because I had to cook for myself and the blog.

There are several other reasons I’ve been missing in action from the blog.

1.  We have been very busy with the Mid Century Modern Remodel, which I lovingly call The Money Pit.

If you are interested in learning a little more about our project, you can visit this site:  Keeping It MidCentury

We spend quite a bit of any extra time at this project.

Although Obie T. is smiling in this pic, he still does not like to be at the Money Pit.

2.  Yes!Chef! and I have grown increasingly “uncomfortable” with our weight. Many years ago we embarked on the Atkins diet to get our weight under control.  We had good success, but were talked out of staying on that diet because so many “experts” reported that although the diet may work temporarily, extremely bad health effects would undoubtedly happen to anyone who remained on the diet long term.  It would cause heart attacks, diabetes, brain cancer and every other devastating disease you can think of if one remained on the diet past 6 months.  Additionally,  one would gain all the weight back plus more.  Suffice it to say, we went off the diet and slowly gained back the weight.

After Christmas, we were feeling quite yukky health wise, and so we decided to become healthy so that we could enjoy living in The Money Pit after it was finished.  (I’m beginning to feel like we are moving into the Winchester Mystery House…as long as we keep building it, we won’t die.)

I did weeks of research, including some of our ill health symptoms, and decided that a Low Carb Diet would be the best route for me…and Yes!Chef! I am happy to say that we are starting to feel good.  Both of us have dropped weight (of course, Yes!Chef! has dropped much more than me…always happens) and better yet, we feel better and have more energy (to work on the Money Pit.)

Luckily, we are able to get Protein Burgers from In & Out for lunch while we are The Money Pit because the kitchen is still a work in progress.  We do expect the stove to arrive in the next 10 days and then we will have the stove and refrigerator installed so that Yes!Chef! can maybe even cook us a meal.

I am not advocating any particular diet or the pros and cons of them.  This is not the point of our blog.  Our blog is to showcase tasty food “because life is too short to eat crappy food”. So, although many of our recipes will be geared to our Low Carb lifestyle, grains and desserts and other high carb foods may show up when the chef  (or I) feels like he wants to make it.  No worries about there being any nannying involved.  We don’t “nanny” because we don’t like to be “nannied”.  The point in our change of diet is for us to get healthy and enjoy tasty food that anyone can make.

So…about our recipe.

While doing some research for tasty (low carb) recipes, I stumbled across a wonderful blog:  I Breathe I’m Hungry.    She has some very tasty low carb and gluten free recipes and in particular, lots of meatball recipes.  If you like meatballs, she’s got many recipes to choose from.

I found this recipe here:  Thai Meatball Lettuce Wraps.  (Note that these Meatballs are also gluten-free.) But, you can add noodles or rice to your plate if you are not worried about your gluten or your blood sugar or whatever else is being worried about these days.

I will not copy her recipe for the Meatballs, because we followed it as written, except for using ground pork.  You can substitute bread crumbs, or better yet Panko, for the almond flour and you should be good to go.

As far as the Green Tomato Chutney…I knew I would not be able to find green tomatoes this time of year in our markets, so I set about to find something that would add tartness.  Aha! Tomatillos are tart and have a similar texture as green tomatoes.

Here is our recipe for the Chutney:

Spicy Thai Chutney (adapted from I Breathe I’m Hungry Low Carb Green Tomato Chutney)

• 2 cups chopped tomatillos (outer skin removed.)
• 1 Tbsp. ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (more or less depending on your taste)
• 1 Tbsp. lime zest
• 1 Tbsp. lime juice
• 1/4 soy sauce (or fish sauce)
• 2 Tbsp. finely chopped onion
• 1/4 tsp. mustard powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp. sugar or granulated sugar substitute
• 2 Tbsp. fresh cilantro, chopped (chop up some more if you want to use it for garnish.)
• salt to taste

1. Combine all ingredients except sugar, cilantro and salt in a saucepan.
2. Heat to just boiling and then turn down to simmer.
3. Simmer for about 45 minutes until reduced.
4. Add chopped cilantro.  Stir.
5. Add sugar and salt to taste.
6. Serve warm over the Thai Meatballs.

The meatballs are quite tasty by themselves.  As I mentioned above, serve with lettuce wraps or rice or even rice noodles would probably be great.  Do not forget the sauce.  The sauce is what elevates these tasty meatballs to a higher plane.  The Yes!Chef! tasty food plane. The sauce recipe can be doubled, made ahead and stored in the refrigerator.

You won’t regret making this recipe.  AND, you will want to make them again.

Hopefully, we will soon be able to cook in the new kitchen in the Money Pit, but it doesn’t look like it will happen in the next few weeks.  When it happens, I will be ready with my new George Jetson inspired lunch plates, glasses and serving platter.

Enjoy!