Italian Meatball Skewers

Winter has rolled in uninvited.  Unfortunately it hit on my husband’s birthday so he wasn’t overly impressed to be snow blowing that day.  Something tells me it’s going to be a rough winter but hopefully I’m proved wrong.  Normally I hate being wrong but I’d love to be in this case.  Fortunately the storm was through and done before we had our annual potluck game night to celebrate his birthday.  Though I have to say, we have hearty friends, they would have come anyway. You can’t stop fun! Because it was game night, finger food was a must so I made Italian Meatball Skewers.  Tasty and easy to eat.

This is also super easy to make!

Technique for Italian Meatball Skewers:

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C.

The key for this dish is to use fresh ingredients.

In a mixing bowl add all the ingredients and combine them with your hands.  It’s always a weird feeling but it’s the best way to get everything incorporated without overworking the meat.

Roll the mixture into 1in/2.5cm balls.  Place on a baking sheet and bake 10-15 minutes.  For the last few minutes put the oven on convection/fan to brown the outside.

Slice the grape tomatoes in half and layer the meatballs, tomatoes, cheese and basil onto the toothpicks.

Serve immediately.  And let the games begin!

 

Italian Meatball Skewers

A flavourful party food.

Course Side Dish
Cuisine Italian
Keyword Italian Meatball Skewers
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Servings 8 people
Author Our Growing Paynes

Ingredients

Meatballs

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 small handful fresh oregano, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
  • 1 tsp coarse sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

Remaining ingredients

  • grape tomatoes, sliced in half
  • small mozzarella balls
  • fresh basil, torn into pieces

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400F/200C.

  2. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl with your hands.  Roll the mixture into balls 1in/2.5cm in diameter.  Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes.  In the last few minutes change the oven over to convection/fan to crisp up.

  3. Layer the meatballs, tomatoes, mozzarella and basil onto toothpicks.  Serve immediately.  

Red Wine Chorizo

The first flurry of the holidays, Thanksgiving, is past and we’re into the flurry of activity getting ready for Christmas.  Our son was all excited once the meal of Thanksgiving was over because that meant the Christmas songs could start playing!  I swear that kid would play those songs year round, crazy kid.  Egg nog is pretty much the only thing that we do Christmas wise before December.  Well, that and the cards.

I normally use Shutterfly for the cards and family photo books.  This is the last year I’ll do that for the cards. Couldn’t use that site for the book because they took away a lot of features I like to use.  So I am trying to learn Blurb.  A big feature I like is to use my photos as a faded background.  Blurb doesn’t do that either but I can fade them using GIMP.  Just a bit of jumping through hoops to get the book done.  So that is getting pushed out to the New Year.  But I hear Blurb is good for creating books like cookery books so I figure now is a good a time as any to learn.  I am curious which software of Blurb to use so I’d be interested in feedback.

The recipe I’m showing here was done for my husband’s birthday to go along with the jerk chicken I made.  It came from a book my family found for me at the annual library sale.  It is called Tapas by Susanna Tee.  I found an easy recipe for chorizo simmered in red wine.  Something easily eaten at a party.

I would recommend finding good quality chorizo.  We found average chorizo and it didn’t absorb the wine during the marinating stage as well as it should have.  No worries, it came out in the end.

Wine chorizo 1 2015

To start, always pick a good wine.  Never use cooking wine or plonk.  If it’s not good enough to drink, it’s not good enough to cook with!

In a saucepan, bring to a boil about a cup of the red wine.  Then cover and reduce the heat.  Simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl big enough for the sausages.  Prick the sausages and marinate overnight.

Wine chorizo 2 2015

When you are ready to cook these, slice the chorizo into pieces.  Add them to a skillet.  Warm a couple of tablespoons of brandy then pour into the skillet.  And, this is the fun part, light it up!

Wine chorizo 3 2015

As fun as this is, be careful.  Not all flame is visible and you don’t want to get burned.  You can see in the picture the sausage didn’t really suck in the wine.  I suspect, better chorizo would do that.  Once the brandy has cooked off add the wine you used to marinate the sausages.  Simmer on medium heat until the wine has reduced quite a bit.

To serve, sprinkle freshly chopped parsley over the chorizo.

Wine chorizo 4 2015

This is a great dish for a tapas meal, party, or potluck.  And it is very easy to make which is always good.  🙂