I often think that meatballs as an appetizer are under-appreciated. You can do so many interesting things with ground meat and fun ingredients all packed into a little ball that people can spear with a toothpick or even grab with their fingers when no one is looking. Sure, meatballs are great for spaghetti and as sandwich filling, but I encourage you to let them have a place on your next appetizer tray or buffet table. For these particular meatballs, I’ve combined one of my favorite lean ground meats – buffalo – and Hatch green chilies to create a spicy and warm one-bite package that is sure to please any crowd. I know I’m a broken record when I extol the virtues of bison, but it really is such a great meat. It’s lower in fat and higher in protein than ground beef and it’s almost always raised in a sustainable way, so it’s a responsible choice as well. When paired with the green chilies, you have a salute some of the best ingredients the Southwest US has to offer.

As I was considering what to serve alongside these meatballs, I was reminded of meatballs in a grape jelly and chili sauce my mom made for parties in the 70s and 80s. The sweet and savory combination in that dish is what made it popular, and as I thought about how to update the concept I decided pomegranate juice would be a good modernization to the flavor combination. Pomegranate juice is also good for us, unlike grape jelly, so it fits nicely with the healthy bison.

Next time you have a party, set out a bowl of these little wonders and watch them disappear before your very eyes.

Recipe: Green Chile Meatballs with Pomegranate Dipping Sauce

Details

• Difficulty: Easy
  
• Makes: About 45 meatballs and 1 c. sauce
  
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
  
• Cook Time: 20 minutes
  

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 1 lb. ground bison
• 1/4 c. grated onion
• 4 oz. green chilies
• 1/4 c. panko
• 1 large egg
• 2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. dried Mexican oregano
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 c. pomegranate juice
• 1/4 c. honey
• 3 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• 1 chipotle in adobo sauce, minced

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil (for easy clean up) and place a baking rack on top of it. Spray the baking rack with cooking spray and set aside.
3. Add the bison, onion, chilies, panko, egg, cumin, coriander, oregano, and salt to a medium mixing bowl. Use your hands to gently mix the ingredients together.
4. Divide the mixture into 1 Tbsp. portions and roll gently to form meatballs.
5. Place the meatballs 1 inch apart on the baking rack and cook at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 150 degrees.
6. While the meatballs are cooking, combine the pomegranate juice, honey, and balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
7. Reduce the heat to medium and boil gently for about 15 minutes until reduced by half, whisking occasionally. Stir the minced chipotle into the reduced sauce and serve with the cooked meatballs.

Recipe for Success

• Be gentle with the meatball mixture and don’t over-work it. The meat will get tough if you man-handle it too much.
• I use a 1 Tbsp. scoop to simplify the meatball production process.
• If you find the meat mixture is sticky, use damp hands to make rolling easier.
• You can absolutely make these with any other combination of ground meat that you’d like. Pork goes particularly well with green chilies and goodl ol’ ground sirloin would work as well. Because the recipe includes binders like eggs and panko, you can use leaner ground meet to keep the fat under control.
• You can mix and form the meatballs up to four months in advance and freeze them uncooked. To keep them from sticking together in the freezer, spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet and freeze until solid. Place them in a heavy-duty ziptop bag and store in the freezer. When you’re ready to cook the meatballs, prepare the baking sheet with foil and the sprayed baking rack as in step 2, then place the frozen meatballs 1 inch apart on the rack. Spray the meatballs with cooking spray and cover with plastic wrap. Let the meatballs thaw in the refrigerator for 8-12 hours or overnight. Remove the plastic wrap and cook as directed in step 5.
• This mixture makes a mean burger as well. Be sure to spray the patties with cooking spray before you put them on a grill or griddle because the mixture is a bit on the wet side and will stick. I’m pretty sure it would make a great meatloaf too. You could even use the pomegranate sauce as a glaze.

It’s January. It’s a new year in a new decade (depending on how you choose to count such things), and a chance to start anew. While it doesn’t have to say January 1 on the calendar to make a commitment to make a change in my life, for some reason I’m always just a little more motivated at the first of the year. I think it’s because my schedules and habits are off-kilter enough thanks to the holidays that I feel like it’s easier to impact them than just about any other time of year. Of course as the weeks go by and same ol’, same ol’ routines sneak up, I find it hard to stay focused on change and make it real. This year, I want to keep those routines at bay and help my changes stick.

There are two health-related changes I want to focus on in 2010:

• Loose those last 10 pounds. With 40 down over the last couple of years, the last 10 should be easy but they are turning out to be harder than I thought. And of course keeping all of the weight off is just as important, if not more so, than losing the weight initially.
• Make exercise a regular part of my life. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the biggest fan of exercise, so I tend to have limited success a few months out of the year. I’d like to get to the point that exercise is just as much a part of my life as blogging, cooking, working, or any of the other things I do to take care of myself. I’ve run both 5k and 10k races in the past, and I’d like to get back to that this year. There’s nothing like the thrill of  a race to make the training easier.

A Little Help from My Online Friends

Research has shown that it’s easier to make life changes when you have support of those also trying to change. To that end, I’m going to participate in the virtual 10 in 10 challenge. A group of 200 or so of us are going to take the initial steps together towards our important life goals in these 10 weeks. We’ll blog about our experiences, tweet about them, and in general support one another along the way. I’m going to use my blog as a tool in these ten weeks in a few different ways. I plan to:

• Focus most (but not all) of my cooking and entertaining efforts in these 10 weeks on healthy and lighter recipes. I follow Weight Watchers so I will be calculating and posting points for all of my lighter recipes. The first of these recipes, Texas-Style Bison Meatloaf, is in this post.
• Put together lists of recipes from the lighter side that I’ve tried myself. The main criterion for these recipes of course is that they must taste great, because I don’t believe in sacrificing good food to any diet.
• Add and regularly update a page on my blog with quick links to my lighter recipes with Weight Watchers points calculated for them.
• Share tips, tricks, and other useful information from the 10 in 10 group because I know it will be a valuable resource for anyone trying to make even a small change in their lives.

What changes are you going to make in 2010? How are you going to make them stick? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

Recipe: Texas-Style Buffalo Meatloaf

Adapted from Healthy Turkey Meatloaf from In The Bag

This lightened meatloaf uses one of my favorite healthy eating foods: bison. Bison is lower in fat than beef, higher in protein, and more sustainable all around. It’s not at all gamy and can substitute for beef in just about any application. I call this a Texas-Style meatloaf because it uses BBQ sauce in place of the traditional ketchup you often find in meatloaf recipes, and it gets a bit of a peppery kick from steak seasoning. Enjoy it with a side of Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes (just 2 points) and a steamed vegetable for a hearty 7 point (350 calories or so) dinner the whole family will enjoy.

Details

• Difficulty: Easy
• Serves: 4
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time:60 minutes
• Weight Watchers ™ Points: 5*

Ingredients

For the meatloaf:

• 1/3 c. whole wheat bread crumbs
• 1/3 c. skim milk
• 1 lb. ground bison
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 small onion, chopped
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 2 Tbsp. steak seasoning (such as McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning)
• 2 Tbsp. bottled BBQ sauce

For the glaze:

• ¼ c. bottled BBQ sauce
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. dry mustard

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the breadcrumbs, milk, and egg in a large bowl. Stir until the breadcrumbs are moist.
3. Add the bison, onion, salt, steak seasoning, and BBQ sauce to the bowl. Mix well with your hands, being careful not to over-mix.
4. Spray a meatloaf pan with non-stick cooking spray and pat the bison mixture into it.
5. Bake the meatloaf at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.
6. While the meatloaf cooks, combine the glaze ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine.
7. After the meatloaf has been in the oven for 40 minutes, spoon about ¾ of the glaze over the meatloaf and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until the internal temperature reads 160 degrees on an instant read thermometer.
8. Let the meatloaf rest in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn it carefully out onto a serving platter and brush the top (which was previously the bottom) with the remaining glaze.

Recipe for Success

• Experiment with different steak seasonings and BBQ sauces to make this recipe your own. I recently used a beef seasoning I picked up in Napa and a local organic BBQ sauce for a fun combination.
• If your family doesn’t like onions, you can easily substitute diced carrots or celery. Simply sauté them in a non-stick pan sprayed with PAM over medium-high heat until they are soft. You can also increase the vegetables in this meatloaf without increase the total points if you add sautéed carrots and celery to the onions that are in the recipe.
• You can make this recipe in the microwave as well. Combine and mix the ingredients, then pat them into a round microwave safe dish. Cover the dish with wax paper or two layers of wet paper towel. Cook on High for 8 minutes, rotating dish ¼ turn every 4 minutes. While the meatloaf is cooking, combine glaze ingredients and after 8 minutes of cooking time, spoon over the meatloaf. Continue cooking, uncovered, for another 8 to 9 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

*Points Details

• Different types of buffalo have different points values. I buy very lean ground bison that is consistent with the 1 pt. for 1 oz. point calculation in the Recipe Builder, or 10.5 pts. For 1 lb. Some ground bison will be closer to 1.5 pts for 1 oz, or 26 points for 1 pound, which increases the per-serving points on this recipe to 7. To be on the safe side, you may want to split the difference and assume 6 points per serving if you don’t want to recalculate the points yourself based on your specific ingredients.
• You can substitute 93% lean ground turkey for the bison in this recipe. The per-serving points go up to 6.
• I calculated the points for this recipe using values for Kraft Classic Recipe BBQ sauce, which is 1 point per 2 Tbsp. Different BBQ sauces have different sugar content, so you may need to re-calculate the points to fit your specific BBQ sauce if it has more than 50 calories per 2 Tbsp.
• White bread crumbs, panko, and seasoned bread crumbs have more calories than whole wheat bread crumbs. If you substitute one of these for whole wheat, be sure to recalculate the total points.

Learn more about ground bison

As I’ve said before in my weekly Austin Foodie Bits posts as well as my recent recipe for Stuffed Squash Calabacitas, Texans are crazy for green Anaheim chiles, particularly those grown in Hatch, New Mexico. We can buy canned chiles from Hatch year round, but for a three week period in August, our love for all things Hatch works itself into a freshly-picked chile fervor that results in festivals, contests, and this year even a food blogger potluck focused wholly on cooking with this unassuming green chile pepper. Seeing as Hatch chiles were a ubiquitous part of my childhood, I’m as crazy as the next Texas foodie for Hatch chiles. To that end, I’m devoting the bulk of my blog for the next two or so weeks (maybe longer if I feel like it) to Hatch chile recipes. Today’s post is all about buffalo burgers stuffed with green chiles, I also have a green chile crostini recipe up my sleeve and quite possibly a green chile risotto. I’m also preparing for the afore mentioned food blogger potluck, so there will be at least one post, and probably two related to what promised to be a great afternoon of fun and feasting.

“But Natanya, I’m not rich in Hatch chiles, whatever shall I do?”

Immediately move to Texas! What, that’s not a viable option for you? That’s too bad. You’d like it here, I promise. And Hatch chiles are only one of the reasons. Still not happening? Okay, I guess we’ll have to figure something else out.

While you will be missing out on one of the most amazing smells known to man – the scent of a freshly roasted chile after it’s blackened over a flame so the skin falls off leaving only tender and succulent meat ready for all sorts of applications – you can buy canned green chiles that will get you by. Start looking on the same aisle at your grocery store where you’d find other Mexican ingredients like chipotles in adobo or enchilada sauce. If you can’t find them there, try a Mexican specialty market. If all else fails, you can order them online. If possible, buy the Hatch brand of green chiles, they are the best that are available, but even if you can’t find those, don’t let that stop you from grabbing whatever brand of green chile you can lay hands on to start cooking with these green beauties.

If you are in a position to get freshly roasted chiles, buy a lot. They freeze beautifully after they are roasted. Just pack them away in bunches of 6-8 in heavy-duty freezer ziptop bags and freeze for up to a year. Now that I’m done waxing rhapsodic about green chiles, let’s get down to business with the recipe for a burger inspired by the Mexican and New Mexican flavors of my childhood.

Recipe: Hatch Green Chile-Stuffed Bison Burgers Topped with a Deconstructed Guacamole

Details

• Difficulty: Easy
• Serves: 4
• Prep Time: 20 min
• Cook Time: 10 min

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground bison
• ½ lb. ground chuck
• 2 Tbsp. ground cumin
• 4 tsp. New Mexico chile powder
• 2 whole Hatch green chiles, roasted, stems and seeds removed
• Salt and pepper
• 2 oz. Asadero or other white melting cheese, sliced thin
• 1 large avocado
• 1 lime
• 1 small red onion, sliced thin
• 4 hamburger buns, toasted

Instructions

1. Prepare a grill or grill pan to cook the burgers.
2. Break the ground bison and chuck into small chunks and combine them in a mixing bowl. Sprinkle evenly with the cumin and chile powder.
3. Gently combine the meat and spices until well mixed.
4. Divide the meat into 8 equal portions, about 3 oz. each. Gently roll each portion into a ball then flatten into a thing burger, about ¼ in. bigger in diameter than your hamburger bun.
5. Cut each green chile into quarters. Place two quarters into the center of each of four of the meat patties. Top each of the patties with chiles with a patty without chiles to create four “stuffed” burgers. To seal in the chiles, press the edges of each stuffed burger together tightly and smooth out to create a patty that is uniform in size.
6. Liberally season the burgers on both sides with salt and pepper. Place in refrigerator until ready to grill.
7. Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, and scope the flesh from the skin with a large spoon. Cut the avocado halves into slices and cover completely with the juice of the lime.
8. Grill the burgers to your desired doneness. I recommend pulling the burgers from the grill at about 130 degrees. Put the cheese on the burgers about 1 minute before you are ready to take them off of the grill so the cheese can begin to melt.
9. Toast the hamburger buns while the cooked burgers are resting.
10. Place a patty on each bun and top with 3-4 slices of avocado and 2-3 slices of red onion.

Recipe for Success

• While it’s important to evenly combine the bison, chuck, and spices, be careful not to over-work the meat or your burgers will be tough.
• Bison is a very lean beef, which is why I’ve included a bit of chuck in the mix to bring some fat to the burger. Be careful not to over-cook the burgers or they will be dry.
• You could just as easily top this burger with guacamole instead of this collection of guacamole ingredients.
• Pick your poison – use either mild or hot green chiles depending on how much heat you like.
• I think that the avocado brings enough creaminess to the burger that it doesn’t need any wet condiments like mayo or mustard, but you can certainly dress the burger however you’d like.

I’ve become a big fan of buffalo because it is leaner than beef but has more protein and iron so it is a great option when I’m up for some good ol’ red meat. Most buffalo are grass-fed and free of antibiotics or hormones, so I feel better in general about serving the meat to my family. Happily, as its popularity has increased, it’s become easier to find buffalo meat in a variety of cuts either at my local market or via mail order. I’ve also been on a slider kick, probably because smaller burgers make portion control easier and well, because those sliders are just so darn cute. They are great for feeding a crowd and you can have a couple of different topping combos in the same meal which is always fun. What, then, could be more fun then than combining the natural goodness of buffalo with smallness of a slider? Buffalo sliders and a batch of baked truffle fries, that’s what. Because the fries are baked and the recipe includes a minimal amount of oil, they are healthier than standard fried fries, making them a good companion for the healthier burgers. The truffles add a touch of decadence to elevate them above just plain oven fries, much like the slider is more than just your average burger.

The method I use for making super-crisp oven fries is a little time consuming, so this meal in total takes about an hour to put together, but it couldn’t be simpler. If you want to speed the process up you can toss some bagged fries into the oven as a substitute for the truffle fries and you’ll be eating dinner in 25 minutes or so, depending on the bake time on the fries.

When it comes to burgers I’m a firm believer that the only thing that needs to be mixed with the meat is a healthy dose of salt and pepper. I typically use a 2 to 1 ratio of ground sirloin and ground chuck so I can keep the burgers lean but still have the necessary fat to make them juicy and hang together. However, because buffalo is so naturally lean, the first time I made a buffalo burger it didn’t hold together very well. To solve that problem for these sliders I added a little “glue” in the form of panko and an egg. If you can’t get panko by all means use unseasoned breadcrumbs, and if you typically like to add other seasonings to your burgers you can add them to the sliders as well. Consider the buffalo a blank canvas.

Learn more about ground bison

Recipe: Buffalo Sliders

Details

• Difficulty: Easy
• Serves: 3 (serving size is 3 burgers)
• Prep Time: 10 min
• Cook Time: 10 min

Ingredients

• 16 oz. ground buffalo meat
• ½ c. panko or unseasoned bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 9 small dinner rolls, split and toasted
• Your favorite burger toppings (recommended: blue cheese, applewood smoked bacon, and a little mayo)

Instructions

1. Gently combine the buffalo, panko, and egg in a mixing bowl with your hands. Be careful not to over-mix.
2. Divide the meat mixture into 9 even portions, about 2 oz. each.
3. Shape each portion into a burger about the same size as the dinner rolls.
4. Season both sides of each burger liberally with salt and pepper.
5. Heat a grill, grill pan, or skillet over medium high-heat until very hot. If using a standard skillet (not cast-iron or non-stick) spray the skillet with a bit of cooking spray to keep the burgers from sticking. Add the burgers to the pan/grill and reduce the heat to medium. Cook the burgers for 2-3 minutes on each side or until just shy of your preferred doneness.
6. Remove burgers from the heat, cover with aluminum foil, and let rest for 5 minutes.
7. Serve with buns and burger toppings.

Recipe for success

• The mini-burgers won’t reduce much in size during cooking because the meat is so lean, so when you form the burgers make them about the same size as your buns and they should fit just perfectly once cooked.
• I typically mound my burgers up in the middle when I form them to keep my cooked burgers from being concave because of the fat lost during cooking. Once again, because the buffalo is so lean, that’s not necessary. Shape your burgers like you want to them to appear on the bun when you’re done and that’s what you should get when they are done cooking.
• Do not overcook the burgers or they will be dry. There isn’t any extra fat to keep them juicy and they cook very quickly, so pay close attention while they cook and pull them off when they are just a little under-done (to your taste). As they rest they’ll increase in temperature another 5 or so degrees to your preferred level of doneness. I like a medium-rare burger so I removed mine when they were between 140 and 145 degrees.
• Choose your favorite burger cooking method: outdoor grill, grill pan, or skillet. I used a grill pan largely because the wind was blowing so hard my patio furniture was in the yard, but I could have just as easily thrown them on the grill outside or even in a cast-iron skillet. Because they are small you have to watch where you put them on a conventional grill to keep them from sliding through the grates, but otherwise cook them any way you want.
• Try to find dinner rolls that are light instead of dense so the bread isn’t out of proportion to the meat. Potato rolls are a good choice as are Nature’s Own honey wheat dinner rolls.
• These burgers also do well wrapped in leaves of romaine, green leaf, or iceberg lettuce for those trying to watch their carb intake.

Oven-Baked Truffle Fries

I’m not a big fryer of things, largely because it’s messy and not the healthiest cooking method. Even so, I love crispy fries and have found that even the highest heat in an oven isn’t a replacement for hot oil and frying. After much research and trial-and-error, I’ve discovered that Molly Steven’s technique for making oven fries is the best way to produce truly crispy oven fries. Rinsing and parboiling potatoes does take extra time, but it’s worth it. To make truffle fries I follow the Fine Cooking Oven Fries recipe with the following changes:

• Use 3 large potatoes instead of 2 for 4 people.
• When parboiling the potatoes, remove them from the water 30 seconds to 1 minute after the water comes to a boil. I’ve found that 3 minutes is too long and my potatoes start to crumble. It’s time to stop boiling the fries when a fry will just bow you push it up against the side of the pot with a spoon. Once they are barely flexible it’s time to pull them from the water and drain.
• Substitute 1 Tbsp. grapseed oil and 1 Tbsp. truffle oil in place of the olive oil. The grapeseed oil is almost flavorless so it doesn’t interfere with the flavor of the truffle oil but it helps stretch the expensive truffle oil.
• As soon as the fries are out of the oven, toss them with fresh-cracked pepper and truffle salt to taste.

This oven fries recipe is very versatile. For seasoned fries coat the potatoes with olive oil before roasting and then sprinkle with your favorite spice mix when the fries come out of the oven. Much like the buffalo sliders, the potatoes are a blank slate ready for you to unleash your culinary creativity.