Meals to Please the Palate

When you want to make something for dinner, but want it to last for more than one meal that week, here is what you should do:

Theme- Ground Turkey
Meal 1- Turkey Meatballs, Steamed Broccoli and Rice
Meal 2- Turkey Meatball Sub
Meal 3- Meatballs and Spaghetti



Asian Turkey Meatballs With Lime Sesame Dipping Sauce
(Reblogged and only slightly modified from Gina's Skinny Taste Recipes)
This meal is delicious. I took turkey meat balls and combined it with steamed broccoli and served it over a small portion of brown rice. YUM!

Meat Balls

1/4 cup panko crumbs (Any other bread crumbs taste good also.)
1-1/4 lbs 93% lean ground turkey
1 egg
1 tbsp ginger, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 scallions, chopped
1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil

Dipping Sauce

4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tbsp water
2 chopped fresh scallion

Rice and Vegetables
1 cup uncooked brown organic rice (I used Texmati Brown Rice.)
2 1/4 Cups of water
1 teaspoon butter (optional)
4 cups of frozen/fresh Broccoli


Preheat oven to 500°F.

Prepare brown rice. Combine all ingredients for rice in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir once. Cover pan with a lid, reduce heat and let simmer for 45 minutes.

Mix ground turkey, panko, egg, salt, scallions, ginger, cilantro, 1 tbsp soy sauce, and 2 tsp oil and mix with your hands until combined well. Shape 1/4 cup meat mixture into a ball and transfer to a baking dish. Repeat with remaining mixture. Bake until cooked through, about 15 minutes.

For the dipping sauce mix together lime juice, water, soy sauce, and remaining 2 teaspoons of oil in a bowl. Add scallions and mix again.

Steam broccoli until it reaches your desired texture. (I like mine slightly crunchy! About 3.5 minutes.)

Transfer rice, broccoli and meatballs to a serving dish. Stir sauce, then drizzle over top of the dish with 1 tablespoon sauce. Chances are you won't use all the dipping sauce.

Serve the dish with remaining sauce, about 1 tbsp per person.

Makes 12 meatballs.

The Health details of the Meatballs:
Servings: 4 • Size: 3 meatballs • Old Points: 6 pts • Points+: 7 pts
Calories: 229.1 • Fat: 11.1 g • Carbs: 8.5 g • Protein: 24.3 g

Leftover meat balls can be stored in the fridge till tomorrows lunch/dinner where they can be re-used to make a delicious meatball sub or meatball spaghetti.

If you want to make the meatball sub don't forget to purchase a bulky roll and your favorite red sauce when you are grocery shopping. A delicious sharp cheddar cheese is a great topping option also!

Or if you are more interested in a tasty pasta dish, pick your favorite noodle and combine with a tasty red sauce. Personally, I would pick up some vegetables like mushrooms and onions to add to this delicious leftover makeover!

Lessons of the City 2 and 3

Lesson Number Two:

When you carry an umbrella in the city, it is your responsibility to maneuver it away from others walking down the sidewalk. These maneuvering skills include rising it up, tipping it to the side, walking off of the sidewalk completely or sometimes you have to just close the umbrella all together.

It was pouring last night as I walked to the train to meet Tylan for our Wednesday SBS corn hole league. (By the way we won our first game!) Normally I would drive to the train stop when the weather is nasty so we don't come home looking and smelling like wet dogs. Due to the fact we were taking the truck home, I walked to the train stop. Knowing it was going to be pouring my nice boyfriend Tylan left out an umbrella for me to use, little did he know it was going to create a great story!

All was going well on my way to the train stop in Wakefield. There were a few mishaps when I found out I couldn't fit in between the light post and the fence. Besides that the large umbrella was very much appreciated.

When I got to the city, I did as I saw everyone else and opened my umbrella at an appropriate distance from the outside door to avoid poking anyone's eye out. Where all heck broke loose was when I enter the narrow streets. I realized I wasn't fitting very nicely on the side walk. My umbrella keep bouncing off the building.

Suddenly BANG! I nailed a man on the shoulder. Oops. I said I was sorry, but he didn't acknowledge me as he seemed in quit the rush to make his train. Woo... got away with that mistake. Following that I got trapped in between the side of a building and one of those large electric boxes. People stared, I was scared I was going to electrocute myself. I nailed two other people and was knocked off the sidewalk before I started to catch on to everyone's clever umbrella moves.

And that's where lesson two was learned. If you use an umbrella when it's raining, it doesn't mean you rule the side walk. You must move your umbrella to avoid others.

This night was a special night, because I got to indirectly learn an additional city life lesson:

Lesson 3:
When you plan on driving into the city and don't want to pay to park in an expensive parking garage..
Not only do you check if there is a hockey or basketball game, but check if there are any concerts happening.

Because if you don't you might end up driving around for a hour and a half before you have to pull some super man parallel parking maneuver and barely make it to your SBS corn-hole game!

Construction lesson #1

Demo day lesson one:

Make sure the watch you are relying on is set to the correct time.

Today we tore down the bricks the wood stove hearth on the third floor. To do this we first attempted with hand tools but realized quickly that it wasn't too reasonable. So we found out that Home Depot offers a great tool rental program.

This morning we woke up early, fed ourselves a delicious hearty breakfast at Brothers (a classic must go to in Wakefield). Then went to Home Depot to rent an electric demo hammer drill for four hours for a total of $35. Not to bad, we thought. We had estimated it would only take 4 hours to do this job.

Tylan had me set my watch alarm for 1:15pm which was 3:45 hours from when we rented the tool to make sure we returned it on time. We knew it would be loud with a drill so we thought the wrist watch was the best option to keep us on schedule.

Well all was going well until I looked at my watch and saw that we only had 15 minutes left and still had to pull up the entire base! We looked at each other and decided that we might as well take a water break. Tylan decides he should call to ask how much it would be to rent tool for longer...

This break went on for about 13 ish minutes before I realize that I never changed my clock for daylight savings time! We still had a whole hour left!



Well to not make a short story long, we finished up the entire thing minus the clean up in the four hours we estimated EVEN with my silly Windows 95 mistake!

Lessons learned about living in a city...

Lesson #1:
Only one person at a time fits into a revolving door.


I don't know why I thought other wise but I keep trying to fit two people into the little revolving sections.

A memory of my childhood often plays in my head of when I use to visit Seven Springs PA ski resort every Febuary. I'm not sure if I imagined it all, but I remember a revolving door at the entrance of the resort. For some reason, I also remember spinning through these doors with my brother at my side. Because of this... I had the idea I could still fit two people at a time through a revolving door. I forgot that I use to be a tiny munchkin.

The other night I found out I'm not such a tiny munchin any more. Two adults do'nt fit into a revolving door at the same time.

It felt as if I was in a angry crowded line where you can't help but continue to step on the shoes of the person in front of you while an angry mob continues to un-voluntarily push you forward.

Oh the joy of mia-shaped memories. To this day Tylan is careful now to follow me into a revolving door and definitely to never lead through one! I think I scared him for life trying to fit us both through at once.

Feels like Fall

I though winter was on its way here. Snow was on the ground. The nights were chilly enough for wool coat! Where did the winter weather go?

The sun is shinning bright now a days. It doesn't shine for long that is for sure, but it feels pretty great when you go for a walk outside.

The days are very short at the moment. This is when I am very happy I don't work all day inside. Because if I did, I would hardly get to absorb my daily dose of Vitamin D!

Yesterday I went to the gym around 4:10 ish and the sun was already starting it's receding path for the night. By the time I left the gym a little after 5, it was pitch BLACK out!

I am counting the days down till the winter solstice on December 22nd.