Italian Meatballs

We first tried these meatballs at an Italian food themed New Year’s Eve party a few years ago.  They were a big hit, and we’ve made it once or twice since then.  It seemed like a good recipe to increase in size and make for the sake of freezing.  Only this time instead of cooking our meatballs in a slow cooker, we did it in our beautiful Le Creuset Dutch Oven.

The combination of meats, cheeses and herbs make these meatballs some of the most delicious we’ve ever had.  They’re great tossed with pasta or served on a nice crusty Italian bread.

Here’s the recipe:

Black Bean Soup

There are a few recipes that Adam and I make pretty regularly. For most of these, we actually consult our blog for the recipe rather than trying to remember where we originally found the recipe and pulling it from there. Maybe we’re just lazy that way, but hey – that’s the main reason we started this blog to begin with: To remember the awesome dishes we love so we can revisit them easier later.

This recipe is one that we just assumed we’d blogged about, but when we went to find it we were pretty surprised to find it wasn’t there! So, here it is. One of our favourite winter soups – a black bean soup. This recipe was inspired by Panera’s black bean soup, and is one that never ceases to satisfy.

Full recipe:

Eggplant Parmesan

We’ve made this recipe a handful of times, but it somehow fell by the wayside and we didn’t make it for probably close to a year. We made it again recently and were surprised at just how good it was. Why haven’t we been making this recipe on a regular basis? It’s so, so good. It’s labeled as a “lighter version” recipe, as it’s baked and not fried, without a whole lot of breading, but it really doesn’t taste like a light recipe in the slightest. It actually reminded us of the eggplant parmesan dishes we had when in Italy – full of the simple and awesome flavours that make this dish great.

And as an added bonus – we’ve learned that it freezes and reheats quite well! Something that will come in handy as we fill up our freezer in the next few weeks.

Full recipe: