Is that a typo or an accidental copy/paste? No – I cooked all of these things at once. One of the harder things about food blogging (besides living in a constant state of guilt over procrastinating, and having to field questions like “Are you still doing your blog?” from people that you KNOW keep up with it), is food blogging as a picky eater. There are many, many dishes and ingredients you will never see show up here: fish, any kind of fish, seafood, lake food, pond food, river food, olives, cloves, pumpkin-anything, and many, many more. Including bleu cheese (or blue cheese, as we’ll call it here in ‘Murica. But mostly because I don’t want to deal with autocorrect 25 times today.) (And hell – autocorrect doesn’t like “autocorrect”. Suck it, autocorrect.
I digress. Again, as always. I’m like constantly digressing.
I’m also easily, easily distracted today. For example, from where I sit here at my computer, I saw a small child learning to ride a bike with his dad jogging behind. It
was pretty damn cute.
Back to business. So yeah, I’m making this weirdo dish that I saw on a freaking YouTube comedy video called Something’s Burning with Bert Kreischer. We watched his stand-up
special recently, so his cooking show popped up in the recommendations and I ended up watching something like three hours worth this week. They are hit and miss, but this one was pretty good. It’s just comedians cooking and making fun of each other.
What’s not to like? I mean besides Whitney Cummings?
ANYWAY, back to the point – this dish is hopeful and celebratory, and will probably taste like spicy feet. One of my bosses, in two days, goes for his last round of chemo, EVER! (I hope!). He’ll be out of commission the rest of the week and feeling like warmed-over ass, so to give him a last hurrah, I thought he’d love this oddball dish that includes fettuccine, chicken meatballs stuffed with blue cheese, and tossed with Buffalo sauce.
It combines several of his favorite things, and since he has trouble digesting beef and pork due to a couple surgeries, the chicken meatball is the perfect sub. I mean, I guess. Chicken meatballs (like turkey bacon, turkey sausage, etc.) are a distant second as far
as ideal, but they’ll do.
I had to change the meatball recipe, because a) I halved it, b) it was going to be waaaayyy too wet to work with, and c) I’m baking these instead of frying them in $30 worth of olive oil like they did in the video. Oh, and d) I make chicken broth AAALLLL weekend, and saved the schmaltz, so they won’t be as dry as ground poultry stuff often ends up. So here we have:
1 lb. Ground chicken
1 Egg
¾ Cup breadcrumbs
2 Tablespoons delicious homemade
schmaltz
½ Teaspoon each of paprika, garlic
powder, and shallot salt
(Why shallot salt? The recipe called for Onion Powder, which I do not have in the house, since I only bought it once like 8 years ago for the one time I made Chex Mix, and my aunt L sent me a loverly selection of mail-order spices that included a free sample. I’m really sorry guys. I keep going off on tangents. I’ll try to stop. I’m out of practice.)
Combine all the ingredients, then realize it’s too wet and mushy. I want moist, not wet. Add half a cup of flour. That works.
Here is where I get salmonella all over my camera trying to simultaneously assemble chicken meatballs, stuff them with blue cheese, and take pictures. I had to stop and wipe my camera down with Clorox Wipes and start over. Plus when I do messy meatball-type things, I like to wear gloves to keep meat out of my wedding ring (shout out to Mr. Dishes! Twelve years today! Woot woot!). If my hands showed up in the pictures, this blog would look like Cooking With Dexter or some kind of serial killer blog. And there I go again.
The balls get tossed in flour, sprinkled with more spices and black pepper, then go into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.
They look pretty much the same when they come out. Maybe I should have fried just to take some of the pale off them, but too late now. I only bought the one pound of chicken. And only four of them leaked cheese!
Then I boil up a pound of fettuccine and toss it with 6 tablespoons of butter and half a bottle of Buffalo wing sauce. Then end.
Since it’s our anniversary, Mr. Dishes kindly takes a bite, even though he’s strict about not eating between meals (how did we end up together again?) and pretty much likes it.
It tastes just a shade too feety for me – the force is strong with this cheese – but it’s not terrible. The chicken meatball might be the best chicken meatball I’ve ever had even. Usually ground poultry has so much other stuff in it to distract you from noticing you’re
not eating the real thing, you can’t taste the poultry at all. This tastes very chicken-y in a good way. The noodles taste exactly like noodles tossed in Buffalo sauce.
So. This post is weird and scattered and makes very little sense, much like its author, but I was just bound and determined to write something today. I didn’t even edit the pictures with flattering filters or alter the lighting. I’m sorry you had to read it.
illdothedisheslater 