Dinner Bowl #91

 

The weather cooled enough for me to decide to turn my oven on for the first time in four months. And that gets me going on my true pantry utilization quest again with this meal of spaghetti and meatballs (meatball recipe from Simply Quinoa), sauteed mushrooms and onions (recipe veganized from The Kitchn), homemade focaccia (recipe from Leigh Anne Wilkes), and steamed broccoli.

These meatballs use quinoa flakes, so that was where the pantry utilization comes in. So many of my experiments this year have involved meatballs, but I won't apologize for that. These are really flavorful white bean-based meatballs. They won't give you the sense you're eating meat by any stretch of the imagination, but they're delicious and go really well with the pasta. I just used a jarred tomato basil sauce; no need to reinvent every wheel.  The spaghetti is the protein-boosted kind from Barilla that I so often get. That might not have been strictly necessary given the beans, but it's my default anyway.

The mushrooms and onions used some white wine, which is also one of the things I have on my list of things to use up this year. I liked this with everything else--truly a well-matched side.

The focaccia was delicious, but stuck to my pan. Maybe I didn't use enough oil? Or it could be because I had to use a ceramic pan, because that's what I had available. I'm glad I tried it, though. It was especially great dipped in the tomato basil sauce. I'll try a different recipe next time and see if that helps.

Steamed broccoli is, well, steamed broccoli. It's one of my favorite veggies, and I never get tired of it.