Finger Lickin’ Dippin’ Good

Tonight was the first night of our “staycation” so we celebrated with what my DH termed “very appropriate vacation food”. I’m not sure what makes it so perfect for a vacation, except maybe that it’s casual and fun? There’s just something very child-like and delightfully improper about finger foods, don’t you think?

The meal started with meatballs and mushroomed from there. I bought a package of reduced ground beef for $1.35 - for about a pound and a quarter - when I went to the grocery store today and decided that would be the perfect choice for dinner tonight. Then I decided that it would be fun to dip the meatballs instead of serving them in a sauce, and from there I decided that a finger foods meal would just be fun. If you have kids (I do, but unfortunately he’s allergic to beef so he couldn’t have the meatballs), this is a great meal for them. And who knows, you might even get them to eat some veggies they’ve never tried before just because of the dip factor!

I used a meatball recipe I had clipped from a magazine (Woman’s Day, I think) and made some alterations to it. I kept the basic recipe but added shredded zucchini (I always sneak vegetables in wherever I can!) and used green onions instead of regular.

Zippy Dippy Meatballs
1 1/4 lbs ground beef
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup unseasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup shredded zucchini
1/2 tsp garlic salt (or use a fresh clove of garlic)
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 TBSP olive oil
1 TBSP chopped green onions

During the summer, I like to get some extra zucchini and shred it in the food processor, then store it in freezer bags in the freezer. Then I have some handy shredded zucchini to add into ground beef mixtures, sauces and pasta salads.

For the bread crumbs, I love this easy trick: always save the heels of your loaves of bread. Keep them in the same zippered bag in the freezer until you need them. Then you can do one of two things, depending on your need at the time. First, you can make a batch of dried bread crumbs that keeps almost indefinitely (another topic for another post). Secondly, you can do what I did and just take a slice of the frozen bread and grate it into the mixture. This second method is particularly useful for recipes that call for “soft” bread crumbs, or unseasoned crumbs.

Mix all the ingredients together with your hands (I know, yuck, right? But that’s the only way I’ve found to be successful in blending the ingredients thoroughly.) until thoroughly blended. Form into balls with a tablespoon and place on a broiler pan, evenly spaced. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

While the meatballs are cooking, you can make some dips to go with them. I made two different dips, Old Bay Barbecue and Lemon-Herb Yogurt Dip.

I found the Lemon-Herb Yogurt Dip recipe in the All You magazine (available only at WalMart). It’s not on their website, but here is my version (I halved the original recipe and left out some ingredients):

Lemon-Herb Yogurt Dip
1 cup Greek-style plain yogurt (Greek style is thicker, but you can still use regular if you wish.)
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 TBSP fresh lemon juice
2 tsp olive oil
1 TBSP green onion
1/8 cup minced fresh parsley
1 TBSP minced fresh mint leaves
1/2 tsp minced fresh oregano

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, stirring until well blended.

I thought this dip went very well with the meatballs, and I think it would also go very well with fresh vegetables.

I found the other recipe on www.allrecipes.com, my favorite go-to site when I need a recipe and fast! Actually, this particular recipe I had found a year or two ago, and written down in my own recipe notebook because I liked it so much. It’s a good thing I wrote it down because now I can’t find it.

By the way, Old Bay is very much a Maryland thing. If you live elsewhere, you may not have heard of it and you may not even be able to find it in your regular grocery store. But hunt it down, because it’s totally worth it! It’s the most unique blend of spices, and it’s perfect on all sorts of stuff, especially crab cakes (it’s what makes a Maryland crab cake a Maryland crab cake) and Boardwalk french fries. Oh, yum! I’m out of it now, so I need to go get some more!

Old Bay Barbecue Sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tsp honey
1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
1 TBSP Dijon mustard
1 tsp (or more if you’re from Maryland;) Old Bay seasoning

Blend the ingredients together and serve. This can also be used as a regular BBQ sauce for meat dishes. Actually, come to think of it, that was its original intention!

For sides, I served home made French fries and apples with dip. For the dip, I used my new favorite Yogurt “Pudding” recipe. I’m obsessed with that stuff! It’s so easy, and so yummy!

This finger foods meal was QUICK, naturally. The meatballs only took 20 minutes to cook, and while they cooked, I mixed up the dips and fried the French fries. I should have started the French fries earlier because they took a little longer, but altogether the whole meal was pretty quickly put together.

An EASY meal, for sure. It’s really not necessary to buy those bags of ready-made meatballs. You still have to cook them, and to be honest, mixing up the beef and other ingredients takes maybe 5 minutes. So buying that package doesn’t save you all that much time. Probably the French fries were the trickiest part, what with having to peel them, slice them and keep a close eye on them in the pan. It would be even easier to bake them in the oven. That’ll be a recipe for another day!

And yes, CHEAP too. You already know the good deal I got on the beef, and everything else was of minimal expense, made of staple ingredients I had on hand and some herbs from the garden.

HEALTHY? Oh yes! Making my own meatballs avoided the unnecessary and unhealthy ingredients found in store-bought meatballs. Ditto for making my own dips and French fries.