Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey

I made spaghetti and meatballs on Sunday night. They were hands down the best (and biggest) meatballs I've ever made/eaten. For reals.

The Ultimate Spaghetti and Meatballs
page 172 of Tyler's Ultimate
Here's a secret I'm gonna let you in on: if you want moist, good meatballs, stop using dry breadcrumbs. Take some bread (a little stale is best) and cut it into cubes. Then just before you need to add them to your meat, soak them in some whole milk. Don't soak them too long because they'll be too mushy. Then squeeze the extra milk out of them and add to your meat. When you're mixing them together, only mix until everything is combined. If you over-work the meatballs they'll be tough. This seriously makes such a difference.


When I was ready to cook my spaghetti, I realized I had no spaghetti. How embarrassing. I just substituted fettuccini. The only problem was, the meatballs were huge and we got full after only one! The fam loved this meal. Definitely something we're going to add to our regular menu.

Side note: I think my cute puppy is less cute. Here's what she did while we were gone for an hour:


What a jerk. She's a bad baby. This was my favorite plant. It was a corn tree. Seeing that we're corn farmers, it was a cool (and manditory) house plant. RIP corn tree. The worst part is it died once already and I brought it back to life. I don't think anything can be done this time though. My powers aren't that strong. But put the bets away, I'm not getting rid of Ruby. And no the plant wasn't there when it got attacked, I just put it there to get the picture. And the extra stuff (sock, block, toilet paper roll, and plastic bag) was all brought to the crime scene by Ruby too. The whole area was clean when we left. I'm just sayin. Not cute.

Anywho, you're probably wondering why this post says eggs and bakey and there has been no mention of either. Well, last night I FINALLY had a good nights sleep. I haven't been sleeping too good lately because I've been having some jacked up dreams (stupid Paranormal Activity). The final straw was Monday night. Let me tell you about my dream. Any of you who are dream interpreters, only interpret this dream if it means I'm gonna be famous or rich or something good. I don't need any more nightmares. Okay, here's my dream.

During the night I woke up about every 45 minutes because I kept thinking something was wrong. We've had water pump problems and furnace problems and a new puppy so I just couldn't settle. Plus there's a flu going around and I don't want puking kids to surprise me. ANYWAY....This time when I woke up I was really still dreaming. You know those dreams that feel super real? Well this one felt real. I woke up in my dream because Katie came into my room and was just standing at the door and creeping me out (see Paranormal Activity). She was scared so I told her to come into our bed for a few minutes. Then Luke came in, saying he wasn't feeling very good. Just as he was getting into bed with us Emily comes tearing into our room screaming and crying. This finally woke Ryan up and he was mad because suddenly we have a crowded bed and Emily is losing her mind. She tells us there's a guy in the living room trying to talk to her. Ryan gets his "Ryan Eyes" on (if you haven't seen RJ when he gets excited/mad, his eyes get HUGE so there's more white than color. The first time I saw his "eyes" I have to admit I was pretty nervous. Now I just tell him to put the whites away...something along the lines of his bark is worse than his bite... love you Ry-Ry!).

So Ry gets up to go see this guy while I'm trying to work up the courage to go with him. When I got there, he was talking to this guy like we all knew him. Did I mention he looked and smelled like he broke up with his shower a while ago? He was gross. "It's okay hon. It's just Victor." Who the H is Victor? I seriously had no idea who he was and he was way too creepy to be one of my friends. I have pretty high standards. FYI Ryan, some random smelly guy letting himself in our house to have a conversation with our 5 yr old at 3 in the morning is NOT my definition of "okay". It was at this time that I woke up for realsies. To Emily screaming and crying from downstairs, "GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!" Ryan wouldn't wake up (how convenient) so I had to get the courage to go see her all by myself. I'm not even kidding, this was one of the worst parenting moments of my life. I considered letting her work out her own problems, ghost or creepy guy and all. But since I'm such a good mom, I went downstairs. When I got down there she was yelling at Luke to leave her alone. It turned out funny because she was telling her brother off in her sleep, but let me tell you it was a LONG time before I got back to sleep that night.

That brings us back to the Eggs and Bacon. Like I said before, I finally got a good night's sleep last night so I woke up this morning and decided to try this recipe that I've been eyeing for a while now.

California Bacon and Eggs
page 90 of Stirring the Pot

The layers go as follows: the green stuff at the bottom is a celery pesto, followed by a crispy potato pancake, then a sunny-side up egg that I chose to fry all the way through because I don't like slimy stuff, and then bacon. We were all a bit nervous about the pesto but this turned out unbelievable. I think my potato pancakes were too thick but that's okay. The pesto was gross by itself but with the pancake it was amazing. When you make the pancake, you have to shred the potatoes and then squeeze the moisture out as best as you can. I think I was a bit dysfunctional this morning because when I was putting my potatoes into a cloth, I totally dumped the whole bowl onto my cookbook. Then I burnt my first attempt at eggs. Then I burnt my second attempt at eggs. Stupid eggs. Normally I make killer fried eggs but it just wasn't happening today. I finally got the eggs done and all in all it turned out delicious. This is why I waited until I had a good night's sleep to attempt this dish. Even refreshed I was struggling!

The best part about cooking with Tyler (besides the obvious bonus of eating all this amazing food) is that I'm learning tips and tricks to change how I cook regular food. I won't be making meatballs the old way ever again. I'm not going to make mashed potatoes with skim milk and margarine ever again. There's so many things I've learned how to incorporate into my everyday cooking. And I've only just begun....