Soyballs! Well, you'll see when you read the post.

This is something I make when my vegetarian yeti wife is looking for either pasta and meatballs or meatball sandwiches. Mmm, these are fantastic meatball sandwiches. I think I'm going to go have a sandwich right now. I like them with provolone and under the broiler for just a minute.

Required ingredients (it's a short list, isn't it?):
4 vegan Boca Burger patties at room temperature. If you like some other sort of soy based veggie burger go ahead and try it at your own risk. I haven't. Yetis find something they like and stick with it. Don't use a crumble soy product - it won't work.

Optional:
1 to 2 eggs depending on other dry ingredients whatever else you normally put in meatballs. The eggs will help the other ingredients bind with the soy patties.
¼ cup finely diced onion
2-3 cloves minced garlic or ½ teaspoon garlic powder
2 dashes of salt
½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon dry prepared mustard
2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce
If you want to use soup mix, try to use one that’s low sodium or these turn out way too salty.
Sometimes I put in a sprinkle of breadcrumbs, or I replace the ketchup and mustard with salsa.
Pasta sauce of your choice and 1 pound of pasta (spaghetti or angel hair)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place ingredients in large bowl. Mix well with hands. Lightly grease a large iron skillet or baking tray. Take 1 tablespoon portions of the mix and form into balls. If you use your hands to form the balls it is easier if you put some oil or water on your hands first. The balls won't stick to your hands as much.

Place the soy balls in an oven-proof skillet about an inch apart. Bake in oven 40 minutes. Balls are done if tops are not mushy when pushed on lightly with a spoon. They should look and feel like meatballs. If you have one of those fancy thermometer type devices, you're looking for an internal temperature around 220F. Some egg or liquid may ooze out; this may be added to the pasta sauce. Mix with pasta and sauce or use in place of meatballs in another recipe such as sliced on a pizza. Trust me, this works. Or fry them. Etc. Use your imagination.

Serves 1 Yeti with leftovers for a small sandwich, or serves 3-4 people with pasta, or 2 hungry college students as meatball sandwiches.

My day of starch, with variations on rice and grains

Today when I left the cave for my long day of wandering through the forests and visiting hunters in Pennsylvania, I realized all I had packed for lunch were grains and starches. That inspired me to write up some of my basic rice, grains, and grass seed (read: wild rice) recipes that I will refer to in future posts. I'll put my most heavily used sushi rice and long grain rice in this post, and save my wild rice and brown rice recipes for another day.

My basic sushi rice that I use for all sorts of sushi, stir fries, fresh fish dishes, and general eating:

1 cup sushi rice
water for washing, plus 1 cup water for cooking
Rind of 1 lime, without any pith
1 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar or juice of 1 lime
Optional: toasted sesame seeds or chopped cilantro leaves

Take 1 cup of sushi rice and wash until the water runs clean. Place the wet washed sushi rice in a saucepan and add the 1 cup of water and lime rind. Put over high heat until the water begins to boil. Place a tight fitting lid on the saucepan and reduce the heat to low. Allow to slowly cook for 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the lid on for 5 more minutes. Remove the lid and pour in the rice wine vinegar or the lime juice. Stir through with a wooden spoon or a rice paddle. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds or chopped cilantro if desired. You can also substitute lemon for lime in both the rind and juice, but I prefer lime in this case.

This will make about two big yeti fistfulls of rice, or enough for 2-3 sushi maki (rolls) or enough as a side dish for 3-4 people with maybe some nice seared tuna, or broiled salmon, or wildebeest steaks.

My basic jasmine rice. You can substitute the same amount of any long grain rice for the jasmine. Other long grain rice using this recipe will turn out just fine but will taste a little different than the jasmine.

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, preferably canola or peanut
1 cup of jasmine rice
2 cups of water or your favorite stock of hand-picked wild mushrooms or whatever you found at the grocery
1/2 tablespoon of butter
1 pinch of salt, unless you use stock and it's really salty already

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan or pot, put the rice and vegetable oil. Place over medium high heat and stir frequently until the rice is turning white to slightly golden. Carefully add the stock to the saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil. Put the butter on top of the liquid and cover. Reduce the heat to low and allow to cook for 18 to 20 minutes. Remove the rice mixture from the heat and stir in the pinch of salt. Serve with some nice peas, or, my favorite, asparagus, or maybe a big hunk of red meat and a red wine reduction with morels and cracked black pepper and...

Serves 1 yeti as a snack, 2 people as a main dish with some veggies and a nice salad, or 4 people with the veggies, a nice salad, some thing else, and maybe a nice slice of cake.

Abominable Snowdog Treats!

As an owner of two abominable snowdogs, sometimes it is hard to find treats at the pet store that are compatible with the snowdog's interesting metabolism. Besides the ice cubes that they love to eat, here are some additional frozen abominable snowdog treats that have proven very popular with my small monsters.

Snowdog Yogurt-cubes ("Yogs")

Take 1 container of yogurt with fruit, and as little added sugar as possible. Open the container and make sure that the contents are well-mixed. Spoon the blended contents into a clean ice-cube tray and freeze until solid, usually 3-4 hours. I give at most 1 a day to the abominable snowdogs as a special treat.

Snowdog Fruit-cubes

Take an ice-cube tray and place 1-2 raspberries, or 3-4 blueberries, or any other small amount of fruit. Fill the tray with water and make sure the fruit is well-submerged. Freeze until hard. The abominable snowdogs can have 1-2 of these a day. These also make great ice-cubes in some Yeti cocktails with flavored vodkas.

No-pine-nut Pesto, with variations

This is a pesto that I often use when other Yeti are visiting me that do not like pine nuts. You can also add 1/4 cup of toasted hazelnuts, walnuts, or even cashews to this before blending to make a texture closer to that of traditional pesto without using pine nuts.

¾ cup loosely packed fresh Basil leaves (do not use dried basil, this would turn out strange)
2 medium cloves garlic or 1 tablespoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons Olive oil
2 tablespoons grated good aged Parmesan or Romano cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

½ pound Pasta of your choice

Place olive oil, garlic, optional nuts, and basil in blender. Pulse until smooth.

Cook pasta. Drain but do not rinse pasta. Toss sauce with pasta. Add cheese and toss again.

Serves 1 Yeti or 2 people with leftovers or 3-4 people as a side dish

Chicken breasts stuffed with feta and spinach

This has been one of the dishes that we serve to first-time visiting monsters from other caves. We often have repeat visitors, but not leftovers.

4 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
About 4 tablespoons good feta cheese; reserve a small bit for garnish. I like Athenos brand.
One 10 ounce package of chopped spinach, drained or one bunch of fresh spinach, washed well.
Pepper
Paprika

Preheat the oven to 375F. Grease a shallow baking dish with a little bit of olive oil.

Drain or wash the spinach as necessary. Crumble the feta and lightly press between 2 pieces of paper towel to remove some of the water. Place the dried feta into a bowl until the chicken is ready to stuff.

Trim the chicken breasts of fat and detritus. Place between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and carefully pound to about a quarter inch thickness. Remove the chicken from the plastic wrap and spread out on a clean surface. Place either a tablespoon of drained chopped spinach or about 4-6 leaves of fresh spinach on the chicken. Top with about 1 tablespoon of the feta. Season the feta and spinach with a small bit of pepper. Carefully wrap the thin chicken around the spinach and feta mixture, taking care not to tear the chicken. Either using your hands or another piece of plastic wrap, form the chicken around the feta spinach stuffing into as tight a ball as possible. Make sure that all the feta and spinach is enclosed by chicken.
Place the stuffed chicken by itself in the baking dish and garnish each with a small amount of feta. Sprinkle each breast with paprika.

Bake in the preheated 375F oven for about 35-40 minutes.

Serve with your favorite side dish. I like roasted new potatoes (another post) or a good pasta or rice dish.

Variations on this theme include replacing the feta and spinach with a slice of sundried tomato, basil, and provolone; or mozzarella, wild rice and mushrooms; or gruyere and a thin piece of honey ham, etc.

Serves about 1 Yeti or 2-4 people.

The Yeti's Kitchen

This is the first post from me, the Yeti in the kitchen. I'll be posting my successful experiments here and maybe telling you about the not-so-successful ones like vanilla salad dressing.

Feel free to comment and link to this blog if you think it's interesting. I would let my dogs post here too, but they don't have thumbs and their feet are too big for the keyboard.