Mom’s Meatball Recipe

This is my mom’s meatball recipe (infamous in my family), with a twist! Check it out below with some cool variations on it (coming soon, stay tuned!) to spice up your weeknight dinner or party!

Recipe Notes:

• When making meatballs, we typically add about half the amount of ground pork to the amount of hamburger, so 1 lb. of hamburger = 1/2 lb. of ground pork. This recipe can be cut in half if you’d like, however, we always love leftovers so this is the bigger version of our original recipe!
• We suggested using soy milk in this recipe (not traditional, as my mom’s original version called for cow’s milk). However, through testing, we found that soy was the best replacement when it came to fat, protein content, and taste, so this is what we went with! Our brand of choice (not a sponsor) is West Life Organic Soy Milk, Unsweetened Plain (you can find it through the link on Amazon). If you have a soy allergy though, please feel free to use either almond or oat milk; we tested both of those and they worked just as well.

Mom’s Eggplant Parmesan

This is my mom’s famous eggplant parmesan recipe! She’s been making this for me ever since I was little. Great lighter, baked version of the classic!

Shark Bait Shrimp Pasta

This one is for all the Shark Week lovers out there! I was inspired to make this Shark Bait Shrimp Pasta with a lobster-based sauce as I had some leftover lobster bisque from Cousins Maine Lobster in my fridge. Check out the second link for the story of how I first found out about the awesome food truck along with more on my inspiration for this recipe. Perfect for date nights in too!

Rachel Ray Inspired Sausage Baked Ziti

We were inspired by the original Rachel Ray recipe (linked below) to create this dairy-free version of her Sausage Baked Ziti! This was a really cool thing to make as a family-friendly meal prep dish, as it makes a lot of leftovers (our favorite). We also found that after making the dish, it ended up tasting better if you mixed the bechamel, cheeses, and tomato sauce together and then baked it, as everything combined better, but it’s simply a taste preference for us there. Try it either way and let us know which way you prefer in the comments below!

Pumpkin Baked Ziti with Sage Sausage

This week, I made a recipe inspired by a fellow blogger on Pinterest that I have on my Pimento & Prose “Fantastically Foodie” board (#shamelessplug, I know, here’s the link 😂) called Pumpkin Baked Ziti with Sage Sausage.

I was in the mood to use my cast iron skillet, and I like to try and use what’s already in my pantry when I can — this week, that item happened to be canned pumpkin! It’s been so dull and dreary outside I wanted a warm, feel-good dish for meal prep this week.

You can also definitely sub out multiple things in this recipe to better suit what you have on hand:

• Vegetable broth for Chicken Broth
• Sage sausage for Italian sausage
• Olive oil for Canola oil
• Red pepper flakes for Paprika or Chili powder
• Cast iron skillet for Saute pan & Oven safe baking dish
• Depending on the size of the container you use, I got about 7-8 single-serve Tupperware containers out of this for meal prep.

Lemon Pepper Chicken with Mushroom Risotto

Lemon pepper is one of my favorite flavor combinations! Loved creating this Lemon Pepper Chicken & Asparagus w/Mushroom Risotto as a meal prep option one week for our house, especially since it’s a simple one sheet pan, one skillet type dinner (fewer dishes, big yes!!). Check out my tips on how best to meal prep and more in my blog here too.

Black Garlic Chicken with Black Garlic Risotto

A byproduct of our experiments with Black Garlic, we loved creating this Black Garlic Chicken with Black Garlic Risotto recipe. Check out the blog here to read about how we first discovered black garlic, find more recipes using black garlic, and where we were able to find it locally here in Greenville, SC.