Homegrown Gourmet 10

It's time for me to pick a winner (yes, I'm aware the deadline for submissions was 3 weeks ago). It has been a very tough choice.

For those of you who haven't been following, I am the host of this round of Homegrown Gourmet. This challenge topic was pizza, which not-so-coincidentally also happens to be one of my favorite foods. I received four delicious entries; you'll understand after reading them why it's taken me so long to pick a winner. So let's get to the good stuff, alright?

First, Megan at Joy Through Cooking submitted this delicious-looking pizza topped with ingredients from her CSA shipment.

Megan says "This pizza featured roasted garlic mashed with olive oil and smeared as the 'sauce,' local heirloom tomatos, sliced, fresh basil chiffonade, super sweet yellow corn sliced off the cob, and two medium balls of local fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced." Are you drooling yet? Cause I sure am.

Next, Erika at Bean's Bistro submitted her Local Pizza Margherita, using ingredients found at her local Farmer's Markets.

Dough from her local pizza company, fresh tomatoes from the farmer's market, and two kinds of cheese? Sign me up.

Next Kate at Paved with Good Intentions submitted this beautiful Four Cheese Pizza with Portobello Mushrooms and Artichokes - a true testament to her California location.

Any pizza with four cheeses (especially my favorites) is OK in my book.

Finally, Megan at Joy Through Cooking submitted a second pizza, this one representative of her husband's hometown of Johnstown, PA, where pierogies reign supreme.

Megan describes her inspiration: "The crust of the pizza would be the pasta. I topped it with lots of carmelized onions, and then mashed potatoes (I used small new potatos, boiled until cooked through, and roughly mashed with some butter and milk added to taste) that I mixed with about a cup of Cabot shredded sharp cheddar ... and a package of that precooked bacon... roughly shredded. When the pizza was almost done, I added even more cheddar on top of it." Yum.


Now you can see why this was such a difficult decision. Before I announce the winner, I just want to thank you all for participating - you're all winners in my book (*cue cheesy music*). You all took this challenge to new heights.

But now, I am pleased to announce the winner is...

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Congrats, Erika. Your local twist on Margherita captured my heart and taste buds.

Homegrown Gourmet #10

It's time for the next round-up of Homegrown Gourmet. I was the winner of Homegrown Gourmet 9 with my Swedish Meatball recipe. As such, I have the honor of hosting this round, which means I get to pick the food topic.



First the rules:

Anyone can play!

A theme will be picked by the host. Participants will make a dish that follows the theme and that somehow represents their home region- town, state, area. Representation can feature a local ingredient, be a traditional dish from your area, or be a creative twist.

Participants will have 3-4 weeks (host discretion) to complete their recipes and post them to their blog (or email the pics and text), and notify the host. The host will then post the results and then let everyone know via email or message board the results are up! An explanation of your dish is required; it can be a story about the local custom or ingredient, how you came about eating/ making the recipe, or an explanation about how your creative dish fits the theme.

Fresh and local foods are encouraged!

When the round is done, the host will announce their favorite dish by updating their blog. Favorite is completely subjective to the host- no one expects the host to make and taste test all the dishes, it is just something that strikes the host’s fancy! The creator of the fave gets the honor of hosting the next round, if they so choose!

Now, onto the fun part:

The theme for this round-up is...

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PIZZA!

I hope you all have fun with this topic and put your culinary creativity to work. I'm anxious to see what you come up with (and hopefully, I'll get some great new pizza recipes to try out). If you've never participated before, don't be shy.

To participate, please send an email to elizabethscookingAThotmailDOTcom with “HomeGrown Gourmet 10″ in the subject, with your name, blog name and URL, location, and permalink to your entry. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please submit your recipe and pictures to the above email and I will post them for you. Please try to have a picture of your dish in your post. Deadline for the event is Monday, August 25, 2008. I can’t wait to see all of your entries and pick a winner for the next round!

And the Winner is... Me!

I recently found out that I'm the winner of Homegrown Gourmet 9. The theme was pasta, and I submitted my Swedish Meatball recipe. I'm totally, completely honored. Thanks, Meghan!

Now, this means that I get to host the next round. Check back soon - I'll be posting the details of the next roundup within the next 10 days

Swedish Meatballs

Anyone who knows me even remotely well knows that I absolutely love Swedish meatballs. I'd eat them once a week if I could. And when I was younger, I think I probably did.

The region of Minnesota where I grew up is very Scandinavian. So much so that we had a significant number of exchange students every year from Norway or Sweden, and many people, like my grandma, still know how to speak Swedish. Not surprisingly, Swedish meatballs make an appearance at pretty much every family gathering, holiday, or church/community event in the area. Understanding a little more when I said previously that I probably ate them about once a week? I thought so.

Every Swedish-American family has their own version of this classic. If other families are anything like mine, they have several. My dad's is slightly different from my grandma's, which is slightly different than her (late) sister's (may she rest in peace with her delicious recipe that she wouldn't give up). No one in my family will give out their recipe, and all of the above-listed people swear they make the same recipe. Not so, says my taste buds. Once, I was lucky enough to get my dad to tell me how he makes his, only to discover that he wasn't exactly honest with me about the ingredients. Is anyone getting flashbacks to that episode of Everybody Loves Raymond? Or am I the only dork that's seen pretty much every episode of that show at least 3 or 4 times? I am? .... ok. I'll make my peace with that.

I've become convinced that every Swedish meatball recipe in my family will die with its maker. The best one already has. I've been left with no choice to create my own, and I'm determined to make it even better than the recipes they won't give up. And when I do, I'll hesitate before I give it to either my grandma or my dad. Yeah, I can be vindictive like that. But I won't, because I believe that good food should be shared. My family will thank me later.

I'm not sure if I've exactly come up with the perfect recipe, but this one's close. I did my best to remember what I did so I could write about it later. I think with a bit of tweaking, I'll be able to have a recipe far superior to my late great-aunt's. Sorry, Bertha. As much as I loved your meatballs, it had to happen one day.


Swedish Meatballs
Serves 4-6
Prep Time - 15 minutes
Cook Time - 45 min

INGREDIENTS

Meatballs
2 TBSP vegetable oil
1 medium onion
2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced or crushed
~1/2 - 2/3 cup bread crumbs
1 large egg, beaten
dash nutmeg
1 tsp salt (be generous)
25 grinds freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 lbs ground beef (do not use the super lean kind)

Sauce
1 TBSP butter
2 TBSP sherry
1 1/2 cup beef stock
1/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cup half-and-half
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium low heat.

Meatballs
Place all ingredients into a large bowl, except for onion and vegetable oil. Grate the onion into the bowl (as in, use a cheese grater) and mix. I'm serious about the grating. You'll be sorry if you don't. Form into small-ish meatballs. Use a cookie scoop if you have to, but make them as round as you can.

Place them in the pan you've had heating up and brown on all sides. Remove from pan and set aside.

Sauce
Drain the oil from the pan. If there's any brown bits at the bottom of the pan, get rid of those too. You don't want them. These are not the yummy brown bits you have from when you fry chicken breasts.

Add the butter and melt. Once melted, add the sherry and chicken stock, to deglaze the pan. Whisk in the flour and cook until sauce thickens.

Add the half-and-half, Worcestershire and bay leaves. Keep whisking. Bring to a simmer, whisking often until thickened. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Remove pan from heat, add meatballs back to the pan. If do not have an oven-safe pan, transfer meatballs into a baking dish and then pour the sauce over the top. Cover. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes. Discard bay leaves before serving.

Serve this over egg noodles. You could do mashed potatoes instead, but that's not as good. Do egg noodles. You'll thank me later.

**UPDATE!!**

After careful consideration, I have decided to submit this recipe to this round of Homegrown Gourmet. It's my first submission. I'm so excited!