Fat Yummy Meatballs

Meatballs:

1lb ground meat

3/4 c crushed croutons

1/4 c fresh chopped parsley

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 beaten egg (or just squished with your hand into the meat :)

1/4 c italian dressing

1/2 c crumbled feta

1/2 fresh shredded parmesean cheese

1 tbsp butter

olive oil

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Sauce:

Jar of Spaghetti sauce

1 can diced tomatoes

italian spice

garlic powder

onion powder

red pepper flakes

Mash all ingredients above line, except oil and butter together and form into racket ball sized balls. Drizzle olive oil and butter in sauce pan. Roll meatballs around pan for 15 minutes over medium heat.

Honestly I was kind of faking the meatballs and didnt think about the sauce, so I kind of threw it together while the meatballs were cooking. BUT it turned out pretty good. I added a jar of my fav spaghetti sauce and a can of diced tomatoes, garlic powder, italian spice, and onion powder, and red pepper flakes. Let it simmer with meatballs 5 more minutes, until it was warmed through. It was a very simple tomato sauce, but went really well with the meatballs. The red pepper flakes were a favorite ingredient of mine:) Serve over pasta and with fresh Parmesean cheese.

Cafe Mexicano

Saw mexican doffee recipe on the food network and had to try it out....low carbified, of course...
Black cup of coffee (any roast)
tbsp of reduced sugar oj
tbsp brown sugar substitute
shake or two of ground cinnamon
DRINK!
I am a big advocate of the latte, never drink coffee without cream...a LOT of cream, and yet this was very interesting. I think the orange juice was the kicker. I would normally say don't fruit the coffee, but it was really good.
This is the original link for the recipe, for those of you who eat sugar ;)
Cafe Mexicano (Spiced "cafe de olla" coffee)

SNOOOOOWWW!!!

Okay, the snow got a little more serious, so I braved the weather and went outside.

Greta cannot contain herself, and can't figure out what it is...but oh how she loves flying objects.

Go Gators!

He hit me once, and only once.

Below are the first pictures I took. Lame I realize, but the snow didn't get serious until later, and I wasnt willing to put shoes on pre-snowman snow levels.

Wordless Wednesday...

Greta Donut

The temperatures have dropped drastically in the past few days here in Atlanta, and poor naked Greta was freezing her little weimaheiney off at night. We like to keep the heat at 60ish at night to create a frosty bedroom, so the poor animals were freezing to death-more than I knew. After consulting with my sewing elders, I decided on this fleece design. Since Greta sleeps on the couch anyway, she just needed a barricade around the sides to hold in some body heat. So I cut a fleece blanket in half ($5), and sewed two 60" tubes out of it. Then stuffed the two tubes with three king sized washable pillows ($12) and cut ties in the fleece at each end of the tubes and tied them off, to create this triangular snuggle donut. $17 dollars total. Beats the $150 dollar Ginat dog beds at the store.

She found it within seconds and hasn't gotten up all night.

Amelia, the cat likes to try to cuddle, but Greta does not approve.

I think Amelia had a plan. But she did eventually get kicked out and was given the extra fleece blanket (purchased, but not used) and has been snuggled up inside since. THe poor animals were freezing to death it seems.

Wintery Drinks

I am bubbling over with fall festiveness as the weather begins to cool. though it's only a fraction of what I wish. I want to wear my booooots, and scarf, and hat. Though I am not looking forward to scraping ice off my car and sliding down hills while in my car. Anyway...I am getting my research done for that fateful day that is to come when I need to snuggle in a blanket and drink warm stuff. While in search, I came across this article about warm sugar-free drink ideas-since we must be low-carb to fit into our nice sweaters. This is the link.
Top 5 Low-carb beverages

The link above includes DaVinci syrups, of which I am well stocked in all my favorite flavors already (you can find them at World Market and often TJMaxx. However, it informed me that they also carry tea concentrates which I didn't know about.
The other thing that was cool was the Big Train Mocha No Sugar Added Blended Ice Coffee. It's a pack of 25 individually wrapped mocha blended iced coffee mix packets for $24.35 at Amazon.