BSI – Figs! Prosciutto Purses Stuffed with Balsamic Fig Goat Cheese

Today feels more like October than the end of August!  Although I love this weather – it always reminds me of field hockey season when it gets chilly outside!  Sadly, no one plays anywhere near where I live so I only see random games on t.v. every once in a while!

I used the last of our steak last night and made steak breakfast sammies for me and Tony. 

Then Tony and I made our last trip to the CSA farm.  We both agreed we would much rather hit up our local farmers market – that way we get what we want and in the amounts we want.  Seriously, the last three weeks we were limited to just 2 ears of corn!  Really??  So in 8 weeks of CSA I got 6 ears of corn, maybe a pound of broccoli, 2 pounds of zucchini and probably 6 pounds of tomatoes and a bunch of little stuff.  I will miss the sweet dog who greeted us every week!

I was not kidding when I said we had a garden growing in our gutters!  And we just cleaned these out about a month ago!  I was brave and got on the roof for the clean up.  Sadly I threw our hose down on the drive from the roof and the nozzle shattered to pieces!  Oops!  And the funny thing is that I kill almost every plant that comes in my house – instead of a green thumb I have a black thumb!

I didn’t realize Tony was taking pics!

After the roof cleaning and lunch, Hannah and I went to the store to pick up the last needed things for my SIL birthday party at our house tomorrow. 

The Menu!

• Chicago style bbq ribs
• Baked potato bar with sour cream, bacon bits, chopped green onion and whipped butter
• Fresh corn and black bean salad
• Garlic green beans
• Insalata Caprese (fresh mozzarella with CSA tomatoes and basil)

Dessert:  Spiced Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

My mouth just watered when I typed that – this is definitely NOT a low cal dessert, it calls for 1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil – but damn, its really good!

For appetizers I decided to tie in the BSI challenge this week to include figs.  This weeks hostess is Elizabeth from Guilty Kitchen.  I was too scared to even attempt to do anything with fresh figs.  I think the only fig I’ve had before today was a Fig Newton!  I bought a package of dried figs – only $2.79 for this ring!

I cut the stem off and opened it up.  Looks like the inside of a Fig Newton! 😀

I chopped up 6 figs and then added 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil and salt and pepper.  I let it sit to kind of rehydrate the dried fig. 

Next I added goat cheese – by far my favorite cheese out there!  This one is a garlic herb blend. 

Then I placed a slice of prosciutto de parma on my board, and added about a teaspoon of the goat cheese mixture then wrapped it up like a purse.

I have green onions for our baked potato bar tomorrow, and thought to blanch some of the stems to wrap up my cute little packages!

All wrapped up!  I love the combination of the sour creaminess of the goat cheese with the salt from the prosciutto and slight sweet from the fig.

And then I hit “focus” on my photo editing software (Picasa) and it only colored in the green onion.  I thought it looked cool!

Dinner was simple – I had ground beef I needed to use up and Hannah felt like pasta – so pasta and meatballs it is!  The secret to a great meatball is to get a good crust on the outside, then let it simmer in the pasta sauce until cooked through.

Italian Meatballs

• 1 pound ground chuck
• 1/2 cup Italian style bread crumbs
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper

I pan fry my in a combination of Pam, 1 teaspoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter.  This mix makes 8 big balls (that’s what she said!) and 8 meatballs a little bit bigger than marble size.

Let them set before moving them around, otherwise they fall apart.  Keep turning until all sides have a crispy crust.

This sauce is one I made last week – it has an orange hint to it because I made the sauce from both red and yellow tomatoes.  Just let the meatballs cook while the pasta cooks – it only takes about 20 minutes for these size meatballs to continue cooking in the sauce.

My plate – 3 meatballs, sauce, 1/2 ounce mozzarella cheese and a cup of pasta.  I did kick my plate up with crushed red pepper flakes though! 😀

Hope everyone had a great Saturday!  I think Tony is going to watch some fights on t.v. so Hannah and I will probably rent The Soloist – never saw it when it came out in the theater!  See you tomorrow!