Here and There: Swedish Meatballs

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Swedish Meatball

Swedish Balls were a staple in my Mom's kitchen growing up and were and are still seen at fall super and weddings.

Swedish balls are small meatballs served in a creamy sauce. Delicious as a side dish with Thanksgiving and Christmas Turkey, disappearing quickly especially with the children

I use my ebelskivers cast iron pans to cook the meatballs. Yes, I have two which I was going to give one pan away as a gift until I made meatballs in this pan. The pan forms perfectly shaped meatballs! Nothing like making Swedish Meatballs using a Danish cast Iron pan!

Swedish Meatballs can be prepared to be reheated in the oven and freeze well. I like to mix ground pork and ground beef together for extra flavor.

Swedish Meatballs 1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground beef
1 egg
1/2 c bread crumbs (optional)
S&P

Mix lightly and form one inch balls. Brown the meat balls until cooked. I use my ebelskivers cast iron pan.

Perfectly shaped meatballs

Once the meatballs are cooked, place in a dutch oven or slow cooker. Add a simple white sauce to the meatballs or two cans of good quality mushroom soup.

White Sauce

This was the first recipe I was taught when we bought our first Panasonic Microwave in 1981. Madame Benoit classes came with the purchase of the Microwave.

The bases of the recipe is equal ratio of flour and butter, increasing the ratio depending on amount of sauce needed.

2 T flour
2 T butter
1 C milk
Melt butter, 30sec in microwave
Add flour to butter and mix well
Heating the milk before adding to the butter and flour mixture speeds the process.
Whisk the heated milk into the flour and butter mixture
Beep mixture at 1 min intervals and whisk in-between until the mixture thickens
Add white sauce to meatballs and heat until meatballs are warm
Mushroom can be added to the meatball mixture

Spoon meatballs into containers or casserole to be frozen. The casserole is ready to go, reheat until hot before serving.

Monday, January 9, 2017

Christmas Holiday menu, 2016

Christmas menu, 2016

Along with a Christmas gift list, I find planning the Christmas Menu and work list a lot of fun. Although over the years, my list for Christmas gifts has shortened, yet my Christmas Menu has increased, especially for Christmas Eve Dinner. This year since we were going to have house guests over the Christmas season, I planned and prepared each day's meal so that it could be frozen in my deep freeze and brought out the day before to be popped into the oven. I find that everyone wants to hang out in the kitchen and eager to eat right away. Yes, our fast food generation!

I have posted my Menu planning list and have added links to the dishes I have blogged before, some more than others, so these links have also been included with a date. I will be blogging on the other dishes and including the link in this menu list!

I found that by making ahead casseroles, I enjoyed Christmas very much but it did take about 2 weeks to prepare before hand. But it was well worth it! Do note that since my niece was a vegetarian, I had two casseroles for each meal ready. The vegetarian dishes went well with everyone!

I must add that everything went smoothly before Christmas with my husband chopping most of the vegetables for the casseroles. Things went so went and ahead of schedule that on the 22rd, I decided to self clean my oven, not because the oven was so dirty, but my expresso pot was. Then my oven would not heat up! My hubby, an electrical engineer, could not find the fuse, so 118 dollars later, my oven was working! By then I had rethought how I was doing to prepare these dishes, at 2 am in the morning. On googling, it was suggested never to clean the oven before a holiday. Who knew!

Dec 23

Mexican Cornbread Pie