Swedish Meatballs!

This was one of my favorite meals when I was growing up. Whenever mom made it, she would just use a packet of seasoning for the meatballs and the sauce/gravy. Well... I was at the grocery store tonight and I realized I hadn't eaten SM's in years and it sounded really good, but I couldn't find a seasoning packet anywhere! "Oh well, that's ok" I thought... "I'll just find a recipe!", which is one of my favorite things to do :D. Besides, I'm about 25% Swedish, so I was feeling confident :D. I found a couple recipes on www.allrecipes.com that I kind-of combined (and added my own personal flair to) and the details are below :).

First thing to do is make the meatballs:

*1.25 lbs of ground beef (I use 93% lean)
*1 cup bread crumbs (you can use regular bread crumbs or I used Italian seasoned ones that were store-bought)
*4 Tbsp. evaporated milk
*1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
*1 tsp salt
*1/4 tsp pepper
*1 egg (beaten)
*1/2 tsp onion powder
*1/4 cup dried minced onion
*1/4 tsp parsley

In one bowl, put the breadcrumbs and evaporated milk together, stir. In another larger bowl, put the beef, nutmeg, salt, pepper, onion stuff, parsley, and egg. Add the bread crumb mix and knead with your hands until all mixed together. Grab about 2 tablespoons worth of meat mix and roll it up in your hands to make a meatball. Set aside on a cookie sheet/wax paper/or some other non-stick surface. Roll up the rest of the meatballs.

In a non-stick pan, put about 4-6 Tablespoons of butter and put on stovetop at medium-high heat. Once the butter is melted, add about half of the meatballs and allow to brown thoroughly. Shake the pan slightly to turn the meatballs until they're uniformly brown (I also had to use a pair of tongs, because the shaking didn't do the best job). Cook the other half of meatballs and set all aside.

Sauce:

*Rest of the can of Evaporated Milk
*1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
*1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
*Dash of Pepper
*1/4 tsp. salt (or to taste)

Put in small pot and cook on low-medium until smooth and hot. I stirred with a whisk to help it all mix together :).

Finally, cook up some egg noodles or rice. Most people eat Swedish Meatballs with noodles, but I grew up eating them on rice. I just realized tonight that that's probably because my dad hates noodles, but I like them both ways :). Here's a picture of the final result:




Let me know if you have any questions and if you try to make this yourself! Good luck :).

Ground Beef Soup for Crock Pot

This is a recipe/soup that I came up with by myself right after graduating from college, when I had to start feeding myself :P. I used the "smell test", which is basically this: go through your pantry/cupboards and smell your spices. If one smells like something you would want to include in the food you're making, add it! I ended up using a lot of spices, but most of them are pretty common, so hopefully you won't have any problems with finding everything. I gathered everything up for a group picture!



In case you can't see everything, here's a list of ingredients:
Rubbed thyme (dash)
Onion Powder (couple of dashes)
Minced Garlic (1/2 tsp.?)
Ground Cayenne Red Pepper (teeny teeny dash)
Cilantro Leaves (couple of shakes)
Whole Kernel Corn - I highly recommend the Del Monte brand
Oregano leaves (couple of shakes)
Cut Green Beans (again, I recommend Del Monte)
Ground Cumin (a few shakes)
Hunt's tomato sauce (1-1.5 cans)
Minced/chopped onions (I use the dried kind, but you can use real onions if you want to) - a few tablespoons
Chili Powder - a couple tablespoons
Salt & Pepper (in our snowmen shakers - it's Christmas year-round!) - season to taste
A couple of medium-sized potatoes
A couple of medium-sized carrots
1 Celery stalk
Approximately 1 pound ground beef (I like the 93% lean/7% fat ratio)

To start, brown the beef and set aside - I actually like to strain the beef to get all of the fat out and then let it sit until I'm ready for it. Peel the potatoes and carrots and wash the celery. I like to slice the celery and carrots nice and thin so that they aren't crunchy in the soup. Cut the potatoes in small-ish cubes, but not too small or they might just dissolve.



Pour the tomato sauce, corn, and green beans into the crock pot. This time I poured everything into the pot without draining the liquid out of the cans first... if you choose to drain them, you'll need to add more sauce/water at the end. (As a side note, Aunt Shi, Del Monte and Hunt's offer low- or no-sodium cans of veggies and sauce! Or, if you have a garden, you can always use your own veggies :)) Add spices and stir.



Add your fresh veggies to the pot and stir. Finally, put the ground beef in the pot and stir. It will probably need some more liquid, so I usually add about 1/2 can more of tomato sauce and a can of water (I use one of the veggie cans and fill it up with water). Make sure it's enough liquid to cover all the veggies and beef and stir everything in.

Set your crock pot on high and cook for about 4 hours, or until all of the veggies aren't crunchy anymore and the smell is making your stomach growl :D. Test it as it cooks, just to make sure it's the right flavor for your tastes :). Adjust the seasoning accordingly. I actually put the pot (it's removable from the part you plug in) in the fridge and I'll plug it in at lunch tomorrow so that it will be ready just in time for dinner :).

A few alternatives for this recipe are:
Hunt's low-sodium tomato sauce
Del Monte no-sodium-added corn/green beans
Ground buffalo/bison
Ground deer meat
Ground turkey?
Fresh onion instead of minced dried onion flakes

Basically, I highly recommend using the smell test. That's how I have come up with a lot of my favorite recipes. Your taste depends a lot on your nose, so you can't go wrong with smelling everything first! :) Just be careful with the cayenne pepper... you probably don't want to do a lot of sniffing with that :P.

This is a lot easier to make than it sounds... and it's great to make ahead and leave in the crock pot so that you don't have to worry about cooking dinner after work. Please let me know if you make it and how you like it! I've made it quite a few times and have always gotten great reviews! :)

Here's what it should look like right before you start cooking it:



It looks even more yummy when it's ready to eat! Anywho, good luck and enjoy! :)

Chicken Enchiladas

This is a very simple recipe to make... and one that tastes good too! I have a couple of different chicken enchilada recipes, but this one is always fun to make because it has green sauce :).

To find the recipe, just look for the can of green enchilada sauce... I think it's Old El Paso brand, and the recipe is on the back of the can.



Here's the cream cheese/chicken/chile filling:


This is right before I put them in the oven. Jason likes lots of cheese, so I loaded them up :)


I guess I didn't take a final picture. Hmm... maybe we ate them too fast and I didn't get a chance. Anyway, they're yummy! Try them out sometime :).

Creamer!

Ok, so I know this blog is supposed to be about cooking and baking, but I have to sneak this post in :). I drink coffee every morning, so I've tried nearly every single flavor of creamer available in the grocery store. Well... I think I've finally found my Holy Grail creamer! It's one of the special "World Cafe" Coffee Mate flavors called "Belgian Style Chocolate Toffee". Yum! It's so creamy and has a nice chocolate flavor that's not too overwhelming. It's almost like I'm drinking coffee flavored hot chocolate :). I absolutely love it! Here's a picture so that you can see what I'm talking about:



The downside is that the only place I've seen it (so far) is at Target. I haven't looked at WalMart or Publix, so it could be there, but I don't know for sure... and it's NOT at Kroger.

As a side note, my second favorite flavor is probably hazelnut... or just plain 'ol creamer with a bit of sugar :).

Ginger's Prize!

Here's Ginger, my friend who won my blog contest (and Sal, a kid from church, behind her) :). I made her a chocolate cream pie! This one's special, though. Even though I said I was going to make a homemade treat (and I don't consider pudding pie in a store-bought shell "homemade"), I did add my own twist to it.

Here's what I did:

I used a large chocolate pudding box (mix) and added 2 cups of cold milk. The box says 2.5 cups, but I don't do that :D. After beating the mix and milk together with a whisk for about 2 minutes (it's pretty thick by then), you fold in half of a small container of Cool Whip. Slowly stir this together until the color is uniform. It will be a medium brown. Then, I just added a dash of cinnamon to give it a different taste. I did lick the spoon after scooping it into the pie shell and it was so good! It almost tasted like Jason's famous birthday torte :). Anyway, pour the concoction into the chocolate graham shell and add a little dollop of cool whip on top. Chill for a few hours, just to make sure it's set.

That's it! So easy... and great for the summer, because it's chocolaty yet cool :). Let me know if you try it... it's muy bueno!

Ginger, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I gave you such an unhealthy dessert, but I really couldn't help it. It was the fastest and easiest thing I could make :).

CONTEST WINNER!!!

The winner of my blog contest/giveaway is GINGER!!! I used www.random.org to generate a completely random number out of the entries, so it was completely unbiased! Congrats, Ginger! I'll deliver your treat to you next weekend :). I'll post pictures of the treat so that you can dream of how it tastes :D.

Thanks to everyone who entered. I loved reading your comments! I was cracking up :)... and getting hungry! You made me want to bake all weekend just so I could eat all of your favorite desserts :). If you had fun with it (I did!), I just might do another giveaway in the future.

Have a great rest of your Memorial Day and congrats again to Ginger! :)

Contest/Giveaway!

Since I have been slacking on this blog majorly, I've decided to do something to re-kickstart it! I know that not many people read this blog, but that's ok! I'm doing a contest/giveaway and will send a loyal reader a homemade treat :). Here's what you need to do to enter the contest:

1) post a comment telling me your favorite dessert :)
2) include your email address somewhere in the comment so that I can email you for your mailing address if you're the winner :).

That's it! Feel free to leave as many comments as you want. The contest will end on May 24th at midnight, EST. Any comments posted after that time will not count, sorry! :P I'll do a random drawing on Memorial Day, May 25th and will announce the winner and what treat they'll be getting... and pictures of the treat! :)

Good luck and comment away!
~Lex