Our St Patrick's Day in Pictures

Swedish Meatballs

Can you believe I moved to this country without asking either of my parents for their meatball recipe? How can a Swedish girl survive without Swedish meatballs? I guess I could've just emailed them, but for some reason I didn't. Maybe I was really hungry and needed the recipe ASAP. Anyways, I brought a bunch of cook books with me from home and one of them was a cook book I got in 7th grade that's all about meat. So that's the recipe I've been using for 8½ years now. (Mamma,or pappa, there's room in my inbox if you ever find yourselves wondering what to fill your time with.)

Here is the recipe from the Meat Book:

(The recipe is in metric but I'll try to convert it the best I can without giving you measurements like 3.87562973465i47 cups of whatever. Yes, because lower case i's normally appear when converting.) 

SWEDISH MEATBALLS

(4 servings)

1 lbs ground beef (or chuck, or something like that)

1/3 cup rolled oats + 1 tbsp potato flour (or 1/3 cup plain bread crumbs)  

I use bread crumbs. I think you could use leftover potatoes too.

2/3 cup water, milk or beef stock basically some form of liquid. Some people use heavy cream.

1 egg

1 tsp salt

1/5 tsp black pepper  

measure that one without metric cups, ha! (I do have a tiny little thing for that, but does anyone ever use it, I wonder?)

1 tbsp grated raw onion

(If you're making these for Christmas add a little bit of ground allspice. But not too much.)

 1. Mix rolled oats, potato flour and liquid, or bread crumbs and liquid. Let sit for 10 min.

 2. Add egg, salt, black pepper and onion.

3. Add ground meat. Work it all together, but not  too long or it will turn all "thread-y" on you. Well, it is my blog. I can translate how ever I want. Believe me, you do not want your meat thread-y. That would result in dry meatballs.

4. Fry a little piece of meat to make sure it tastes right. You don't want to roll all of your meatballs and fry 'em up just to realize you were way low on the salt. Been there, done that. If you're brave enough you could taste it raw. I'm not!

5. Wet your hands in cold water and roll little meatballs. Don't make them Italian meatball big. Think tootsie pop. Well, maybe not that small. 

 6. Fry the meatballs in a frying pan until evenly browned.

 7. My book says to put them in a pot once they are beautifully browned and keep frying them without added liquid for about 5-10 minutes on low. I put mine in the oven.

If you want gravy, and who doesn't, rinse the frying pan with some water after every turn. 

 Make sure not to use burnt grease. Pour the drippings in a pan and add beef stock until you have about 1 2/3 cups of liquid. Mix 2 tbsp flour with some cold water. Add to pan and stir. Bring to a boil and let boil for 3-5 minutes. Add a little bit of cream or half and half. You might need some more salt and pepper. And here is the secret to a good gravy. Sugar! A little bit of sugar or jam and it will be delicious. Lingonberry jam is da bomb with this!

I love my meatballs with boiled potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jam. How do you like yours?

The only thing missing is the lingon berries.

I also want to let you know that you don't have to roll the meat into meatballs. This meat is also great for little patties. Try making patties with a small piece of cheese in the center. That is delish!

Breakfast Bar

A few weeks ago we were in the mood to make these, my girls and I. We didn't have all of the ingredients, but we weren't going to let that stop us. We went pantry shopping and found some other yummy things to throw in the mix and came up with something delish! I'm not sure they would make it back on the Eating Well web site, but they sure made it into our family cook book. Here we go:

 

• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 tablespoon flaxseeds,we used the regular dark ones but I would love to try the golden ones soon.
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 1 cup Reeses puffs
• 1/3 cup craisins
• 1/3 cup chopped dried apricots
• 1/3 cup chopped raisins
• 1/4 cup organic creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup organic sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Follow the directions in the provided link above. These are great to have for the mornings on the go.

Yummy for my Tummy - Snack Time

I was looking through the pictures I took with my phone in January to see which ones to save and which ones could go and found a picture of my snack. Kind of random, you might think, but I find myself taking pictures of my food all the time. And this one made me hungry so I'm definitely on my way over to the pantry and fridge to dig out a couple of plain, unsalted rice cakes, some roasted red pepper Tribe hummus and some cucumber. And sprinkle with a tiny pinch of kosher salt and some freshly ground black pepper. My mouth is watering as I'm writing. Just look at the picture and you will understand why. Yum! Or Mums! (See, I snuck in a little Swedish lesson for you there.)

Ok, so I'm drooling. Gotta go!

Yummy for my Tummy - Lime-y Black Bean Soup

Maybe the correct way of spelling lime-y would be limy...
but it looks funny so we won't do that.

Anyway... this is such a simple, quick, healthy, cheap meal
that it's a staple here at our house. 

Ingredients:

1 cup Newmans Own Tequila Lime Salsa

2 cans drained, rinsed, organic black beans

  (please, use organic so your ingredient list isn't a mile long. 

beans should be beans, don't ya think?)

2 cups low sodium chicken stock/broth 

(10 points to anyone who can tell me the difference between stock and broth.)

½ lime

chopped parsley

sour cream

Heat the salsa for a few minutes, stirring often. 

Add beans and stock. Or broth. 

Bring to a boil, lower heat, simmer, covered,  for about 15 minutes.

Let the soup cool down for a little bit then ladle about half of it into a magic bullet. Just because you don't have a food processor just yet. Or a blender.

 Puree and return to the rest of the soup.

Squeeze the lime into the soup. Now we like it pretty lime-y. Or limy. Add as much or as little as you like here. 

Add parsley, save some for garnish.

Serve warm with a do do a dollop of sour cream and sprinkled parsley. 

Did you sing that last line too?

Enjoy!