Spaghetti and Meatballs

Finally, those homemade meatballs I was talking about... The recipe says to roll out 24, but I wanted big honking meatballs. I made eight. Usually I buy the pre-made turkey version, which comes with maybe a dozen per pack. For the low low price of half as much, I was able to buy double the weight in ground beef and come away with meatballs that left everyone satisfied. Plus the other half of my ground beef pack. Plus two real lunches. There are never enough meatballs leftover from the turkey version to make TWO lunches. It's usually just one sketch lunch. But with REAL meatballs, I was able to turn eight into five meals. Nice.

Swedish Meatballs

These are more frozen IKEA meatballs, but the sauce is all homemade. And this time I gave it about 20 minutes. Soooo good. So much better than the last time I tried to make a sauce without using the real drippings. Maybe too much sauce, though.

Swedish Meatballs

I've made Swedish meatballs from scratch before, but we picked up a bag of frozen meatballs and a jar of lingon berries the last time we were at IKEA. One day I sent LV to work with a tub of meatballs. And only meatballs. This night I actually made a sauce and egg noodles to with frozen meatballs. Much better. (Though, I think I still prefer the homemade variety.)

Spaghetti and Meatballs

"Do you need me to bring anything home?"

"No, just yourself."

About ten minutes later, I realized I should have checked around before saying I didn't need anything. We were out of pasta sauce and meatballs were on the menu. Oops.

I had can of crushed tomatoes in the cabinet. No paste. Not a lot of vegetables to choose from. Just the can of tomatoes. So I decided I would figure out how to make that one can taste like a good sauce. Garlic, olive oil, a beef cube, and a lot of time simmering led to what I decided was an all right sauce. LV seems to be allergic to oregano, so I used basil. If anything, it looked good--a chunky sauce instead of the usual Prego over steamed asparagus.

Wings & Rigatoni

Weeks ago I bought a package of wings and then stuck them in the freezer. All sorts of other goodies were also added to the freezer that haven't exactly been devoured. Thus, the wings for Football Sunday had some company--bagel bites and pigs in blankets. A plate like that will leave you not wanting to stay put the couch while you contemplate what you've done to yourself.

LV said he had seen a commercial for meatballs, and that sounded like a really good idea for dinner. I didn't want spaghetti. I made what was left of a box of rigatoni. Then I added all the frozen vegetable that would have been on the side to the pot of meatballs. That probably would have worked better with more delectable vegetables.

Swedish Meatballs

We had made a few trips to IKEA, so it wasn't that LV needed a Swedish meatball fix. I hadn't made them in what felt like forever and was up to the challenge. It was probably easier this time than the last time I made them.

Green Squash and Spaghetti

I felt we needed some vegetables (a lot, really), but didn't feel like eating frozen green beans. All we had in the fridge was green squash. So, I cut it all up and threw it in with the sauce. It was... okay.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Heat-and-serve meatballs with a jar of pasta sauce and frozen vegetables. Mmm...

Spaghetti and Meatballs

After a week away, I didn't feel like diving into anything too complicated. (Not that I've been diving into anything complicated lately...) Mushrooms were on sale, so the sauce includes fresh mushrooms and onions. Nothing spectacular.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

I always seem to focus more on the meatballs than the noodles when taking pictures of this. Mmm... Spaghetti.

Fun with Prepared Foods

I've had Oreos that were frosted on the wrong side, but I don't think I'd ever looked for the reversed stamp in the frosting before...

The options were meatballs or pork, and LV chose meatballs. I had to make the pork anyway so it didn't go bad. I just didn't take a picture of it yet. (Broiled, maple pepper, etc. You've seen it here before.)

Scones!

This recipe for cinnamon scones from an old issue of Food & Wine has been stuck to my refrigerator for months. I finally decided to make it this morning. It also gave me an excuse to finally get out the food processor.

I didn't read the directions carefully enough, so mine don't look like the three pictured in the issue, but they were pretty tasty for a first. (If a little bland and undercooked.)

This is leftover spaghetti from the night before. I thought it looked like an absurd amount of food, but was told that it is a small dish and "Don't treat me like a freak." The motion blur was approved, though. ;0)

Swedish Meatballs

I never thought it would take so long to make Swedish meatballs again... But here we are like a year later with the encore of Swedish meatballs. Just as well received the second time. After Scrappy claimed she had never had them before. It's been a long time.

Wedding Pasta for One

Me and a bottle of pinot grigio made this revival of Italian wedding pasta the night of a company holiday party. Luckily, the leftovers are quite tasty...

Spaghetti (with new cookware)

We received a lovely 10-piece set of cookware in July that I didn't really put to use until September. So, even though this wasn't very difficult (store bought heat-and-serve meatballs), I had the pleasure of using matching and correctly sized pots. Yay.

Leftovers

It's been a while since we made any Chef Boyardee at our house. A really long time in fact. When Luis asked me to combine the macaroni & cheese and meatballs in spaghetti sauce that were sitting in the fridge, that's all I could picture. He asked me if that was gross to combine the two. Um... Isn't that why The Chef is so popular with kids?

Spaghetti and Meatballs

LV swears he is not cute. But I thought it was absolutely adorable when I came home from my photo class and found him eating dinner at the table. (We never eat dinner at the table anymore...) So I took many pictures, but decided to crop him out to save myself from having to hear about his hair or how un-cute he thinks he is. (Sooooo cute!)

Italian Wedding Pasta

LV proclaimed this the best dish he'd ever eaten... that contained spinach.

The making of the dish was rather traumatic. The recipe says to make the meatballs, then start the pasta while the meatballs are baking in the oven. By the time they come out, the cream sauce on the pasta is done, and everything is ready to be mixed together at one time. That's what the recipe says. The recipe also says the prep time is 30 minutes. That means I would have 10 minutes to chop up all the ingredients and roll out at least 36 meatballs. The recipe is a little off.

Making pancakes is not my only problem with the new stove's range. Water doesn't boil. I started the water as soon as the meatballs went into the oven. The meatballs came out and went back in for two more minutes. When they came out a second time, the water still wasn't boiling. It was 8:30 and everything still needed to be baked all together for 20 minutes. I ended up throwing an oven mit across the kitchen in a "Why won't the water boil" tantrum.

In the end, the dish looked and tasted good. When I said it's too bad we don't bring lunches to work, LV said he would bring the wedding pasta. He really did like it that much.

Things That Didn't Merit Separate Entries

I couldn't believe it had been a week since my last post, so I decided to take a picture of my fridge to sort of show that I haven't been eating McDonald's and ordering pizza for a week.

1. CHICKEN QUESADILLAS The night before I made the Veal with Lemon-Capers sauce, I made chicken the way we used to at the old place: salt, pepper, olive oil. If we'd had some Project Runway to yell at and more Heineken, I would have thought it was 100 degrees outside. Three days later, the leftover chicken was marinated with chipotle sauce, chopped and thrown into the tortillas that are labeled in the photo. I assumed we had cheese when I decided to start making quesadillas. We had a lot of Kraft American singles...

2. SPAGHETTI & MEATBALLS It was pretty, but I didn't make the sauce or the meatballs. There's a recipe for homemade pasta in my cookbook, but I certainly didn't feel like doing anything but pouring from boxes, jars and containers that night.

3. CHICKEN DELICIOUS We ordered a roasted chicken (the tinfoil) from what LV thought would be the new Chirpin' Chicken. The chicken was really dry and nothing at all like Chirpin'. But the coleslaw and mashed potatoes were good. Compared to the really dry chicken.

4. PIZZA Tuesday we had Scrappy as per usual, so I suggested making one of the DiGiorno thin crust pizzas. Unlike LV's last oven, the new one has no clock, no timer, and doesn't beep when it's done preheating. Making a post out of his success with frozen pizza might have been rather condescending, though.