I'll just let you know what's what for the past few days. My days off at work are normally Thur-Sat, so I'm able to do things around the house; like cook. It's hard to make time for cooking during the work week and I try to do as much I can over the weekend. If I cook large portions over the weekend then at least one or two days I get to have leftovers at work. Which is better than the sandwiches I tend to make instead.
This weekend so far I have endeavored into making Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. Then this morning I made some pancakes for breakfast. I'm even contemplating making some cookies. We shall see if I go into that project because I've got a heap of dishes to do after all that cooking I did!
I've tried to make Swedish Meatballs in the past and they went alright, but I also used pre-made meatballs that time. This time around I went for the homemade meatballs and I think that changed things a million times for the better.
I've also never cooked meatballs in the oven. I've always done them in a pan on the stove top but I really liked how they turned out. They were large and moist and delicious!
The meatballs are probably the easiest part of the recipe (even if I had to tweak things). The scariest part for me when cooking something new is making a sauce. How often do you start adding in the ingredients and the instructions say it is supposed to look a certain way but when it doesn't right away a sense of panic fills the air? This would happened to me more often than not. I have begun to get better with that panic because I have learned what I can do to salvage my recipe. I had one of those moments with my sauce yesterday when I put the flour in with the butter and it was supposed to be pasty and began to clump. Instead of freaking out I just added a bit more butter and had my liquids ready to help it loosen up. In the past I would have panicked and thrown away the batch and had to start over. Not this time! I don't let it get the best of me if I can help it.
It's taken me some trial and errors to become more and more comfortable with my cooking abilities and I'm very grateful for it. There is nothing quite like a home cooked meal. One thing I'm still trying to figure out is how to get some good mashed potatoes from scratch. I'm thinking next time It'll involve my mixer instead of my pure arm strength. You can only do so much with your arm before it wants to fall off.
All in all we were very pleased with the way the meatballs and everything turned out. The recipe I used was called Ikea Meatballs and I'm pretty sure mine turned out way better than the ones at Ikea. Just saying. The benefits of making meat balls from scratch is you get to decide how large they are. Mine were definitely large and in charge. It was a great success and I will totally make these meatballs again.
I'm going to go try to do some dishes and possibly I'll attempt baking some cookies today but no guarantees. I get to have some tasty meatballs for leftovers today.
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