Swedish Meatballs

This recipe was found online.  I did modify it slightly by adding extra sour cream and some Worcestershire sauce.  You could add slightly more than the 1/4 tsp. of allspice and nutmeg and these would taste even better.  I used my medium disher to portion out the meat and got 40 meatballs.  Next time, I'll make them smaller so the flavor of the sauce will cook into the meat better.

This made a lot of meatballs.  I packaged the meatballs and sauce for the freezer and have 9 meals prepped.  I will cook the noodles as I defrost the packages.

SWEDISH MEATBALLS

Serves 6-8

2 t. olive oil, divided

1 finely diced onion

1 lb. ground beef

1 lb. ground pork

½ c. Panko breadcrumbs

2 egg yolks

¼ tsp. allspice

¼ tsp. nutmeg

Salt and pepper

SAUCE:

¼ c. butter, melted

1/3 c. flour

4 c. beef broth

¾ c. sour cream

Heat 1 T. oil in skillet. 

Add onions and cook until clear.

Combine onions with meatball ingredients and mix well.

Shape into meatballs.  Brown meatballs in skillet with remaining 1 T. of oil.

Make roux with melted butter and flour.  Cook 1-2 minutes.  Whisk in beef broth.  Bring to a boil.  Stir in sour cream.  Add meatballs to sauce and simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve over noodles.

I think I’ll add a little extra nutmeg and allspice.  For the broth, I used 2 cans of Campbell’s consommé and added enough water to make 4 cups.  I also added extra sour cream and some Worcestershire sauce.

Cheese Crackers

After doing some online research I've decided there's no good way to make cheese crackers that are low in Weight Watcher points. Most recipes call for adding butter which adds 30 points to the total! The added fat does help to make the crackers crisp but cheese contains a lot of oil too so I thought I'd try a recipe without adding the butter.

I misted my cutting board with oil and spread it out using my fingertips to prevent the dough from sticking while rolling it out.  Cover the dough with waxed paper and it won't stick to your rolling pin.

Before baking, the crackers were poked with a fork several times to help them bake evenly.  I also sprinkled them with salt which makes them a little too salty for my taste.

They wound up being slightly tender rather than crisp since I used biscuit mix rather than flour.

You want to roll them out extremely thin.  The biscuit mix has leavening in it and most cheese cracker recipes do not include any type of leavening ingredient.

Cheese Crackers

Makes 24 crackers 

4 oz. cheddar cheese, grated

¾ cup biscuit mix

4 T. buttermilk***

Put ingredients into food processor and process until ball forms.

Turn out onto an oiled surface, roll to 1/8” thick and cut into 2"

squares.

Place squares onto parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake @ 375° for 8 – 10 minutes.

·                    *** I made buttermilk by adding vinegar to skim milk

Weight Watcher points total 20 for entire recipe

Minestrone

This is what I used to make my first ever pot of minestrone soup.  Next time I will not use 1 1/2 cups of pasta.  By the time the pasta had fully cooked and the soup sat in the pot, it had absorbed too much of the liquid.  I like the broth on soups so I added an additional 2 cups of water plus 2 tsp. of chicken bouillon granules.

This makes 4 quarts.

MINESTRONE

1/2 medium onion, diced

2 small carrots, diced

2 ribs celery, sliced

1 can kidney beans

1 can great northern beans

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can green beans

4 T. tomato puree

¾ cup frozen peas

2 cups fresh baby spinach

Dried parsley

Garlic powder

½ tsp. fennel seeds

1 ½ cups penne regate pasta

2 cups water

3 tsp. chicken bouillon powder

Sweat onion, celery, and carrots until almost done.  Add undrained beans and remaining ingredients except pasta.  Simmer until spinach and peas are tender.

Add pasta and cook until pasta is desired consistency.

***Pasta can be cooked separately and added to soup.  You can store the soup and add pasta as you need to use.  That way the broth won't be totally absorbed into the pasta.