meatballs, gravy, potatoes

Meal: Meatballs, gravy, and mashed potatoes
Approximate cost: $6 for the batch of meatballs, about $2.50 total for dinner for us Monday night
Leftovers: some mashed potatoes and gravy (lunch the next day, quite tasty)
Local ingredients: beef, egg, milk
Organic ingredients: flour (for the bread which made the bread crumbs)
Active preparation time: under an hour

I really couldn’t tell you how long I spent making meatballs Monday morning. I haven’t been keeping up with this as well as I should (since one of the points of this blog is to keep track of how long it takes to prepare home-cooked meals.) The problem is that for me, cooking - especially when I’m fixing something in bulk to freeze, or going through some other repetitive task, like making tortillas - is a meditative act for me, keeping my hands busy and letting my mind wander (I can’t tell you how many school papers have worked themselves out in my head while I was in the kitchen) - and so sometimes, I lose track of time. I’ll try to do better.

My meatballs are, more or less, made from the recipe in How to Cook Everything. I took two pounds of ground beef out of the freezer to thaw Sunday morning, so it was ready to go by Monday. I toasted a slice of the challah we’d made over the weekend (verdict: very tasty. Nice for french toast) and chopped it into small bits, then put it in a mixing bowl and adding milk to cover. Once the milk was soaked in, I added the meat. To the meat, I added one egg, a teaspoon of garlic powder, a healthy dose of dried parsley, a touch of cinammon, a healthy amount of freshly ground black pepper, and a half a teaspoon salt. I mixed it all up with my hands until everything was well combined, and formed one inch meatballs (give or take a bit, of course). I got 46 balls out of 1.85 pounds of meat. They baked at 375 for 30 minutes. After they’d cooled off, I saved out 10 (5 each) for dinner, and the rest went into the freezer. I now have the hard part of three more dinners already made up and ready to go. The 10 that were being saved for dinner went into some Tupperware along with the pan drippings, and into the fridge.

When I got home from class, I tossed 4 medium potatoes into the microwave for 12 minutes. Meantime, I pulled out the meatballs and heated 2 tablespoons of the pan drippings, plus a little olive oil, in a small saucepan. When they were good and dissolved, I added 2 tablespoons flour, and mixed until I had a nice paste. Into that, I slowly added half a cup of chicken broth, and whisked it until there were no lumps. I added half a cup of milk slowly, then added a little more, whisking to prevent lumps. When the potatoes were done in the microwave, they got mashed with a little hot milk (about a quarter of a cup), and we had a hot, tasty dinner in under 15 minutes.

Last night, we made homemade cheese pizza. Nothing fancy, but tasty.