Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Swedish Meatballs

I love the Lean Cuisine and Smart One Swedish Meatball meals.  They are awesome!  I have been looking for a recipe to mimic those lunches and I combined about 4 different recipes to find one I like.  Please give this a try.   It has a lot of flavor.  Warning!  There are no vegetables in this recipe, so please serve with a large salad or a steamed vegetable. 

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground pork                       1.80
1 lb of lean ground beef                3.18
1/2 tsp all spice                               .10
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce          .10
1 tsp garlic powder                          .02
1 envelope onion soup mix             .52
1 egg                                                  .10
1/2-1 C Italian bread crumbs        .25
2 bags egg noodles                           2.84

Sauce:
2 cans 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup   1.84
2 cans 98% fat free cream of chicken soup         1.84
1 12 oz can fat free evaporated milk                      .78
S&P and all purpose seasoning to taste
1 tsp garlic powder                                                   .02


Directions:

Start with the meatballs.  In a large mixing bowl put the ground beef, ground pork, all spice, onion soup mix, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, egg and 1/2 C bread crumbs.  With clean hands mix the meat until all the spices look incorporated.  If it feels a little wet, add the other 1/2 C bread crumbs. 

Form the meat into 1 to 1/2 inch meatballs and divide into three 8x8" pans.  I got 63 meatballs out of my 2lbs of meat mixture.  In a separate bowl mix the cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soups with the evaporated milk.  Add salt, pepper and all purpose seasoning to taste.  Pour 1/3 of the sauce over all three pans of meatballs.  Here are two of the three pans I made.

I put these two pans into the freezer.  I covered them with foil and labeled them.  One pan I put into the oven at 350 degrees for 45 min.  When thawing a frozen meal, please thaw in the fridge for two days.  Then you may need to bake for 60 min if they are still cold.  When the meatballs are almost done baking boil 2/3 of a package of egg noodles.  Strain well. 

Then put noodles in a bowl and spoon the meatballs and sauce over the noodles.  Top with parsley or all purpose seasoning. 

Yum!  It smells like Ikea!  =)  I hope you give this a try.  I was able to make 3 dinners for $4.46 each.  My husband thought it was delicious.

Christie aka Keeza 

5 comments:

  1. These are great recipes and I'm really excited about freezer cooking! What are the numbers after the ingredients for? Thanks!

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  2. Also, I'm trying to be more "green" (and I'm cheap!) so I was wondering if you reuse your tin casserole dishes or buy new every time. THANKS!
    mrsalissap at yahoo dot com

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  3. Hey Alissa,

    Thankyou for your interest. I appreciate you! The numbers behind all the ingredients are the individual prices that I paid for them. I like to keep track of how much each ingredient and meal costs to encourage me to find better deals and sales.

    I personally do not reuse the foil pans. They are disposable and recyclable, but they are easy to wash and reuse if you are cafeful not to cut into the dish when serving the meal. If you prefer you can find glass 8x8" pans at the store for about $5. If you slowly buy a few pans each week/month then you can have a supply to make several freezer meals and they last a lot longer.

    Thankyou for your comment and questions. Happy cooking!

    Christie aka Keeza

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  4. Thank you for all of the info! I can't wait to try it out! :-)

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  5. Christie, that looks sooo good! I can't wait to try it!

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