Swedish Meatballs

Here's another simple recipe with little cleanup.

All you need is 16 to 20 ounces of ground meat, Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup, a cup of low fat milk, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and some seasonings.

I used to exclusively use ground beef, but I began using whatever low fat ground meat happened to be the cheapest, with 93% fat free ground turkey becoming the most common.  You may be surprised to learn that Farmer John Ground Pork is 95% fat free, but I can't always find that. 

These ground meats are available in styrofoam trays, and that's where I prepare them, saving the usual preparation bowl.

Wash your hands thoroughly with antibacterial detergent, because this time you're going to treat the food like Play Doh.  Sprinkle seasoned salt (or garlic salt if you like that flavor better) and pepper onto the ground meat.  For turkey, I like to add a little Jamaican Allspice, but not too much.  It gives the meatballs a little extra bite that makes me forget about the fact that they are turkey instead of beef. 

Maybe you have other seasonings you like to use, and you can always customize your dishes to suit your unique tastes.  If people say they like your food, then you may discover that your tastes are universal.  With a stew, you might be able to taste it as you go, but in mixing raw meat, just take your best guess and try to remember to add, for example, less or more salt next time. 

Press all the meat together.  Lean meat requires a certain amount of pressure to become packed into meat balls.  Start rolling small meat balls, stacking them in one side of the tray.  Once you have all the meatballs made, again wash your hands thorouoghly.

Put two tablespoons of olive oil into the bottom of a pot or pan large enough to cook your meatballs without stacking them.  Heat the pan on medium until the oil is hot.  Pour the meatballs from the tray from a low level and be careful to not splatter oil. 

Brown the meatballs on one side, then turn them over to brown the other side.  When they are browned (some might call them a bit singed), add the can of soup.  I use mushroom soup most of the time, but I actually got the original recipe off a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup.  As odd as it sounds, using chicken soup with beef meatballs works pretty well, and it is a solid choice, but I like the mushroom soup a little better.

Immediately fill the soup can with low fat milk and pour that into the pot.  Stir it all up with a cooking spoon.

Turn down the heat to simmer, and cook it for another ten minutes or more. 

I eat the meatballs with Atkins Low Carb bread usually, but it actually tastes best with rice.  One of the easiest ways to make riceis by following the directions on the bag for cooking it in the microwave in a glass dish.  For some reason, different brands of rice have different directions, so just go with whatever the particular manufacturer advises. From a Q-C C perspective, cooking in teh microwave means your serving dish for the rice is the same as your cooking dish.

The glass dish and cover cleans much easier than a pan and its cover for cooking rice.  You'll find the pot in which you cooked the meatballs cleans up extremely easily, though  I don't exactly know why.  Maybe it's because I use bread to wipe the bottom of it before I wash it, not wanting to waste any.  The soup makes a tasty gravy.

A good side dish is a fresh vegetable like asparagus, broccoli or sliced zuchini steamed with butter for about two to three minutes in a glass dish in your microwave.  This cleans up easily, too.