Cooking!

Tonight I'm making montuos's Tomato Bread Soup, which I haven't had in ages and which I'd nearly lost the recipe to -- it's safely printed out, now.

This time I have Italian sausage, mild stuff, so I've got that right, but it's ground not links -- easier to deal with, I figure,and the taste if not texture should be the same. We shall see.

Last week I made her potato soup, which I cannot find the link for (help?), so I'm glad I did write that one down. I messed with it some -- started out with a turnip, chopped pretty fine and sauteed for a while in butter, before I added the onion and garlic; I also tossed in a bunch of paprika at about this point. I don't think I did anything else very differently though I can't be sure. It was awfully, awfully good and made happy work-lunch-leftovers for a while, too.

Also last week was my first solo attempt at Swedish meatballs. Despite the addition of a couple of eggs to the meatball recipe the meatballs fell apart anyway but tasted absolutely delicious as usual. I have since heard that the recipe I have calls for cooking the meatballs too long, so I'll try it again sometime and put them in later; we'll see.

In other news, the new place is shaping up great, and I'm going into business. Well, kinda small scale, but.

Also, there's a cat in the laundry.

Food, a discussion.

First off, the link to montuos's potato soup recipe. The changes I'd forgotten: no Tabasco (I don't like hot and Ray doesn't like vinegary) and no bacon bits (Ray forgot to bring over the bacon). Also used frozen home-made chicken stock instead of bullion *smug*. Other than that and what I said before, pretty good stuff. Next time, more turnips.

And now, the requested swedish meatballs recipe:

Meatballs:

1.5 lb ground beef
3/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 tsp salt
small scoop garlic paste
dash pepper
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp milk
1 egg

Mix everything together, form into bite-sized balls, and fry in butter until brown. (I doubled the recipe, actually, and they held their shape pretty well through this part).

Sauce:

1 small can tomato paste
1 qt. diced tomatoes
2 tbsp vinegar
4 tbsp brown sugar
3 bay leaves
2 red peppers, diced

Mix and cook with the matballs for an hour or so. Just before serving, mix in 4 tbsp sour cream. (This is double the sauce recipe and made some changes in the tomatoes, since we can canned tomatoes from last fall; the sauce came out just as I remember it. This is the step where most of the meatballs have always fallen apart. Still tastes amazing, though.)

Commentary? I think Louis at work is right and I'm cooking the meatballs in the sauce for too long, but the oatmeal might be the problem as well, or the onion might not have been diced up small enough. Dunno.