1 January 2013 - Meatballs

The meatball making frenzy all started when I was shopping for dinner ingredients one evening in December and I picked up a package of frozen Italian meatballs thinking it would go well with my main dish for the night. But then when I flipped it over and looked at the ingredients list, my heart sank. It started with ground meat, parmesan, herbs - ok fine - then descended into a list of chemicals with unpronounceable and un-spell-able names. I put it back. And I thought to myself: I can do better.

So on the first day of the year, Mr Grey cleaned house (yay!) and I made meatballs. It was sort of a mash up of this recipe and this one. I'm actually kind of blown away by the scent of nutmeg - it somehow brought out the flavour of the meat in an wonderfully savoury way - can't believe I've never cooked with it before. We ate some of the meatballs for dinner then froze the rest in meal sized batches. I went to sleep on 1 Jan 2013 feeling satisfied; the house was clean and I had meatballs in the freezer.

You know something? It was a great way to start the year - like making a gift for my future self and I plan to do more of this make ahead stuff from now on. We ate the meatballs with pasta after having a squash lesson earlier this week, Mr Grey ate them with other leftovers one night when I got home late. We ate another carton of the meatballs last night with cacio e pepe and curried carrots (both recipes can be found on this blog) and only spent 20-ish minutes in the kitchen. The cacio e pepe and carrots were made from scratch but the meatballs? We just popped them into the microwave for 4 minutes and that was it.  

Oh 2013, I think you will be the best year yet. I have my own kitchen and so many recipes to try! :)

P.S There's an alternative cacio e pepe recipe on ChubbyHubby's blog - it looks beautifully easy and there's only one pot to wash up.