Cleaning Up Loose Ends and the Meatball Recipe

When I woke yesterday and came downstairs, I was greeted with this…

a kitchen FULL of dirty pots, pans and roasters.  Our final guests left our son’s graduation at 10:30 last night and I wasn’t in the frame of mind to start cleaning the kitchen so yesterday was spent returning the house back to “normal”.

The food situation turned out well…we had enough meatballs!!  After all of my drama over trying to figure out how many meatballs I should make,  we ended up making 600.  We had about 30 leftover….and in my mind, that was about as perfect of planning as a person can get so….after reading through all of the comments the closest guesses were from Pat, Tammy K and LoriD.  I put those names in a hat and Pat is the winner.  Here’s what I am sending her…

It’s a fun book from Kansas City Troubles Changing Seasons.  You can make a table runner or a pillow.  Then you can make a panel and change out the panel with the seasons.  Here’s the back view.

For those of you who are wondering how long it took and all the meatball making details here’s what I will tell you.  It was actually quite easy.  The night before I cut up all the onions and rolled the crackers into crumbs.  The next morning I started in at 7:30 and finished at about 11:00.  My daughter Kayla was home that day and she was busy making salads and getting other things ready so for the most part, the majority of the meatball making was done by me.

Here’s the recipe:  I made 6 double batches of this to get the 600 meatballs.

3 pounds hamburger
1 cup milk
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup cracker crumbs
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t pepper
2 t chili powder

Mix together and make into meatballs.  When I make them, I get about 50 meatballs. Now you need to decide if you want them to be BBQ meatballs or it you want them to have a white gravy.  For the white gravy version, bake the meatballs in the oven for 25 minutes.  Pour warm gravy over the top, return to the oven for 15 minutes.  Being my hubby farms and I NEVER know when he will be in to eat, I throw them in a crock pot and keep it on low or warm until he comes in.  Keep reading for the BBQ version.

For White Gravy:
6 T margarine
1 can of Cream of Chicken Soup
1/2 cup flour
1  cup sour cream
1 T beef soup base
Mix ingredients together in a pan over medium heat on the stove.  Once all ingredients are mixed, add water to a gravy consistence.

To make them BBQ Meatballs mix up this sauce and place it over the meatballs BEFORE the meatballs go in the oven.

2 cups ketchup
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 t liquid smoke
1/2 t garlic powder
1/4 c chopped onion

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

These are such great meatballs.  If you are a person that does freezer meals, these are perfect.  I have frozen the meatballs before I cooked them, and I have frozen the meatballs after I cooked them…either way they have turned out just fine.

Oh…one more loose end…The winner of the Moda Bake Shop Just Wing it Leftovers is..
#3 Pam

If you are a winner I will send you an email…
And now I feel like a can make a HUGE sigh of relief…and I think tomorrow I’ll be back to normal…oh wait, there’s a tomato issue I need to address.  More about that tomorrow.