Porcupine (Meat) Balls

I have finally had success with a pot roast! Last nights dinner was delicious! Hooray! I did not mention it yesterday because I didn't want to jinx myself, but I have made other pot roasts and they were awful. One was done in the oven and it came out too tough. The other was done in the slow cooker and it smelled great, but had no taste and was very chewy. This one came out perfect and made the most delicious creamy gravy all on it's own. Third time is the charm, I guess. If you want the exact recipe for yourselves, which I highly recommend, it is at allrecipes.com under Kathy's Roast & Vegetables. You know, I think it was the fact that I used a bottom round roast, instead of a chuck roast.

Tonights dinner will be a recipe from Rice A Roni called Porcupine Balls. Along with cleaning out the freezer, my FiL also cleaned out the cabinets and I got four boxes of Beef Rice mix (among lots of other goods). I like rice as much as the next guy, but four boxes of beef flavor? So I went to www.ricearoni.com and found this recipe, among many others, that turn a box of rice into a meal. Who knew?

Basically you combine 1 lb. of ground beef with the rice and an egg and form meatballs. Then you brown them in a skillet. Mix the seasoning packet with water, pour it into the skillet and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. (The exact recipe can be found at the above website.) I am going to make egg noddles to go with it, and serve a garden salad too.

Our house was built in 1920 and had ONE kitchen cabinet (under the sink) when I moved in. There were no wall cabinets. The pantry used to be where the icebox was kept and it had a window that opened to the back porch because that is how the ice delivery man got the ice into the ice box. My husbands grandma (who grew up in this house) used to tell him that it was a treat to get ice chips from the ice man in the summer. Anyway, we had a hutch where we kept the dishes, with two drawers and a cabinet below it, plus a small table. I had exactly 4 square feet of counter top next to the sink. My husbands great-grandmother, whose kitchen this was, used to cook huge family dinners in there; I have no idea how she did it. Oh, and our house has exactly TWO closets, one in each bedroom. My wonderful husband renovated the kitchen for me in 2006, adding lots of floor and wall cabinets, moving the oven, adding lots of counter top space, and he laid down a new floor. The following year brought us a new refrigerator and oven.

The point of this story is that I have never had a ton of space to store things, so four boxes of rice is a lot for me. I keep what I need in my cabinets and there is no room to squirrel items away. I hate to waste food so you will never find a box of expired anything in my cabinets. A third of the food my FiL brought to me was expired and had to be thrown away, and a third of it will expire this year and you can be darn sure I am gonna use it up.

Happy eating!