Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Meatballs and Gravy

Meatballs and gravy. It's what's for supper. When time is short and you want good filling food, guy food demands meat and gravy.

So, when I was in the grocery today I picked up a bag of homestyle meatballs and four packs of McCormick gravy. When I got home I dropped the meatballs in a Dutch oven, whisked the gravy and they've been simmering for an hour.



Some mashed potatoes, a couple of cans of LeSeur English peas, some brown and serve rolls and I've got supper going in under an hour.

3 comments:

Rivrdog said...

Didja serve that over noodles or rice?

El Capitan said...

Naw, not rice! Split open a hot sourdough sub roll, mix the 'taters and peas, then spread thickly on the bread. Line up half a dozen meatballs down the middle, then douse with gravy!

Man, I do so love a meatball sub!

Anonymous said...

I do so love those pre made meatbulbs. (What my son called 'em when he was little.) I don't really care for the taste of McCormic's packet gravy so I make mine out of McCormick Real Beef Soup Base that comes in the little 1# tubs. Three teaspoonfuls of that in two cups of water, thickened with 1/4C flour makes a gravy I really like. Since it's just me and the Missus any more two cups of brown gravy and a dozen meatbulbs is plenty for supper. Or lunch for that matter. I've found that those plastic pet food can tops work just as well on geezer food cans, so we're not tossing out nearly as many tinned veggies as we used to.

A tasty condiment from Viking times: Smoked salt. Vikings didn't have much in the way of condiments, ketchup and mustard not having been invented yet, to say anything of wonders of civilization such as Tabasco or Pace Salsa Picante. They did have salt and they did have fire. So they smoked salt with juniper wood, also oak. I smoke some Kosher salt whenever I fire up my smoker, rock salt too. I tried both juniper and oak. Yuck. I like alder smoked Kosher and rock salt. I smoke it in an alumin(i)um pie tin. Every half hour or so I stir it up to help it smoke evenly. When it attains a nice dark amber hue, it's pretty much done. When it first comes out of the smoker it seems to want to clump, so I dry it for a while in a 250F oven. That stops the clumping. I keep the Kosher stuff in a salt horn. The rock salt goes into a salt mill I found at GoodWill for a buck. You should see the look on people's faces the first time they taste smoked salt on a baked potato. Or an apple.

I've been offered actual money for it at Mt. Man Rendezvous' from time to time. It's pre-medieval so it should be accepted at Society for Creative Anac.....Comic Book Character events.

Gerry N.