Friday, December 31, 2010

New Years tradition... Meatballs in sweet and sour sauce



Tradition is important to me.  As the mom of 2 boys, I decided when they were born that I wanted to incorporate lots of traditions into their lives. 
One of those is bowling on New Years.  I hate dislike bowling, but my boys love it, and so we go.
Another tradition, it seems, has become meatballs in sweet and sour sauce. This year I decided to make my own instead of buying the big can from GFS, where we use just a little and end up throwing the rest away.  So I did.  I found an easy recipe with great reviews at Allrecipe.com, which is one of my favorite sites ever.  Then I tweaked it.

Because I guess threre are three things you need to know about me and cooking.
1. A good recipe just isn't mine unless I tweak it.
2. I don't measure anything.  (I am working on changing that however, just for you lovely readers.)
3. I like salt.  I like salt in everything, including my sweets.  (Another area where I'm completely aware others aren't like me.  The salt in these recipes will be for normal people, I'll just add mine and not tell you.)

So here's the starting point for this recipe, as I love giving credit where it's actually due.
And here's the final recipe, the main difference being that I added a little soy sauce.  As I looked at other recipes I found that mine was lacking just that one main thing.

Ingredients:
2 cups water
2/3 cup distilled white vinegar
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 (8 ounce) can pineapple tidbits, drained
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tsp soy sauce (more to taste)

Instructions:
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, mix
together water,soy sauce, distilled white vinegar,
white sugar, tomato paste, pineapple tidbits
and cornstarch. Cook, stirring occasionally,
15 minutes, or until mixture reaches desired color
and consistency. Pour over meatballs.  (I cook mine in the crockpot.)


Here we go....

So it's a new year.
Or almost.

And I was thinking I'd try something new and talk about food.  Okay, maybe that's not really all that new either.

But posting it will be.

So for the next 52 weeks, I will post my menu each week and then follow up with specific recipes each day, or most days at least. =)

Hopefully, this will keep us on track as far as healthier eating, and less extra spending.

Hope you enjoy the ride!  It's bound to be fun.