BH&G Cooking for Two: Meatball Stroganoff

On Sunday morning I drove my buddy Mr. Buckeye* to the airport (lucky bitch flew to a Mexican resort for a week of sun, scuba, and margaritas while I’m here in Baltimore dealing with never ending body work on my car that was broken into. Two weeks ago. Color me pissed. But that is neither here nor there. I’m here to talk about food), so the night before I offered to make him dinner while he packed for his vacation and watched the Ohio State vs. Iowa game. Because I am an awesome friend.

Well, and I need content for the blog.

Since I am such a smart cookie (and detest to waste perfectly good food), I chose a dish from Better Homes & Gardens Cooking for Two (1977 printing) so there wouldn’t be any leftovers. Well, there are leftovers, but they are in his freezer. You see, this dish is from the “Meals to Double-Up and Divide” chapter. Once made, the meatballs (48 in all) are used in four different meals. Brilliant!

It’s a veritable meatball bounty!

Of course, I first started with the basic meatballs:

Um, I kinda over-baked the meatballs. I blame Buckeye’s newfangled electric oven. For reals.

So once those were done, I prepared the meatballs in the style of “Special Meal in Minutes” and made the sides.

I should have taken a picture of the stove top at this point because I had 3 pots going at once and it was organized chaos (unlike most times when I’m behind the stove).

It’s true that once the meatballs were made, this dinner was ready in minutes. It was just a matter of boiling the water, dropping the egg noodles, and heating up the canned green beans.

See, two perfect plates, and NO LEFTOVERS because I made just enough for two!

So, how was it?

Well, since it was so damned easy, I’m calling this one a win. However, I did bake the meatballs too long. And I used Dijon mustard instead of regular ol’ mustard on the green beans (and may have used too much).

BUT! The Stroganoff sauce was pretty damn good. And with the noodles and the meatballs, it was a bit like the IKEA Swedish meatballs. And who on the planet doesn’t like the IKEA meatballs?

NO ONE.

We did not round out the dinner with lemon sherbet and coffee. Me and Mr. Buckeye had scotch. Lots and lots of scotch. Because that is how we roll.

The remaining 36 meatballs are in the freezer, so I look forward to cooking and blogging the other 3 dinners very soon!