Mad Hatter Meatballs

This is a recipe that comes from Aunt Donna.  She's a fantastic cook, as most of my family is!  I'm not sure where she found this recipe, but it is great comfort food.  It is also a great recipe to use if you have leftover mashed potatoes you want to re-purpose somehow.  I used to make it quite often, but my kids have grown tired of it.  Nevertheless, it needs to be preserved in my recipe bank!  Thanks Aunt Donna!  Because this one uses lots of soup, the sodium level is quite high.  I always used Healthy Request, or a low sodium option to help alleviate some of this.

• 1 T butter/margarine
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 (10 1/2 oz) can chicken with rice soup
• 1 (10 1/2 oz) can tomato soup
• 1 C water
• Mashed Potatoes

(For Meatballs)

• 1 egg
• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 slices torn bread (small pieces)
• 1/4 C evaporated milk (or just plain milk)
• 1 t salt

1. Melt butter/margarine in a large saucepan.  Add and saute pepper and onion until tender.
2. Stir in both soups and the water.  Heat to boiling, then simmer, stirring occasionally as the rice will stick.
3. While the sauce is simmering beat the egg slightly in a bowl.  Add beef, torn bread pieces, milk, and salt.  Mix well.
4. Shape into small balls (ping pong size).  Drop into simmering sauce and cook slowly (uncovered) for about 1 hour or until sauce has thickened like gravy.
5. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Portuguese Roasted Potatoes

I love this recipe and have used it quite often. It's super easy with relatively few ingredients. I never measure any of it-- you put in as much or as little as you like. They are so yummy! The original recipe is from fullbellies happy kids.  It does a much better job of showing you the recipe with pictures and all, but here it is nice and handy.

5 medium potatoes (peeled or unpeeled- whichever you prefer)
olive oil
3 T flour
garlic powder
salt and pepper
paprika

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut potatoes into bite sized pieces
3. Coat with a bit of olive oil-- you don't need a lot maybe a T will do or less
4. Mix dry ingredients and toss with potatoes to coat
5. Bake about 30 min at 400 (longer at 375)

*Note: You can make these potatoes a bit on the spicy side depending on how much pepper you add. I happen to like them spicier than the kids, so I have to be cautious with the amount of pepper I put in-- maybe 3/4 t or less would do. I may try to bake and then freeze these sometime to make them more of a quick serve item. Not that they take anything at all to make, but if you have potatoes you need to use up, would be really easy to do. I'll have to re-post if it works.