Foodie Friday

So in an effort to try new recipes, I'm taking a cue from other bloggers and featuring the new recipes I make each week.  This week, I tried a couple new things.  The first was a side dish that doesn't really even need a recipe - Garlic Mashed Potatoes.  Typically, I make "smashed" potatoes which involves adding butter, cheese, & sour cream to boiled potatoes.  This time we roasted several whole cloves of garlic in the oven along with red potatoes cut in to chunks.  When the potatoes were fork tender, I used my hand mixer to mash the potatoes and garlic pulp along with some butter, salt, & pepper.  They were good, but not quite "garlicy" enough.  I will definitely try them again with more cloves next time.  No picture of that one, but mashed potatoes all look the same!

The second recipe I pulled out of my Food Network magazine - Almost Famous Swedish Meatballs.  You can find the recipe here.

Food Network regularly features "knock-off" recipes from different restaurants.  Apparently Ikea stores have restaurants in them and people love their Swedish Meatballs.  I personally have only been to Ikea a handful of times and am usually too overwhelmed to notice a restaurant!  So while I can't vouch for how similar the recipe is, we thought it tasted pretty good.  Our biggest complaint was that the meatballs were too soft, maybe from the pork?  The allspice definitely adds a different flavor you don't usually find in savory dishes.  I always tease Cameron that allspice is his favorite spice because he once decided to try it out since he had never used it before.  Trust me, it does not go well with lima beans!!  I think I'll try this one again, but make the meatballs out of ground beef rather than a beef/pork mixture.

I've already pulled out a few recipes to try out this week, so hopefully next Friday I will have a few more to share!