Swedish Meatballs with Egg Noodles

Most of this week's meals are from Cuisine at Home's Cuisine Lite since we are trying to cut back on the calories a bit for this month. Sunday night was Swedish Meatballs over Egg Noodles coming in at 388 calories.

The meatballs were made with equal amounts of ground sirloin and ground turkey breast, an egg yolk, grated onion, bread cubes soaked in milk and salt and pepper. The meatballs were browned on all sides in a skillet and removed. In the same skillet in butter, flour was cooked for a minute before chicken stock was whisked in along with a little milk, a little brown sugar and dried thyme. The meatballs were added back in and allowed to simmer in the sauce for 5 minutes. The last touch was a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkling of parsley. The meatballs and sauce were served over cooked yolkless egg noodles.

The side dish was Gingered Carrots - sliced carrots that were simmered, covered in ginger ale for 5 minutes. The skillet was uncovered, brought back to a boil and ground coriander, salt and pepper were added and cooked until the liquid evaporated.

We rounded out our meal with Wine Poached Pears with Vanilla Cinnamon Sauce. Two pears were poached in equal amounts of dry red wine and apple juice until tender. The pears were allowed to cool in the poaching liquid and then refrigerated overnight. To serve, the pears were halved lengthwise and the cores removed. A cup of the poaching liquid was reduced to a mere 1/4 cup. Two pear halves went on the plate topped with a little Greek yogurt, some fresh blackberries and the poaching syrup was drizzled over all. The pears came in at 164 calories per serving.