Meatballs soup

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope, that you are all doing just fine.

This is another one of my articles about some recipes, which basically I make up or something like that, you know, because there’s no exact recipe, that I follow when preparing some dishes. So that this day I wanted to have some meatballs soup and I remember, that when they prepared those meatballs, I didn’t really like eating them, however, when they prepared some Tolma, which is like meatballs into cabbage, I just loved eating it, though I didn’t eat that cabbage, so that it was like eating meatballs, you know, and it’s pretty surprising, how children’s mind works. That’s really interesting, you know. I mean, why couldn’t I eat meatballs and I could just eat Tolma without that cabbage, that’s the question here. And that’s what many children do and I’ve seen cases like that many times and that’s why I’m telling you about it. It’s not really understandable, I mean, I don’t really understand the psychology here about eating meatballs and Tolma withot cabbage, however, one should know, that the cabbage gives its own taste to the filling and, well, maybe that is the reason why children don’t eat meatballs and eat Tolma without cabbage, because the filling already has that cabbage taste and they don’t like eating something hard or whatever and stuff like that and they ask their parents to take that cabbage off that Tolma and that way they eat the meat filling.

Buying some meatballs

You know, these days everything is already prepared and you can buy some prepared stuff pretty easily with just going to the supermarkets and shopping there and taking what you want and there are so many things, that you might need and haven’t thought of that you are left amazed and surprised by all those things, you know what I’m saying. So that, when you walk into that supermarket, you get lots of stuff _ the ones that you wanted and the ones that you didn’t and the ones that you needed and everything, you know. And in the end, it just seems like you bought the whole supermarket and paid plenty in it and then when you come home and see the stuff that you have bought, it doesn’t seem too much then, in fact, you might think, that with the amount of money, that you paid to the cashier, you didn’t buy anything at all, that’s the situation here nowadays. You might think, that you bought plenty of things and now you can rest and not worry anything for quite some time, however, that’s not really that way and you will need to go shopping some time later soon, trust me. There are too many things, that you need for home and everyday usage and , well, that’s besides eating and eating is another thing. I mean, when I thought about it, it seems like most of the money goes in eating,you know. Well, I’m not saying, that you are not buying any clothes and stuff like that and that is another thing, too, however, when you come to that every day living, eating is very expensive and I’m not talking about those fast food and junk and stuff like that. Eating healthy costs you a lot and then there’s this tendency nowadays, that you should eat healthy and many people try to do that and, you know, everyone knows about that and they try to have fruit and vegetables and some good food around and they have the prices high on those things, when they know, that people will still buy them, because they want to eat healthy stuff and not those huge hamburgers and French fries with lots of oil and who knows what else.

Anyways, I was talking about those already prepared stuff and how easily you can buy them anywhere now and it’s a good thing, if you ask me, because I know, how much time and effort it needs to, for example, prepare meatballs on your own. And then you need time to actually prepare them as a dish and then there’s this thing about them _ you can either prepare some soup with meatballs or just cook them without the stock and, well, to tell you the truth, here people know and prepare meatballs soup. Actually, they usually prepare dishes with stock and there are soups everywhere, you know. And that’s pretty good, actually, because soups are great for our body and they make us hydrated pretty much in the first place and then you feel satietied and not hungry anymore, and energized.

So, this other day I just really wanted to have some meatballs or some beef, you know, and I couldn’t really decide which one I wanted to prepare, so that I was pretty confused and stood there  in front of those things and thinking and deciding and not deciding anything at all, I guess, and there were so many choices of what you could do, I mean, there were those frozen meatballs and there were two types of them and each cost somewhere about 6 Laris a kilogramme, and then there were these Tolmas, which cost the same roughly and they looked pretty good, too, and there was this ground beef and you could take it and do whatever you liked with it, you know, and there were these cutlets of different types and there were Khinkali and kebabs and pelmeni and everything and it all got pretty confusing at that time, if you want to know the truth. Then this consultant girl asked me what I wanted and, well, when I told her about the meatballs, she suggested the “Iceberg” one, so that, we took 16 balls of them and it was up to 5 Laris and those meatballs were not small, I must say. They were pretty large and more than enough for a soup in my saucepan, if you want to know the truth. Those meatballs we bought in Fresco supermarket, by the way.

Ingredients:

• Meatballs, 16 medium
• Fresh coriander
• Fresh fennel
• Fresh parsley
• Fresh green pepper
• Hot chili sauce
• Tomato sauce
• Tomatoes, 3 small
• Red pepper, ground
• Ground tarragon
• Ground mint
• Ground bay leaf
• Bay leaf, 1 large
• Paprika
• Oregano
• Ground thyme
• Red bell pepper, 2 large
• Oil
• Salt to taste
• Water, 2 litres

Preparation process

So the preparation process started with me taking those meatballs out of the package and putting them into the saucepan with some oil in it, so that I could roast them a little. Well, you could also add some chopped onions with them to omake them taste better, however, I didn’t do that, I mean, I forgot that and then when I remembered it, it was too late for that and of course, I could cook onions in another pan and then add them to the dish, however, I was too lazy for that and I just skipped that part and that’s  why I haven’t mentioned onions in my ingredients’ list. However, you should know, that cooked onions give dishes some special taste and they should be one of the main ingredients in your dishes.

Well, the meatballs were in the saucepan getting fried and I would turn them around when their sides turned brownish or something like that and it was quite some time like that, I mean, for about ten minutes, I guess. In the meantime, I sliced those red bell peppers and they are like onions, too, if you ask me and they have this great smell and taste and they give the dishes some delicious taste, too, so that I usually have them in my soups and salads, though some people don’t like them and don’t eat them, like my brother, and whenever there is a salad with those bell peppers he just don’t eat it, however, sometimes he can’t notice them or can’t recognize them in the dishes like soups and other stuff and he just eats them as usual and it’s kind of surprising, you  know, because it seems, like it’s not about the bell peppers taste, but it’s something else, I guess. You know, when he sees those red or green or yellow pieces of bell peppers in those salads _ it’s that obvious in them _ he just doesn’t eat those salads and you know they put bell peppers on the pizza toppings and when he saw them there, he would just take them out and set them aside and then eat those pizza slices. It’s like taking raisins out of the pound cake and not eating them, or not eating raisins raw and eating them in the pound cake without any protest or something like that. You know, I didn’t really eat raisins which were in pound cakes and anything like that at all, however, I would eat them raw, I mean, without anything, just the raisins.

Anyways, I sliced the red bell peppers and I also had these tomatoes and I just washed them and peeled themand then chopped them a little and added those two things to the meatballs being cooked into that saucepan and stirred. However, you should know, that you shouldn’t stir too much while the meatballs being cooked there, because then they can have their shapes lost and stuff like that, you know. However, you shouldn’t let them get burned either, of course.

After that, I took some tomato sauce and hot chili sauce, which I had just bought for the first time to taste it and it was pretty hot and very delicious, and I had them mixed together and added a little boiled water, so that they wouldn’t be that thick and they would get a little dissolved in the water. I also added some oregano and paprika to that mixture and mixed them and added them to the meatballs in the saucepan. I also added that bay leaf to them, so that it would get its taste to the meatballs. And added a little salt for the starters, because salt makes everything taste great. And then I would add it, of course, because I knew, that it wouldn’t be enough, because I had to add plenty of water to the dish and it would need salt, of course. Well, it was some time until I decided, that it was time to have some water added to the saucepan, and, at first, I just added some small amount of water to the dish and continued cooking those meatballs with the red bell peppers and tomato sauce and everything, and I also added some other spices, too. And I had those two litres of water boiled in an electric kettle and I just poured it into the saucepan then and stirred a littleand then it was only left for the rice in the meatballs to be cooked, because, you know, cooking rice takes some time, however, it’s not that long before the rice gets cooked, so that it wouldn’t need much time to get everything cooked. However, I still had it cook for quite some time on a low heat.

You know, when you add just water to the dish, it needs some time for everything to get blended and I wanted everything to get mixed well with each other and that’s why it’s good to have some broth added to the meatballs or things like that, so that it has its own taste and this all will blend together. There are these Galina Blanca cubes, I guess, you will know about them, or if you don’t, you should know from now on, and you can buy them at the supermarkets and they  are pretty cheap, I mean, one piece costs 15 Tetris or something like that and you can just put one piece into the boiling water and you can have a tasty soup without even adding anything else, or some people just add some potatoes or spaghetti to it and it’s just pretty delicious that way and there are all different sorts of Galina Blanca and they are flavoured with things, like mushrooms and beef and chicken and things like that and we used to have them in my childhood and I remember I liked those soups with Galina Blanca  cubes. Anyways, since I just poured pure water into the saucepan, I had to wait for some time until all the ingredients got blended into it and I would also need to add some spices and salt to it, so that it would have  a great taste.

As I’ve already mentioned above, salt makes dishes taste better, so that the very first thing, that I did was to add some salt to my dish and taste it, whether the seasoning was perfect or not. To be honest, I got used to eating things without salt or I add just a pinch of salt to my dishes, so that if someone likes dishes with salt, I notice its taste when it’s even less than enough, so that I guess, that’s better, because it’s good to have less salt in the dish, rather than having too much, if you want to know the truth, because if it’s less than enough, you can always add some more salt and if it’s too much, then you can’t really do anything else, unless it’s a soup or broth or whatever, where you can add some water and neutralize the saltiness of the dish.

So, after adding some salt and tasting it and deciding, that the salt was just perfect, I decided to have some other spices added, too, and I added some coriander and thyme and paprika and mint and tarragonand it all made the stock taste great, however, I noticed, that it lacked some tomato sauce taste and I added some tomato sauce and that hot chili sauce, too.

Well, until it was all finished, I decided to have the dish left on a low heat for some time, because I really don’t like dishes with stock to be very watery and stuff like that and it should have something like a thick consistency, but not very thick either, you know. It should be something in between, I guess, and that’s how my grandmother’s prepared soups have always been and I always wanted to prepare soups and those kind of dishes that way, so that they wouldn’t be very watery and not very thick either and I sometimes prepared them like that, however, they still were not the same as hers, if you want to know the truth. And, I guess, I have never asked how she prepared those stuff. I just watched her from time to time and I learned some things and some preparation methods just by watching, however, that’s not really enough to learn cooking, if you ask me, and sometimes you have to ask things, well, to be honest, you should always ask questions and try to get answers, because if you think, that you will ask those questions some other time and you will get answers to them, you may forget what you wanted to ask and you will never get the answers that way, you know. And life is like that, I mean, we always search for answers and sometimes we get them and sometimes we don’t, but we shouldn’t give up and we should try our best to get answers, and, well, if we don’t get the answers to all of them, at least, we will know, that we tried.

Anyways, I know, that for the stock not to be watery and to get a little thicker, you should leave it on a low heat and let it be like that for some time, and then, after a couple of hours or the next day, it will be thicker,if you want to know the truth. And if you add some flour, it will get thicker without any leaving on a low heat and stuff like that and sometimes people just add some starch for the stock to get thicker and , you know, if you prepare soups with potatoes or spaghetti, they get thicker after some time, because they contain that starch and so on and so forth. So that, you should know, that if you want to get your soup thick, you can add those things and it will be thicker, or you may have it boiling for some time and it will be thicker, too.

So, after some time of being there on a low heat, I decided, that the preparation process of that dish was getting to the end and I had these fresh herbs, I mean, fresh fennel and coriander and parsley washed and chopped and they were not much, if you want to know the truth, they were just 20 grams altogether, I guess, and I added them to the dish and had it boiling for a couple of minutes and then I just turned the gas off and put the lid on the saucepan and let it be like that until it got cold and then I stored it in the fridge, of course. But, first, I took some of it in a small bowl and tasted it, because no dish should be decided to be finished, until well tasted and stuff like that, if you ask me. And the dish was just delicious and it was worth the effort, if you want to know the truth, and I proudly waited for it to get cold and put it into the fridge.And I knew, that it would be even more delicious the next day and I was looking forward to the morning, when I could taste it again, because it was already an evening and getting late and I didn’t want to eat much, because, you know, eating late in the evening is not that good, and, besides, the meatballs contain rice and it’s kind of a heavy product, I mean, once I read somewhere, that rice should be eaten at that time of the day, when it was until afternoon, or when it was to be followed by some activity and not a light activity, but something more than light, you know, so that the rice would be digested well and it wouldn’t get you gain some kilogrammes. Though, it’s not like one meatball has lots of rice, but still, it’s rice and you should be careful with it, if you ask me.

Anyways, it’s pretty cool buying some frozen stuff and preparing dishes like that, however, it’s better when you prepare all those things by yourself, I mean, when it’s not some frozen product, like, beef or vegetables or whatever, and when you buy them in their natural way and you know, that they are fresh and everything. that’s just really great, however, the more comfortable way is to buy some frozen stuff, which can be prepared very easily. You know, if I had to prepare those meatballs on my own, it would need much time, I guess, and, besides, it would need much ingredients, like ground meat and rice and eggs and some herbs and spices and salt and everything and they may even not come out as I wanted, because I have never prepared meatballs myself, you know. And that’s why I preferred buying frozen meatballs, and, I must say, that they tasted pretty delicious despite the fact, that they were not made by that fresh meat and who knows, when they were made, though it was stamped on the package, I guess, when they were made, however, I didn’t pay much attention to that, because there are those huge packages put into those fridges in the supermarkets and no one really reads those stuff, I guess, or maybe they think of reading them, however, when they get there, they just forget, what they wanted to read and they just buy those things, that they want and go home and then they realize, that they haven’t done something and that something is reading the stamps on those products.  Well, you should definitely read the stamps on the products, which you buy in the supermarkets, because sometimes they may even be old and not good for consuming and it’s just horrible, when you buy them and get home and then you see the stamps and realize, that you can’t eat them. I guess, it doesn’t happen often, however, these things still happen and people should be careful about that.

Anyways, this was what I wanted to tell you about me preparing those frozen meatballs and though you don’t know how to prepare the meatballs, you will know, how to prepare meatballs soup with frozen meatballs and then, I guess, I will tell you about preparing the meatballs themselves, you know. Until then, I hope, that you will prepare this dish for yourself and see, that it’s worth preparing. You know, it’s pretty easy to prepare and you don’t need to spend much money on it and, besides, you will have that dish for quite some time and you won’t need to prepare a dish every time you get hungry, because you will have that soup and you can warm it and eat it  whenever you feel like it. So that, keep that in mind and have it as your main dish, because that way, you will get proteins and vitamins and get hydrated and get energized _ all at the same time and it’s a great thing for your body and mind!

So that, I hope, that you enjoy your cooking and have a great day!

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