Oh Yeah Groceries! And Caramelized Onion Meatballs

Groceries this week were nice and in budget. Thank you cheap and delicious BORSCHT!

$3.01 weekly condiments

$1.29 Can of Tomatoes
$2.50 Ryvita crackers
$2.99 Plain Yogurt
$4.79 Ground Beef
$1.79 Lettuce
$2.61 Cabbage
$1.69 Head of Celery
$2.50 Almond Milk

Usually I make myself choose between milk and yogurt but this week I splurged, haha.

And now that the part for my computer has arrived and I can blog away in the comfort of my own home I'm adding another recipe. Making up for lost time.

I'm making the ground beef I bought into meat balls, some of which I will brown and add to my borscht tonight and some that I will freeze, raw on a cookie sheet and then toss in a bag for later.

1 pound ground beef
2-3 tablespoons water
2 Ryvita crackers crushed into breadcrumbs
A generous handful of fresh parsley
A dash of Cayenne
Salt

And the ingredient that makes this entire recipe worthwhile... drum-roll please...

Caramelized onions. Yum yum yum. I was just going to make my burger/meatball recipe with finely chopped white onion like I usually do but then I remembered how the onion never really cooks as much as I like so this is the solution.

Onions are EXTREMELY easy to caramelize and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Just saute some onions (I'm using two medium ones for this recipe) in hot oil till they get a bit brown and soft and translucent. Then add about a cup of water and turn them up to medium high heat. Let the water boil off and then do that again. You can do this two or three times depending on how gloriously shmooshy you want them to be (or how much time you have).

I've used a lot of different recipes for caramelized onions. Ones that include soya sauce, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar. A recipe where they go in the oven and another really annoying one where you spend an hour and a half standing over the stove while the onions cook on low heat, yech! Who has the time?

I like this one because you can pour in the water and step away from the stove. The onions don't burn and it frees you up to do the clean up dishes or have a little dance party around the kitchen table.

Also I'm not going to clean the frying pan right away because it's the one I'll use to brown the meatballs and you KNOW that's going to be good! So there, meatballs for later.

I would have caramelized them further but I only had so much time to prep-cook during my lunch break!