Cooking Is Complicated !

This week was busy. I was working every single day and the last thing on my mind was to make a home cooked meal. It was so tempting to give up and just eat my simple boxed meals. I didn’t though. I found a recipe for meatballs and rice and told myself I had to do this. I am so glad I did! Yes it was a tiny bit time consuming, but eating a home cooked meal actually gave me the little boost I needed to get through this busy week.

I started by finding this spinach turkey meatball recipe on Pinterest. I was a bit skeptical, but I decided I would give it a try. I noticed the recipe called for a marinara sauce to accompany the meatballs but I wasn’t feeling saucy so I opted to find a rice side dish instead. I found this lemon herb recipe and it seemed like the perfect side dish. I had my recipes and ingredients and was ready to go….. then I got called into work ?‍♀️ I was super frustrated but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I packed everything up and decided I would make my meatballs and rice at work.

The meatballs were a pretty basic recipe, but I had to consult Google multiple times! I had no idea what scallions were and ended up buying white onions instead…. oops! I also had no idea what Italian sausage was! Google came in handy when I figured out you buy actual sausages and take the casing off! Other than those few hiccups the meatballs went pretty well. I chopped up my spinach and scallions (white onions), added my egg, breadcrumbs, and meat and started rolling my balls. I was on a roll! Then it came to baking the meatballs and the oven at work wouldn’t turn on. Hiccup number 2. I FINALLY got the oven fixed and popped those babies in! 30 minutes later and I had the perfect meatballs! If I do say so myself!

The rice, which I thought was going to be a breeze also taught me a few things. Turns out there is rice besides instant rice! Who knew ?‍♀️ I had my NON instant rice and it said you could use a rice cooker. I knew I had something like that but I had never used it before. I found it in the back of my cupboard and thought we were smooth sailing! That was not the case. Somewhere along the way I lost the instructions for how to use my rice cooker. This lead me down another Google rabbit hole as I figured out how to use my rice cooker. THEN it was finally smooth sailing. I made my rice, which was actually super quick and easy (it also tasted wayyyy better than instant rice).

Overall the meal was super delicious and I learned more about cooking than I ever thought I would. It was stressful for sure, but getting to sit down and eat it after was a nice reward! I even got compliments from my coworkers on how tasty it was!

RICE 9/10 for easiness (once I figured out the rice maker) 10/10 for tastiness and 8/10 for quickness

MEATBALLS 6/10 for easiness 11/10 for tastiness and 5/10 for quickness