Most days I look at pin awesome things on Pinterest and but do nothing about it. Not this day. I am big fan of Ikea Swedish Meatballs and this recipe caught my eye. I just received a meat grinder to go with my shiny new Kitchenaid mixer and I thought it would be a good opportunity to use it.

The recipe called for ground beef and pork. Why not grind my own meat? No pink sludge here. I was very impressed how well the grinder worked. The instructions said to run it through twice but there was no need to do that using the fine grinder.

It took less than 5 minutes to grind 2lbs of meat. Once the meat was ready, it was time to make meatballs! I tried to follow the recipe exactly.

olive oil
1lb beef
1lb pork
1/2 cup Panko breadcrumbs
2 large egg yolks
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1 cooked diced onion
kosher salt & black pepper to taste

The recipe called for nutmeg but I skipped it. I cooked the onion with a little bit of olive oil then mixed the freshly ground beef and pork, Panko, eggs, allspice, cooked onion and salt and pepper by hand.

Cook the meatballs in batches. I ended up with 20 meatballs. I used an ice cream scoop to measure. They were decent size, you can make them smaller for more meatballs. I browned the outside and set it aside. It's not cooked through at this point but it will cook in the sauce later.

Sauce:

1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
4 cups beef broth
3/4 cup sour cream
kosher salt & black pepper to taste

I melted the butter then added the flour and cooked for about a minute. While whisking constantly, slowly add the beef broth and simmer until slightly thickened. Stir in the sour cream. Add salt and pepper to taste. Put the meatballs back in the skillet and cook for about 10 minutes. This will cook the meatball through.

Once the meatballs are cooked through, garnish with some fresh parsley. The cast iron skillet I used was perfect for this recipe. It was delicious. My 7 year old approved! :) There are some things I would change if I make it again. I would add more herbs to the gravy - I love herbs! I would also add either fresh garlic or garlic salt to the meatballs.

All in all, this was a success. I LOVE one pot dishes like this. Thanks, Pinterest.

UPDATE: I made some changes the 2nd time around and that I thought brought more flavor to the dish. I added two minced cloves of garlic, 1/4 tsp garlic salt and a pinch of parsley to the meatballs. For the sauce, I added garlic salt and celery salt.