A few more new recipes...

I hate meatloaf.  It's probably the texture.  But Mark suggested it for our menu last week so I took to the internet to find a new recipe.  I thought baking them in muffin tins would help because there would be more crunch edge to squishy inside ratio.  This is a great recipe that everyone was a fan of, even me.  The sauce was delicious. and so were the mash potatoes that were suggested to serve with it.

 

Meatloaf Muffins with Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 2/3 to 1 3/4 pounds ground sirloin (I just used ground beef)
• 1 medium onion, cut into chunks
• 2 ribs celery from the heart of the stalk, cut into 2-inch pieces
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 large egg plus a splash of milk, beaten
• 1 cup plain bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons grill seasoning (recommended: Montreal Steak Seasoning by McCormick)
• 1 cup smoky barbecue sauce
• 1/2 cup tomato salsa
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• Vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Put ground beef into a big bowl. Put onion and celery into a food processor. Cut the bell pepper in half, rip out the seeds and throw them into your garbage bowl. Cut the pepper into a few pieces and add to the food processor. Pulse the processor blades to finely chop the vegetables into very small pieces then add them to the meat bowl. Add egg, beaten with milk, bread crumbs and grill seasoning to the bowl. Next, mix together the smoky barbecue sauce, the salsa and the Worcestershire sauce. Pour half the sauce mixture into the bowl with the meatloaf mix. Mix the meatloaf together with your hands. Wash up. Brush a 12-muffin tin (1/2-cup each) with vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil. Use an ice cream scoop to help you fill meat into a each tin. Top each meat loaf with a spoonful of extra sauce. Bake about 20 minutes. Cut open 1 muffin to test that the middle is cooked through. Serve meatloaf with Smashed Potatoes and Cream Cheese on the side.

Smashed Potatoes and Cream Cheese:
2 1/2 pounds small red potatoes or baby Yukon gold potatoes
1/2 cup half-and-half or whole milk
8 ounces plain cream cheese or veggie cream cheese, cut into pieces
10 chives or 2 scallions, chopped or snipped with kitchen scissors
Salt and pepper

Boil potatoes until tender, 15 minutes. While the water boils and when the potatoes are cooking, you can be working on the meatloaf recipe.

When the potatoes are tender, drain them and return them to the hot pot to let them dry out a bit. Mash potatoes with half-and-half or milk using a potato masher. Add in the cream cheese and smash until the cheese melts into the potatoes. Then add chives and scallions and season with salt and pepper, to your taste.


This next recipe is DELICIOUS!  This bread was moist and hearty. I will be making this many, many more times.

Oatmeal Honey Bread (from Joanne Gilles):
1 cup rolled oats
2 pkgs. yeast
1 T salt
1/2 cup honey
2 T butter, melted
5-6 cups flour

Pour 2 cups of boiling water over dry oats.  Let mixture stand until soaked.  In separate bowl, place yeast in 1/2 cup lukewarm water and let rise.  Add salt, honey and butter to soaked oats.  Stir in yeast.  Gradually add enough flour to make dough kneadable.  Knead  until dough is smooth and elastic.  Place dough in oiled bowl, cover with damp, warm towel, and let rise in warm area.  When double (approx. 1 1/2 hours), punch down, divide and shape into two loaves.  Top loaves with soft, drained mixture of oatmeal soaked in milk.  Bake for 50 minutes at 325 degrees.


Grammy's White Sheet Cake - this is the dessert that I made on St. Patrick's Day and added green food coloring to.  The comments say it melts in your mouth, but mine didn't do that - probably because I used wheat flour instead of white.  Mark said it tasted like cornbread with icing.  If I will it again I will use white flour because I think it should be good.   Some recipes just need white flour.  The kids ate it up.

Here is the link to the recipe: http://eatcakefordinner.blogspot.com/2012/04/grannys-white-sheet-cake.html