A Comforting Dinner

An early winter's storm is supposed to roll in

tonight, so it seemed a good time to serve some

comforting Midwestern fare.

First up was a meatloaf.

This time around I purchased about 2/3 of a pound of

ground beef,

1/2 pound ground veal and

1/2 pound ground pork.

To this I added:

1 minced celery rib (cleaned and trimmed)

1/2 carrot finely shredded (peeled first, please)

2 garlic cloves, grated

1/4 cup onion, grated

1 teaspoon dried Herbes de Provence

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

4 teaspoons Sycamore Falls™ Original Style Barbecue Sauce

50 grinds black pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon)

1 egg

1/2 cup bread crumbs

Mash the meat together with a fork* together

in order to avoid over mixing the meat.

*Or as Sandra Lee would say, "fork it."

Twit.

Add in the other ingredients.*

*I wouldn't recommend this method as one should

rather attempt to mix the ingredients as equally as possible.

I did this just for demonstration purposes.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Mix well with a fork.

Remember, your patience will be rewarded.

Shape and turn out into a baking dish.



Cover with more barbecue sauce.







Now on to the second dish.



I picked up a package of Klondike Medley™ potatoes.



I also have onion, bacon, salt and black pepper.






Here we have Peruvian purple potatoes,

red skinned potatoes, Yukon potatoes,

onions and bacon.








I urge you to seek out these Peruvian beauties.



They really don't taste any different, but they are lovely

on the plate.

I roast them with onion, salt and pepper in a 400 degree oven
for 1 hour,

adding the bacon for the last half-hour.






Finally, we have the Brussels sprouts.



I have had a hankering for these lately,

but unfortunately, it is difficult to buy them

- at least in limited quantities -

at our local stores.



I purchased three sprouts, but had to remove several

outer leaves due to mildew.

I also have bacon, sugar, salt and black pepper.









I have found through trial and error that I best like these

beauties when their leaves are exposed so that they

are exposed to the heat and can be caramelized.



This is tedious work,

but I find that I like to do my prep work for dinner

earlier in the day.



It is somehow restful for me.




After the bacon has been mostly cooked through,

the Brussels spout leaves are added to the pan.



Then the sugar, salt and pepper are added.





This is cooked until the sprouts are lightly caramelized.

And dinner is served.

I'm a happy Foodie.

Mini Meatloaves and a Very Good Meal

The Foodie Daughter had recently asked for meatloaf with a twist. Well, doesn't she know me well? I think I can rise to this challenge.

First of all we will begin by making mini-meatloaves. Then we will be covering each meatloaf with bacon. What's not to love?

Then I move on to one of the Foodie Daughter's favorite side dishes - pea salad.

For the next side dish I cut a few stems of flat leaf parsley (Italian parsley).


Just so you can get an idea of the size of these leaves, here is a quarter. These are some serious parsley leaves.

I chopped the parsley before adding them to a couple of tablespoons of softened butter.

Here I have a medley of mixed baby potatoes.

They were cleaned, and cooked in the microwave for several minutes until soft.

Then the herbed butter was stirred in and salt and black pepper were added to the mix.

Once the desired temperature of 160 degrees was reached, the mini meatloaves were removed from the oven and the meat was allowed to rest.

I decided to let my meatloaf rest on my plate.

Can I eat yet? Please?

At least can I eat the potatoes?

Okay, why haven't I made this again?

Reinventing Dinner

Last weekend I found a rather forlorn box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix hiding in the back of my pantry. What to do with this pre-packaged mix? I know; let's make corn bread.

The directions call for milk and an egg. So of course I add some chopped bacon, onion and frozen corn.

The first step is to make the batter according to package directions.

Meanwhile, I fry the bacon and chop the onion.

Now I add the onion, corn and the cooked bacon and the bacon joos (credit Sandra Lee for that misnomer).


I pour the mix into a greased 8 X 8 inch baking dish. Then I grate some sharp cheddar cheese to sprinkle on top. Bake according to package directions.

Looks good.

This is a nice change of pace for us.

Fast forward a week:

Oh joy. Look what I woke up to this morning. If you click on the picture, you will see a couple of visitors on my deck railing. I think they are happy that I finally got around to putting out the bird feeders.

Here's a blue jay. Fortunately the other birds don't let the blue jays bully them around too much.

Now, let's re-purpose the leftover corn bread. Today I'll make stuffing (or dressing). Here I have green onion, an egg, bread slices, the corn bread, black pepper, salt, frozen homemade croutons (including the remaining focaccia), celery and fresh sage.

I later added another egg and defrosted a cup of homemade turkey consomme. One teaspoon of dried Herbes de Provence also join in the party.

I spread out the bread and croutons on a baking sheet and pop in a 250 degree oven for a few minutes.

After several minutes I add the chopped celery, chopped green onion and chopped sage. This goes back in the oven for about 15 minutes longer.

Mix all together so that the bread is thoroughly moistened.

Spread the stuffing in a greased baking dish. Since I am also making meatloaf, I bake this at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.

Just about perfect.

Now I'm hungry.

Hmph. Will you look at my lone dinner companion? My daughter, who had requested the meatloaf, quickly ate and ran back upstairs. I guess I will cut her a bit of slack since she has a migraine today (but only a little, because I also have a migraine today). My husband said I could talk to him - right before he got up from the table and left the room. So that leaves just me and the cat. And he's eyeing my plate. "Please, Mommy, may I lick your plate now?"

A Family Dinner

Unfortunately, it is a very rare occurance any more when all three of us happen to exist at the same time and at the same place, and are ready to eat at the same time. I, however, am ready for each and every time this occurs.

Oh look, I'm Semi-Ho'ing it: I am making a potluck standby - Harvest Potatoes. Let's see: we start with pre-frozen, pre-shredded hash browns, condensed cream of mushroom soup, onion, various cheese, salt, pepper and sour cream.

First, we mix together the condensed soup, sour cream, salt, pepper, chopped onion and various shredded cheese. Then we add in the hashed browns.

Spread evenly in a greased casserole dish. Add additional cheese on top.

Melt 1 tablespoon butter and add 3 tablespoons crushed crackers or breadcrumbs and spread evenly over the top.

Ooh, look! Meatloaf! And now on with the show...

Wow, it's a Who's Who of comfort food tonight. This time I added sliced shallots and sliced raw bacon to the green beans. Kosher salt, freshly cracked black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil complete the dish.

Now admit it, you wish you were here.

Comfort Food - Kind of... (well, maybe if you squint real hard)

Here's the dilemma: a winter storm is on its way here, I am craving good, old, honest-to-goodness comfort food, and most of the food items on that list are off limits to me thanks to my sadist-doctor. So I came up with a compromise. I would make a meatloaf and have corn and a salad as side dishes. Now, if I had my druthers, one of the sides would have been either mashed potatoes or a nice home-made macaroni and cheese dish. But alas; the fates are apparently mad at my general direction, so... on with the veggies.

Here we have the ingredients for the meat loaf. As my husband had taken my car to the dealership today for its regularly scheduled tune-up, I was forced to drive his car (my old car) to the grocery. Remember, there is a major storm heading our way, so everyone and his brother are at this particular grocery store today. And they are all IN MY WAY... Er, anyway... Unfortunately, this grocery store also caters to mainly lower-income families, so higher-end ingredients are scarce.

I have to admit that the recent ground beef recalls concern me and that I have avoided buying ground meat as a result. Thus, in order to appease my worried mind, today I purchased very expensive ground beef and ground lamb. I would have bought ground veal, but this particular store doesn't carry this sort of high-falutin product.

At any rate: the ingredients are, in no particular order: one pound 92% lean ground beef, one pound ground lamb, 2 large eggs, 1 cup bread crumbs, 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, 1/2 of a finely grated carrot, 1/2 of a celery rib, minced, 3 tablespoons grated onion, 1 grated garlic clove, 1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence, 1/2 cup catsup and 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar.

Please, please, de-bling before plunging very clean hands into the mixture.

Pour some more balsamic vinegar on top of the formed meatloaf before baking.

After about 1 to 1 1/4 hours in a 400 degree oven. I insert a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the food and set the alarm for 160 degrees. Once that temperature is reached, I pull the food out of the oven and cover the meat with aluminum foil and allow to rest for about 10 minutes. As Alton Brown would say, "Your patience will be rewarded."*

*Sorry, Alton. I am not worthy to walk in your shadow.