Firefly Meatloaf

Ahhh, Saturday.  Two appointments at the office.  A calling for a friend's dad.  Then, home to change clothes and off to the grocery for the first time in about a month...  I should've gone back to the office.  But, every recipe I looked at called for something I didn't have. Plus Connie was out of his pretzel crisps. 
I typically do my menu planning in the car.  Carte du Jour - one of the cookbooks published by Royal Caribbean - had gone in the car with me on the way to pick Mom up to take her to the calling.  I'd gotten some great ideas and mapped out some potential dinners.  But, I wasn't totally ready.  Then, on the way to the grocery, we stopped at Tuesday Morning.  Our salad spinner died.  Our blender and mandoline are on their last legs.  It was time to try and replace all of them.  Did you know Tuesday Morning carries cookbooks?  Sometimes it's the same collection forever.  Sometimes they get some great new ones in.  You've just got to stop in a couple of times a year - or more :-)  This trip I found one from Niman Ranch.  They're the meat folks.  Most of the book is the Niman Ranch story.  But the back third is recipes.  Almost all of which I'd like to try. 


The recipe that first caught my eye is Firefly Meatloaf.  It's from Firefly restaurant in San Francisco.   Since Connie plays bridge on Monday evenings, dinner that night is either ultra quick or he's going to have to hit the dollar menu at Mickey D's.  Meatloaf would be the perfect reheatable dinner to get him fed and out the door on time.  So I could start my lovely evening of quietly catching up on a bunch of things at the office - all from the comfort of my home.

What did we think?  This was very good.  It wasn't as good as my mom's, but then when is ANY meatloaf as good as Mom's?  Same goes for chocolate chip cookies.  Well, unless your mom wasn't a great cook.  Then, I might understand.  But, my mom is a fantastic cook!  So, this is something we'd make again but probably won't because there are just so daggone many wonderful recipes out there to be tried.


Firefly Meatloaf

Ingredients:

2 1/4 lbs ground beef
2 T olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
2 yellow onions, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 1/4 c dried bread crumbs
1 c milk
2 large eggs
1/3  ketchup
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T kosher salt
1 t ground black pepper
1 t Hungarian sweet paprika
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/4 t celery seeds
pinch ground allspice
pinch freshly grated nutmeg
6 slices apple wood smoked bacon

Directions:

This is made in three parts. First, you want to soak the bread crumbs in the milk.  They should soak for at least ten minutes so all of the milk is absorbed. 

While that's soaking, you want to saute the onion and celery until they're tender. 

Add the garlic at the last minute so it doesn't burn and become bitter.  The third part is whisking together the seasonings and the eggs.  Once that's all done, mix it all up.  You're better off using your hands with this.  Form the mixture into a loaf on a rimmed baking sheet.  Wrap the loaf with the bacon and bake it at 350F for about an hour.

adapted from Niman Ranch Cookbook

BBQ Bacon Stuffed Meatloaf

It's that time again!  What time?  Secret Recipe Club time.  Each month the participants in the Secret Recipe Club are assigned a blog.  It's up to us to read through it and choose a recipe to try.  We don't have to make it exactly as it's written on the blog but can make it our own.  If you'd like to see all the posts from each week, you can go to Secret Recipe Club.  This month I was assigned Big Bear's Wife.  Well, Big Bear's Wife is better known as Angie.  She's one of our den mothers.  They're actually called hostesses but I think they're more like den mothers.  Den mothers to a bunch of cats.  And, you know what they say about herding cats...  Now, don't get me wrong, I love cats - I just don't like to try and herd them :-)  Angie's an absolute sweetheart to herd us all along.  She tries to make sure we've got our posts in on time and that nobody gets left out or forgotten.  And, for folks like me who are totally technically challenged, she answers a ton of questions.  So, let's just say I was thrilled to get her blog!  As always, I read a ton of recipes and printed those I most wanted to make.  Then, I went back and read through the list again.  And again.  And again.  Finally, I decided to make Garlic Knots.  Delectable little rolls made from refrigerator biscuits.  I even bought the biscuits.  But, I kept looking at the bacon bbq meatloaf.  Then, fate. 


Duane and Becky came in Saturday morning to finish up some planning.  We started chatting about food.  Somehow, the conversation went to the mini-meatloaves my mom used to make.  They were glazed with orange marmalade.  Duane suggested adding some orange zest, crystallized ginger and orange liqueur to kick the flavors up.  About that time, Connie called from the farmers market to see what size shagbark hickory syrup to buy to tide us over for the winter.  Could he please get a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork when he was at the grocery?  I was determined to make Mom's meatloaves for dinner.  Sure he could.  Except he misunderstood and got TWO pounds of each. 

See what I mean?  Fate.  I was meant to make this meatloaf.  Yes, indeed.  Now, I changed the recipe more than a bit.  I used oatmeal instead of bread.  Healthier.  In an ocean of fat, every little bit of healthy helps.  And, I used half pork and half beef.  And, I added onion and barbecue sauce.  And, I used gruyere instead of cheddar.  So, for those of you who are purists and say a recipe should be made the first time as printed, fine, be that way.  I much prefer to make it my own. 

What did we think?  YUM.  Major YUM!  The photos of the meatloaf when cut and served were awful because it totally fell apart.  But, let me tell you, it tasted wonderful!!

Thank you so much, Angie :-)  We loved your BBQ Bacon Stuffed Meatloaf!  Click on the recipe name to see Angie's post.

BBQ Bacon Stuffed Meatloaf

Ingredients:

8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 large onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 T olive oil
6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 - 1 c oatmeal
1/2 c 1% milk
2 eggs
1/4 c fresh parsley, chopped
2 T barbecue rub
1/2 t salt and freshly ground pepper
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1 1/2 c shredded cheese (cheddar, gruyere, whatever!)
1/4 c barbecue sauce


Directions:

Saute the mushrooms, onion and garlic in the olive oil.  When they're softened, remove them from the heat.  Gently mix the ground beef, ground pork, sauteed vegetables, oatmeal, milk, eggs, parsley and salt and pepper.  Put 2/3 of the mixture in a 9x5 loaf pan.  Make a deep well in the center.  Put the shredded cheese and bacon in the well then top with the bbq sauce. 

Cover with the other 1/3 of the meat mixture and seal well.  Bake at 350 for about 90 minutes or until done.  After baking for about 60 minutes, glaze with some more bbq sauce. 

Glazed Meatloaf and Creamed Corn

Saturday was one of those days.  I worked and worked and worked and barely made a dent.  We're going to be fighting the forces of evil in a week so I had that to contend with in addition to all of the other work.  There were two highlights to the day.  First was a visit with Duane and Becky in the morning.  Second was a visit to the Benjamin Harrison House for the latest version of Victorian Villians. 

Let's start with the latter first.  The Benjamin Harrison House has a series of plays a couple of times a year.  They're typically mysteries of some sort.  For those of you in the Indianapolis area, I HIGHLY recommend them.  They're quite well done and very reasonably priced.  The house itself is well worth the visit.  Ben was our 23rd president and the only one from Indiana.  My great-grandparents lived kitty-corner from him and were friends.  So, I grew up hearing about the house.  While we were waiting for the festivities to begin, we chatted with a delightful lady who works for the Indiana department that handles historical markers.  We're the nuts who stop to read each and every one of them.  How much fun it was to discover that we can actually download a list of all of them AND some additional background info on each.  Well, the evening was full of visits from notable guests like Jack the Ripper, Belle Gunness, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Lizzie Borden and a host of other despicable characters.  We absolutely loved the show.

As for the visit with Duane and Becky, it was delightful as always.  He's a wealth of knowledge about cooking, having spent a great deal of his adult life in the restaurant business.  He said something that is oh, so true.  A great cook is an artist while a great baker is a scientist. There's a reason I made it through high school chemistry etc.  Thank you Lee Ann for all the tutoring!  BTW - Lee now teaches chemistry to college kids.  I know.  I totally lucked out to have her for one of my best buds in high school :-)  I know this is shocking, but we did spend some of our time together chatting about food.  I know.  Go Figure.  The conversation came around to mini-meatloaves my Mom used to make when I was a kid.  Glazed with orange marmalade.  They were the bomb.  Duane suggested mixing a bit of orange zest, orange liqueur and crystallized ginger into the glaze.  Oh, yeah.  Connie was doing the grocery shopping and happened to call while they were there.  Ummm, could you please also get a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork. 

Now, I wish the end result was as good as the story.  Sadly, it wasn't.  I couldn't find Mom's recipe.  And, I wanted to add a bit of pizazz so mixed in some shagbark hickory syrup and some Chinese five spice powder.  The meatloaves were good, but not great.  A three on a scale of one to five. 

The corn, however, was a different story.  Corn chowder is the one thing Connie just can't get down his throat.  He's not particularly fond of corn in any way, shape or form.  I love it so he eats plenty of it - probably more than he'd care.  Our grandson, Bradley, visited Friday evening and his dad had said one of the few vegetables he'd actually eat was corn.  Out came a can of corn.  Three-quarters of it was left.  What to do.  I wanted homemade creamed corn.  I'd never made it and had never even seen a recipe for it.  So, I made up my own.  Truth be told here, I really expected Connie to take a bite and say thanks but no thanks.  He inhaled the corn.  So did I.  In fact, if I didn't have a huge bag of broccoli to finish up, we'd be having it for dinner again.  Yum!

Glazed Meatloaf and Creamed Corn

Ingredients

for the meatloaf:
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground pork
2 eggs
1/2 - 1 c oatmeal
1 t Chinese Five spice powder
1/4 c shagbark hickory syrup
1/2 c milk
1 medium onion, finely diced

for the glaze:
1/2 c peach amaretto jelly (or marmalade or another jelly)
1 T crystallized ginger, finely minced
1 T peach schnapps (or a liqueur that goes with your marmalade or jelly)
orange zest (omitted since we were out of oranges)

for the creamed corn:
1 T butter
1 T flour
nutmeg
1/2 c cream
1/2 c grated gruyere
1 can corn, drained
salt and pepper

Directions:

for the glaze:
Melt the jelly in a small saucepan and add in the other ingredients.

for the meatloaf:

Mix the ingredients gently and put the meatloaf into a 9x5 loaf pan.  Bake at 375 for an hour or until a thermometer registers 170.   While the meatloaf is baking, drizzle the glaze over it.

for the corn:

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan.  Stir in the flour and allow it to cook for a few minutes.  Don't let it get brown.  While it's cooking, grate a bit of nutmeg into the mixture.  Slowly add the cream.  Cook until the mixture is thickened.  Stir in the gruyere.  Once the sauce is smooth, add the corn.  Heat through and serve.

Sundried Tomato and Feta Turkey Meatloaf

One of the disadvantages of shopping at Sam's Club is the massive quantities of food you get.  Take the ground turkey, for example.  Two containers with over two pounds of turkey in each.  You're pretty much committed to eating ground turkey for the week.  Or freezing some of the turkey.  Now, if I can figure out dishes that are different enough, I'm happy to eat the same protein several times during a week.  Such was the case with the ground turkey.  The first dish we made was turkey pie.  That was scrumptious.  Second was the turkey burgers with brie, bacon and cranberry compote.  This was the third dish.  Now, what you need to realize is that we eat leftovers for lunch.  I almost always make enough for at least one lunch in addition to our dinner.  So, we had a LOT of ground turkey from that one package. 


This particular recipe was courtesy of Gina the Tooth.  Never heard of her?  It's Giada De Laurentis.  Connie thinks she is GORGEOUS - which she is - but he still calls her Gina the Tooth.  Whatever we call her, she's an incredibly talented cook.  I've never tried one of her recipes that was anything other than wonderful - at least that's my recollection.  I do try my best to block out the bad stuff! 


What did we think?  Very flavorful and moist and wonderful.  It was wonderful the first night and made great meatloaf sandwiches for lunch.  This recipe is a keeper!!


Sun-dried Tomato and Feta Turkey Meatloaf


Ingredients:

1/2 c plain bread crumbs
1/3 c chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1/4 c chopped oil packed sun dried tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 T milk
1/2 c crumbled feta cheese
1 1/2 t kosher salt
1 t freshly ground black pepper
1 lb ground turkey

Directions:

While you're putting the meat loaf together, preheat your oven to 375.  You'll want to use the middle rack for cooking.

Use a large bowl to combine the ingredients other than the turkey.

Gently fold in the turkey.  Make sure you combine the ingredients well but don't overwork the mixture.  Put it in a 9x5 loaf pan, coated with cooking spray.  Bake for 45 minutes or until the internal temperature measures 165.

Adapted from Food Network, Giada De Laurentiis

15 Points From Leftovers???

Remember me blogging about finding The Best American Recipes 2002-2003 at the Midland Arts and Antique Mall?  Well, we made the Bloody Mary Grape Tomatoes and I found probably a dozen other recipes I wanted to try.  In fact, I made a whole week's worth of menus around recipes I wanted to try from that cookbook.  The first one we tried was called Blue Plate Meatloaf.  I didn't think you'd ever see the photos, read the recipe or even know we'd tried it.  We found it very dense and uninteresting.  Both of us rather grudgingly gave it a three on our scale of 1-5. 

At that point I was worried.  Were the grape tomatoes an aberration?  Were the rest of the recipes going to be average?  Did I have a whole week of average recipes coming up?  ARGH!  Now, I've cooked for long enough that I know good and well that every cookbook has some clunkers.  And, I should've been calm and reasonable.  I wasn't.  I should have been.  Because the next recipe we made was a five.  We've now had the Greek Macaroni and Cheese THREE times.  That's right, THREE times.  And, there's enough there for a fourth time.  And, my darling husband who doesn't really care for leftovers has requested it for leftovers.  Let me just say it's incredible and you will see the recipe.  I promise. 

So, back to the meatloaf.  I used the leftover meat to make the meatloaf burgers that we absolutely loved.  So the basic premise was good.  It was just that the meatloaf was pretty dense.  My intent was to do what my mom did with leftover meatloaf:  fry it then smother it with tomato sauce.  She'd take a little butter and flour and make a roux then pour in tomato juice to make a sauce.  It was VERY good.  But, once I got the meatloaf sliced and floured, my brain remembered the barbecue sauce I used on the meatloaf burgers.  What if???  What if I poured a little Jack Daniels and a little shagbark hickory syrup in and kicked the barbecue sauce up?  I poured the sauce in a little saucepan and added the Jack and syrup and called Connie in to taste it. " OHHHH, he says.  Ohhhh, that's sweet.  Not too sweet.  Just right.  Very good."  We had a winner. 

Now, before I did anything with the meatloaf, I chopped up a head of broccoli that'd been cooling its heels for far too long in my vegetable crisper.  I tossed it with white truffle oil and popped it in the oven.  Typically, I've roasted broccoli for about 15 minutes.  Tonight, it went for about 20 minutes then I turned the oven off while I finished the meatloaf.  The broccoli was just plain caramelized.  Connie referred to it as broccoli candy.  It was.  I've never had broccoli that tasted as good.  I'm sure it helped that I dusted the broccoli with a little black truffle salt.  But, you know, it'd have been a five even without that.  Here's a link to the Truffle Oil Broccoli Recipe.

Neither of us expected much from the meatloaf.  It was leftovers.  I didn't even have the camera out.  We'd used it to take photos of the yard as we did our FIRST 2011 walkaround. So it was on the bar.  Connie grabbed it and shot a couple of photos as I served the dinner.  Guess what?  It was leftovers extraordinaire.  I'll make the meatloaf just to have it leftover!  And the sauce?  Oh La La!!!

Blue Plate Meatloaf with Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Ingredients:
for the meatloaf:
1/2 c fresh bread crumbs
1/2 c buttermilk
1/2 lb ground sausage
1/2 lb ground turkey or veal
1 lb very lean ground beef
1 small yellow onion, finely minced
1/4 c parsley, minced
1 large egg
1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
1/4 t salt

For the topping:
sliced bacon
ketchup
soy sauce

for the leftovers:
flour
freshly ground pepper
bbq sauce
Jack Daniels
shagbark hickory or maple syrup

Directions:

Mix the bread crumbs

and buttermilk well. 

Make sure the buttermilk is totally absorbed.  Then, mix that with the rest of the ingredients. 

Put the mixture on a rimmed baking sheet

and form into a meatloaf shape.  Top with sliced bacon then a little ketchup mixed with soy sauce. 

Bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes. 

To serve this leftover, slice it into 1" thick slices.  Flour the slices and brown in olive oil until the slices are nice and browned.  Make a sauce with commercial bbq sauce, Jack Daniels and syrup.  Heat the sauce and pour it over the meatloaf. 

adapted from The Best American Recipes, 2002-2003