My Meatloaf Adventure.

Dinner tonight was meatloaf, baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli. Sounds good, right? A little bit of comfort food before I have to spend the rest of the week working. Well, that was the plan, anyway. Sometimes cooking doesn't go well for me, and this was one of those nights. The broccoli looked perfect, and Jim did an awesome job on the potatoes. The meatloaf....exploded. Well, not the meatloaf itself, the dish it was in, but it all amounts to an un-eatable meatloaf, and it sounds more interesting to say that the meatloaf exploded. It will make for a good story at work tomorrow.

The frustrating thing is, I have no idea how it happened. I've made this meatloaf dozens of times, and it's never exploded before. The only thing I can think of is that after taking it out of the oven, I left it on the stove top to cool, and the stove top was still hot from the oven being on, and it just overheated. I may never know.

So, if you want to try the unexploding version of this, here we go.

Ingredients needed:

1 lb lean ground beef
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 cup ketchup + 1/4 cup ketchup
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 diced onion
1/2 cup milk

To make:

pre heat oven to 350.
mix together all ingredients in a large bowl(i usually do this by hand, because it's faster, but I suppose you could use a spoon too. careful not to over mix, or it will be mushy)
press together in an ungreased loaf pan.
bake for 40 minutes then remove and spread the 1/4 cup ketchup, and back in the oven for 15 more minutes.
let cool for 10 minutes, and serve.

For the baked potatoes:

2(or however many you are feeding) baking potatoes
2 tbsp veg or olive oil
salt(kosher, preferably)

To make:

wash potatoes
pour oil into a ziploc baggie, then put potatoes in one at a time and coat with oil.
lay potatoes directly on the oven rack, and sprinkle with salt(if you like salt, use a lot; if you dont, use a little....but put some on there)
bake in oven, or toaster oven on 350 for about 45 minutes to an hour, until tender.

This is Alton Brown's recipe for baked potatoes, and even though it sounds incredibly simple, it makes the best baked potatoes i've ever had in my life. crispy, well seasoned skin and fluffy on the inside. So good!

So, in case you want to see, here is what the meatloaf looked like right before going in the oven.



And here's what it looked like after the explosion.


So, the moral of today's story is: don't explode meatloaves.

Seriously.

I'm going to be finding little tiny slivers of glass for weeks. I'm afraid to cook in my kitchen now.

Oh yeah, and dinner consisted of the baked potatoes(broccoli was sitting right next to the meatloaf when it exploded) and McDonald's.

Taco Salad

So, I think I've mentioned before how much I love tacos. It's been awhile? Really? It's only been one day. Okay, well let me refresh your memory. I love tacos. The plan all day today was to make meatloaf, baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli for dinner tonight. Well, on our way to the store to pick up the potatoes, we both decided we were too hungry to wait for over an hour to have dinner, and decided instead to have taco salad. Boss. This is one of those awesome meals that takes about 20 minutes to make, and is so good no matter what. It's really really hard to mess up taco salad.

Ingredients needed:

1 lb lean ground beef(not too lean...ground chuck works really well)
1 packet of taco seasoning
1 tomato
1/2 large onion, diced(preferably a vidalia onion if you can get it, but if you cant, a sweet yellow onion works just as well)
Lettuce for the salad part(I prefer romaine hearts, and usually buy the pre bagged stuff. it's way easier)
1 avacado
tortilla chips(no set amount, just however much you like)
taco sauce
sour cream
anything you like on your taco's

To make:

Pour a little oil into a large skillet, and let heat up at around med-high heat. Once the oil is sizzling a bit, throw the diced onions in there and let them soften, about 3 minutes or so, or until the onions become translucent.



Add the beef, and cook until brown(my little secret here, and a few generous splashes of worcestershire sauce to the browning beef...makes all the difference in the world). Then add taco seasoning, and prepare according to package directions. Once you've got the taco seasoning in the beef, you're going to want to let the liquid cook down for about 5-7 minutes, which gives you ample time to dice the tomato's,



tear up some lettuce, crush some tortilla chips, and slice an avacado. Throw all this on a plate or in a bowl, and mix it all together. Add some sour cream and taco sauce, stir that in as well, and ta da! Taco Salad. If you like olives and peppers and things, you can add those too, but they're not necessary.



This meal is always a hit at my house, and it's incredibly filling. Too filling, some might say. To those people, I say hush up, and eat your taco salad.

Double Cheese Casserole

So I've been wanting to make lasagna for a little while now, and I finally decided to make it yesterday evening. I pulled out my recipe(actually Jim's grandmothers recipe) and started to make a list for the grocery store. Halfway through though, I realized that I couldn't read the recipe. I had no idea how much of what to use, or how to cook it. I offered to find a different recipe and make that instead, but Jim will only eat his Grandma's lasagna. I had found this recipe a few years back on allrecipes.com and I decided to make that instead of true lasagna. It's quoted as being a "lasagna-like" recipe. I'm not sure how lasagna like it is. Tasted more like stroganoff to me.

Ingredients needed:

1 12 oz package of egg noodles
1 lb lean ground beef
1 large onion, diced
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
4 oz cream cheese
12 oz cottage cheese
1 8 oz container sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

To make:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Cook egg noodles according to directions
While noodles are cooking, brown the ground beef and onions in a large skillet(and I mean large, you'll see why soon). Once the meat is brown, reduce heat to low and add tomato sauce. Stir well and let simmer for about a minute. Add the cream cheese, and let dissolve in the beef, once dissolved add the cottage cheese and stir together until well blended. Stir in cooked egg noodles(this is why you need the really large skillet, by the way. 12 oz of egg noodles may not look like much when they're dry, but when cooked, there are a ton), then add the sour cream. Pour into a 2 quart casserole dish, then bake for 30 minutes.

So...here's where I changed from the recipe. I added a little bit of garlic as well, and about 20 minutes in, I added some mozzarella cheese to the top of the casserole. Because well, who doesn't want more cheese?

This dish was just okay. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great. It was fairly bland, actually. I hesitate to blame the recipe though, it could very well have been the cook. It smelled really good, so that counts for something, right? It was rated a 4/5 by allrecipe members, so someone out there likes it.

I'll probably be throwing most of it away.

scary drive home

So, driving with my friend Victoria is probably something like driving with a NASCAR driver who is off his meds. Scary stuff. A drive that normally takes me 18-20 minutes took about 11. Plus side is, I got home about 7-9 minutes sooner, so that's cool.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

So, the thing is, I don't really love to cook. I like to cook. But I don't love it. I love to eat, and I love spending time with my husband, and a way to combine those two things is to cook. Hence the boredom that started this blog. I probably shouldn't have a cooking blog without loving to cook, but the internet is full of things that probably shouldn't be out there, so I figured what the heck.

I do, however love to bake. I've always loved to bake. Both of my grandmothers and great grandmother are and were excellent bakers. My favorite dessert to this day is my great grandmothers lemon meringue pie. One bite of lemony goodness is worth a four hour layover in the Atlanta airport. It's amazing. I really have to learn to make it the next time I visit her. The baking gene skipped my mom. She's a competent baker, but an excellent cook. She's one of those people who can just toss things in together and have them come out as a meal. I'm much more of a follow the recipe kind of person, which is okay, but I'm sure I miss a lot of great things along the way.

So, one of my husbands favorite desserts in the whole world is pineapple upside down cake. His mother makes it several times a year for various holiday dinners, and it's very good. It's never been one of my favorites, but I figured I would make it for him, and then he would owe me favors.

So, here's how I did.

Ingredients needed:

1/4 cup butter or margarine(but really, who would use margarine in this?)
2/3 cup of packed brown sugar.
9 pineapple rings
9 marachino cherries
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1 1/3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1 egg


I know there's vanilla in that picture. It's just habit to grab the vanilla when baking. I had to triple check to make sure it wasn't needed. It really wasn't. Weird.

To make:

Heat oven to 350. In 9 inch round or square pan, melt butter in oven. When melted, sprinkle brown sugar over butter. Place pineapple rings over brown sugar, then place cherries in the center of pineapple rings. Word of warning. Make sure you really watch the butter while it's melting. It goes from melting to burned in about 1.8 seconds, and then you have to throw it out and start again. Pain in the butt.



In a medium bowl, beat remaining ingredients with an electric mixer on low. Scrape sides of bowl consistently for the first minute or so, and then occasionally after that. After about a minute, up the speed of the mixer. Just to 2, or maybe 3. Pour batter over pineapples and cherries.

Bake 50-55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean....if the cake starts to get too brown(like it does in my stupid oven), put foil over cake. After removing cake from oven, put a heat resistant plate over the cake pan, and turn upside down. Get it? That's the upside down part of the upside down cake. You cook it upside down. Genius. Leave the cake pan on for a few minutes, and this will give the brown sugar time to melt down the sides of the cake and get all sticky and awesomely delicious.




This turned out reasonably well for me. When I turned it over, the middle pineapple was still stuck to the pan, and not the cake, but it was easy enough to transfer over the cake, then just push some of the brown sugar around to fill in the holes. I made this cake about 4 hours ago, and Jim(my husband just takes to long to type, so from here on out, he's Jim) has been eating single bites for awhile. The cake is about half gone at this point. I've only gotten 2 bites.

Taco Stuffed Shells Goodness

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a HUGE fan of tacos. Any form of tacos. Taco salad, taco dip, regular crunchy tacos, taco's that are more like fajita's than taco's. I'm taco crazy. And now taco looks like it's spelled wrong. I hate when that happens. So, I found this recipe for Taco Stuffed Shells, and it looked awesome, so I decided to try it. It's AWESOME. Like, super awesome. I wanted to make it again the next night, it was so awesome. I didn't though. That would be taco overload(if there is such a thing).

So, here we go. Delicious taco flavored stuffed shells.

Ingredients needed:
1lb ground beef
1 package taco seasoning
1 4 once package cream cheese
12 large pasta shells
1 cup salsa
1 cup taco sauce
1 cup cheddar cheese (shredded)
1 cup Monterey jack cheese (shredded)
1 ½ cups tortilla chips (crushed)
3 green onions (chopped)
1 cup sour cream


To make:

Brown the ground beef, add taco seasoning, and prepare as you would if you were making regular taco's. Add the cream cheese, and melt into the beef until well blended. Remove from pan, and set aside to cool.

While the beef is cooking, cook the shells, then drain, and toss with butter.

Stuff each of the shells with some of the beef mixture. The original recipe said it made 12 shells. I actually got 16, with a little bit of the beef mixture left over.(which was awesome by itself, by the way. I may actually start adding a bit of cream cheese when I make regular taco's now)

Pour the salsa in the bottom a 9x13 pan. Metal or glass, doesn't really matter. Arrange shells on the salsa, and then pour the taco sauce over them. Those go in the oven for 30 minutes, covered.( i forgot to cover them when I made them, and they still turned out great.) Remove from oven, and sprinkle crushed tortilla chips and cheese over them, then back in the oven for anther 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven, and cover with sour cream, more taco sauce, olives, peppers, whatever you like on your tacos will be good on this. I just went with straight sour cream. I'm a taco purist.

Now, this can be made spicy, or mild, depending on the salsa and taco sauce you use. I used medium versions, and it was spicy, but not too spicy. If you like hot stuff, use hot versions of the salsa and taco sauce. It can also be made much more healthfully. Use fat free and light versions of the cream cheese, cheese, and sour cream. Use ground sirloin instead of ground beef. Easy. Also note, instead of buying two types of cheeses, just use some kind of "taco and nacho mix" cheese. So much easier.

Mongolian Beef and Fried Rice

So, for my first foray into making new things, I decided to make Mongolian Beef and fried rice. It turned out really well. Both my husband and I loved it. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to make, but it wasn't incredibly difficult either. This will probably be a special occasion meal, rather than a regular weeknight meal. I got the fried rice recipe from my mom, actually, and the beef recipe from BlogChef. I'm not sure where the name Mongolian Beef comes from. It had a decidedly teriyaki flavor to it, which I love, so it's all good.

Ingredients needed for Mongolian Beef:

1 lb flank steak
¼ cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon ginger (minced)(you can use the pre minced ginger that you can find in the produce section of your market)
1 tablespoon garlic (minced)
½ cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
½ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons rice wine
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 green onions (sliced)
1 medium onion (sliced)
Oil (for frying)

To make:

In a medium sauce pan heat 2 tsp oil, add garlic and ginger and stir fry about 10 seconds. Add soy sauce, water and wine(note, rice wine vinegar works just as well). Add brown sugar, and dissolve into sauce. Add the red pepper flakes, bring to a boil for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Slice the steak against the grain in 1/4 inch slices. Toss the steak in the cornstarch, and let sit for 10 minutes. Apparently this is very important. Dont skip this step.



Heat up about a cup of oil in a skillet or wok and add beef to oil(in batches if you have to, dont crowd them, beef hates to be crowded. It gets all cranky, and wont taste as good.) and fry for about three minutes. Turn at least once. You'll be able to tell when they're done.

Remove the meat from the pan, and lay on paper towels to drain grease. Pour out most of the oil from pan, leaving about a tbsp left. Add the onions to the pan, and fry for about two minutes, or if you like your onions softer, about 4 minutes. Add the steak back to the pan, and pour on that sauce you set aside earlier. Cook on medium low for a few minutes until the sauce thickens a bit, and you're good to go.



Ingredients needed for Fried Rice:

2 large eggs
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup shredded napa cabbage(precut coleslaw mix works just as well. I prefer it actually. Less work that way)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 green onions finely chopped(optional, it wont effect the flavor if it's not there)
5 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 cups cold cooked rice.(Prepare rice at least 4-6 hours before hand, the previous day is even better. This will NOT work with rice that is even the slightest bit warm)

To Make:

Lightly beat the eggs with sale and pepper to taste. Preheat a wok or frying pan to medium heat, and add about a tbsp of oil. Add the eggs, and rotate the pan so the beaten egg covers the pan. Don't scramble the eggs, just let them cook flat until firm. Remove from pan and let cool.

In same pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil. When the oil is hot, add the cabbage, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir fry briefly, until cabbage is somewhat soft. Remove from pan.

Heat another 2 tbsp of oil in same pan, and add the cold rice. Fry the rice in the pan, stirring often to keep grains separated. Add cabbage(or coleslaw) back in with rice. Stir in the soy sauce and oyster sauce. Stir in green onion. Cut up eggs, and stir into rice.



So basically, that's it.

For about 45 minutes worth of work, you have a meal that you could find at any Chinese buffet. It's not a spicy meal, but it's very flavorful. You could make it more spicy, I guess by adding more ginger and red pepper flakes. I'm not a big fan of super spicy things though, so I left it alone.

It went very well for a first try. Usually the first time I make something it turns out awful, so that says a lot about the ease and deliciousness of this meal that even I couldn't mess it up.

Side Note: the rice dish reheats really well, so I actually made that first, and set it in the microwave while making the beef. Much easier than trying to make them both at the same time.

Hi.

Alright, so in the past few years, I’ve gotten in the habit of making the same things for dinner over and over and over again. There’s a limit to how much spaghetti and taco salad two people can eat. So, I’ve decided that I’m going to make at least one new thing a week, possibly more in an attempt to keep my husband from leaving me out of culinary boredom.

I’m starting this blog as a way to keep track of the things I make, and whether or not they went over well, so I’ll know if I need to scrap them or keep them.

It will also chronicle my quest to make the perfect cupcake. So far I’m 0 for 2.
I only really expect a my husband, my mom, and my best friends to read this, but if other people stumble across it and like it, that’s cool too.

I actually started my journey into cooking new things a few weeks ago, so I’ll be starting off with a few things I’ve already made. Hope you enjoy them.

Sara