Colleen’s Meatloaf

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Ingredients

  • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
  • 1 onion chopped fine
  • 10 ounces of mushrooms diced (we used mini portabellos)
  • 5 garlic cloves minced
  • ⅓ cup low-sodium spicy tomato juice (V-8)
  • ⅔ cup of plain panko bread crumbs
  • 2 pounds of lean ground beef
  • 1 large egg
  • 1.5 tablespoons of soy sauce
  • 1.5 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
  • 1 tablespoons of dried parsley
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Optional:

  • Pinch of red pepper flakes
  • ⅛ teaspoon or so cayenne pepper

Glaze:

We use the homemade BBQ sauce that we use for Milwaukee Pork Chops. Or, you can use your favorite store-bought sauce.

Directions

  1. Set the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 375º. Place parchment paper at the bottom of the sheet pan. Spray a cooking rack with cooking spray (Pam) and then cover it with foil. Pierce the foil in several spots to allow and grease to pass through to the sheet pan. We do this to make clean up easier and the meatloaf isn’t cooking in grease.
  2. Heat oil in a large pot on medium heat and add the onion cooking until softened (about 8 minutes). Add the mushrooms and cook until they release their liquid (about 5 minutes). Increase the heat to medium-high and cook until the liquid is evaporated. Next, add the garlic and cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Let the mixture cool while doing the next step.
  3. Whisk egg, soy sauce, mustard, salt, pepper, parsley, and tomato juice in a large bowl. Add the ground beef and combine. Next, add the onion/mushroom mixture to the bowl and mix by hand until evenly combined.
  4. Form the mixture into equal-sized mini loaves (about 7 ounces) and place them on the prepared baking sheet pan.
  5. Place in the oven and cook until the internal temperature is about 150º.
  6. Remove the meatloaf and apply the glaze of your choice.
  7. There are two ways we do the next step; broiler or higher oven temperature.
    • Broiler: Turn the broiler on and broil the meatloaf until the glaze begins to bubble (about 3 minutes).
    • Higher oven temp: Increase oven temperature to 425º. Cook the meatloaf for an additional 5 minutes or until the glaze starts to bubble.
    • Note: with both methods, the meatloaf will continue to cook and will reach an internal temperature of about 160º.
  8. Remove from oven and let sit for about 5 minutes before serving with your favorite sides.

Fresh Kimchi

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Kimchi is one of those foods that some love and others not so much. My departed wife, Youngmi, made excellent kimchi and, that’s how I was introduced to it and grew to love it.

There are two basic kinds of kimchi; fresh or fermented. 

Image by Jason Goh from Pixabay

Fresh kimchi is the kind that you make and begin to enjoy right away. The fermented version you let sit for a few weeks before eating it. My preference is fresh kimchi. 

I found this recipe on Seonkyoung Longest’s website. It’s not exactly like Youngmi’s kimchi but, it’s darned close. Bt the way, Seonkyoung website is my go-to place when I’m looking for a Korean recipe that’s close to what Youngmi would have made.

So, let’s roll up our sleeves and make some kimchi!

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Greek Turkey Burgers with Spinach, Feta & Tzatziki

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I wasn’t a big fan of turkey burgers. They were always so dry and tasteless. I’m sure sawdust would have been just as good.

Source: EatingWell.com, February 2018

Then Colleen made turkey burgers with this recipe. I admit I was skeptical but was willing to give it a try based on the ingredients. Man, this is some really tasty eats! It won me over.

This recipe, unlike most of the others, is unaltered. The original recipe can be found here and makes 4-quarter-pound plus burgers.

So, if you’d had turkey burgers and thought they were inedible, give this one a try and see if it changes your mind.

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Carolina Pimento Cheese Chicken Salad

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Photo by Alesia Kozik from Pexels

This is some excellent tasting chicken salad. The original recipe is from Cook’s Country and was published in 2007. As our norm, Colleen took the base recipe and adjusted it to our liking.

The recipe calls for cayenne pepper. Some may be hesitant to add it but we recommend not eliminating it. The small amount doesn’t add heat but does provide a subtle flavor that really makes all the difference.

This works well to serve on top of a salad, make a sammie, or put it on crackers while you enjoy a beverage at the end of your day!

Ingredients

½ cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 stalk of celery, chopped

½ cup mayonnaise

1 small jar pimentos, chopped and drained

2 tablespoons sour creama

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 garlic clove , minced

2 to 3 cups cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  • We shred the chicken by using our KitchenAid mixer. Break each chicken breast into a couple of smaller pieces. Toss into the mixer bowl with the paddle blade. Turn on low and let run until the desired level of shredding, about 45 seconds to 1-minute.
  • Combine cheese, mayonnaise, pimentos, sour cream, lemon juice, cayenne, and garlic in a large bowl. Add chicken and toss until coated. Season with salt and pepper. Serve or cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days.

Lemon Cream Cheese Cookies

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Image from Land-O-Lakes

Here’s another great cookie recipe!

My Colleen is an excellent baker and this recipe is one of her grandchildren’s favorites. I kinda like it, too!

The cookies are bite-sized ones with a buttery, melt in your mouth taste. Yummy!

We’re not sure where this recipe came from as it’s from the late 70s to early 80s. We know that the recipe came with cookie press from the timeframe.

Let’s make some cookies!

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Pressure Cooker Beef Veggie Soup

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We were visiting Gary and Trish in January 2019 at their home in Minnesota. It gets a bit on the cool side there at that time of year.

Gary made this soup for us. Man, it was so tasty, perfect for the chilling weather, and it was fast to prepare. Since that visit, we’ve made it a few more times and it’s just as good as the first time we ate it.

The recipe that follows is basically unchanged from what Gary provided to us. Yes, it’s odd for us to not made several changes to any given recipe, but this one is just excellent the way it is.

Fair warning; this makes a fair amount that will feed 6 to 8 with no problem. So if you’re cooking for two, go ahead and make it, but have your storage containers ready to save the leftovers for another day as this soup freezes very well.

One last thing before we head into the recipe, this one came from The Foodie Eats. Here is a direct link to the recipe on their site

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Mushroom-Red Wine Sauce

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We do love a great grilled steak. Adding a nice mushroom sauce to it, gives it just a bit more flavor to make it even tastier.

Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com

This recipe we found on Real Simple and gave it a try. Yep, this one is a keeper so we posted it on our blog for easier access to the recipe.

If you want to see the original post, follow this link to check it out.

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Brandon Pettit’s pizza dough

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Here’s a second pizza dough recipe and it’s one that we prefer over the Green Mountain version that I posted here. This recipe hasn’t been changed from the original one (very odd for us!)

While browsing food items in the Flipboard app, we came across this one from the Seattle Times and decided to give it a try. We enjoyed the ease of making, how it bakes in our pizza oven, the great chew and taste. It’s perfect in our opinion.

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Rich and Creamy Blue Cheese Dressing

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We love making fresh stuff and that includes dressings. It just tastes so much better than the store bought varieties. The great thing is that it doesn’t take much time to put this together.

This recipes comes from our friends at Allrecipes. Here’s the link to the original version. Yes, our version has a few changes that we believe makes it even better.

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