Meatloaf

Hi!

It turns out that something kinda crazy is happening. Blogger doesn't want to let me post tonight, so this is instead coming from my email. I'm hoping and praying this works correctly. If not, I'll fix it in the morning. Now, onto our recipe. (Next Morning Update: I added the pictures)

I am weird, I admit, but I don't really like meatloaf. I like everything in meatloaf, but when you put it together I'm not a big fan of it. Not sure why, but this is the truth. Not a meatloaf person. Dave, on the other hand, actually likes meatloaf. I make it and he tells me how good it is and occasionally wonders out loud why I don't make it more often. The reason, of course, is because I don't like meatloaf!

Tonight, to appease him (and because we had all the ingredients in the house) I made meatloaf. Besides, it became my baking recipe for the day, right?

Ingredients:

3/4 cup bread crumbs
3/4 cup milk
2 lbs ground beef (can substitute ground turkey if you want to make it healthier)
1/2 brown onion (any type should do, it's what I had), chopped
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon ground mustard
1/4 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/8 teaspoon dill weed (can probably move this up to 1/4 teaspoon without a problem)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese


1. Turn the oven to 350.

2. Combine the bread crumbs with the milk in a small bowl and let them sit for about 5 minutes.

3. In another small bowl, beat the heck out of the egg

4. Once the 5 minutes are up, throw all the ingredients in a large bowl. Oh, and please make sure your ground beef is thawed, or you'll have issues. Just thought I'd throw that out there for people who used to be like me and didn't realize that. Yup, I've tried to make more than one meal with frozen ground beef. It's a bad plan.

5. Mix it all up. I started with a wooden spoon, but found it a lot easier to just mush the whole thing together with my hands. Just get it thoroughly mixed together.

6. Put the whole thing into a loaf pan. If you don't have a loaf pan or prefer a more "freestyle" meatloaf, put the lump in a 13"x9" inch pan and form it into a rectangle.

7. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 and a half hours, until thoroughly cooked. A meat thermometer should register the internal temperature at 165 degrees and there should be no pink.

To me, it tasted blah. Sunshine didn't eat it, but she doesn't eat 3/4 of the things we have for dinner. Beautiful G ate hers and Sunshine's, but she does that all the time too. Dave really liked it, so that's the ringing endorsement I give it. The person who likes meatloaf really likes this one. Enjoy it for your own dinner one night and tell me what you think!

Cheap and Easy Cheesy Bread

When dinner came around tonight, I hadn't made it to the store yet. I knew we were having spaghetti but I also never got around to making french bread like I planned. So today's recipe is one that I haven't made in years, but worked in a pinch.

When Dave & I were first married, the only dishes I could competently make were tacos and spaghetti. But our budget was so small that I really couldn't afford all the side dishes that normally go with them, like garlic bread. Instead, I would make cheesy bread as a side dish for spaghetti. Now I use coupons and have a bigger grocery budget, so we can afford to buy garlic bread, but this still works when you are short on time and/or resources.

Ingredients:

8 pieces of bread (I used white, but wheat should work fine too)
Spreadable Butter (not your normal stick butter you bake with)
Shredded Cheese (amounts are up to you, but at least 1-2 cups. Kinds of cheese are also up to you, I had cheddar blends that I used)

The first rule of baking is to preheat the oven and this recipe needs 350 degrees.

Grab a baking sheet (I normally use one with sides that is not an air-bake) and spray it with cooking spray. Butter one side of each piece of bread and place them on the baking sheet, butter side up. Sprinkle shredded cheese over the top of each slice of bread, until they are covered.

Bake in the oven for 3 to 5 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the bread is a "toast" like texture without being burnt.

To make it more like "garlic" bread, you can sprinkle garlic powder onto the bread after you spread the butter but before you add the cheese. Don't go overboard (did that a time or two many years ago!).

It's not the greatest thing out there. It certainly not real garlic bread, but it works in a pinch and can save you when your family expects bread to go with your Italian meal.

Whoops...

I had about 4 different ideas for baking today, three of which were comfort foods. The fourth one was for french bread, but I didn't make spaghetti for dinner so I didn't need french bread.

The rest, though, didn't get made for an entirely different reason. I let some of my supplies get low and I hadn't realized it. I have 1 egg right now. 1 egg! How on earth did I get only 1 egg??????? I'm low on a few other baking supplies, but this was the big one. Then I realized that my entire cupboard looks empty. I need to real grocery shopping and I have to do it very soon. Probably won't happen tomorrow, because we have enough for one meal, but definitely by Wednesday. A quick glance through the ads gives me an idea of what to shop and where, but I have to do major comparison shopping and do it tomorrow night.

I'm still kicking myself for letting my stuff get so low. Don't do this to yourself! It just adds to your frustration, especially when the weather gets bad. We're having major rain right now in Southern California which is leading to other problems.

Today's big tip: be smart, have a plan and always have a stock for bad weather. Make sure you can survive if you lost power, got snowed in or had some other natural disaster that prevented you from leaving your home. This can save your life. Here are some great links for what you should have for emergencies:

Ready- This is provided by the US Government shows you exactly what you should have in an emergency preparation kit


CDC Emergency Preparation and Planning- This covers both natural disaster prep and prep from major medical problems like anthrax or massive injuries.

FEMA- Yes, the same FEMA that gets trashed in the media at every turn. They actually can do quite a bit of good work if WE ARE PREPARED! FEMA has several different pamphlets you can get to help you with emergency preparations.

So, get your stuff together and I'll get mine. Plus I'll go grocery shopping soon so I can bake!

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor

...AKA ME!

I just wanted to let my followers know that I started another blog. Don't worry, this one isn't going anywhere. But I started another one for all the rest of the goals I hold for 2011. It's more mommy/generic than this one and will hold more information about my life. While I can bake wonderfully, I'm not so hot on the rest of the Domestic front, so I named it Mrs. Undomestic. Please come check it out!

A Few of My Favorite Things

First and foremost, I'm a really tiny blog. I mean, up until this week, I was having a spectacular day on the blog when I had 10 visitors. I state this to point out a very important fact: I'm about to show you some stuff I absolutely love and it will include specific product names. None of these people have given me any money whatsoever to promote them. They don't know I even exist. I just happen to love them and want to share with other people. So when you see this stuff, don't think I'm getting any compensation, all I get is the chance to share stuff I really like with other people. That said, let's go onto a few of my favorite things!

I first bought this stuff a few months ago when I was out of cooking spray. I had a coupon for it and it was on a good sale, so I ended up buying 3 cans of the stuff. It's AMAZING! Pam put flour in the spray, making it easier for me to properly coat my cake pans, cookie sheets and other baking stuff that works well with flour instead of just butter or regular cooking spray. If you like to bake, bake regularly, or are just starting out, I totally recommending picking up a can of this stuff!

I still have a lot of what's in this haul (see the original post about it here). I bought these when they were on sale (and for the chocolate chips, with a coupon) and knowing I have them on hand makes my life so much easier! I never worry about whether I have enough flour, since I know there is a bag up in the cupboard. Stockpiling, in moderation, can be a salvation when you are baking. Right now I'm kicking myself for not stocking up on unsweetened cocoa powder!

and

and

These pictures show you probably the my most used items when it comes to baking. My mixer, bowls and basic ingredients are essential to this blog!

Yeah, this is my dishwasher. I hate washing dishes. I mean I hate it with a passion. It's been on the bottom of my list (along with laundry and sweeping, I'm kinda domestically challenged) for many years. So this dishwasher saves my sanity. Putting dishes away isn't nearly as bad as having to wash them myself and I love the fact that a 2 minute dishwasher load up can turn my kitchen from disaster to neat and tidy.

The last picture is only sort-of baking related, but mostly cooking related.

Mark Bittman, who writes for the New York Times, made this cookbook. It's not kidding when it says everything. I love this cookbook. I can't think of a recipe yet that hasn't come out well when I follow the directions in this book. It also contains lots of hints and tips on how to cook. While I don't use recipes from this book to bake, I use them to cook and I read the tips on baking regularly. It's wonderful and worth every penny!

My very last favorite things will not have a picture listed. This is for privacy reasons. My favorite thing is my family. Dave is my husband of 5 and a half years and is the most awesome man I've met. He works very hard every day to provide for us so that I can stay home with my girls. He also always has time for us when we need it and with 3 females, we need his time! We also have 2 little girls that I'm incredibly grateful for. They are funny, sweet, kind and over-helpful. God blessed me greatly with the little girls he gave me, even when they have more energy than a nuclear reactor! They are part of the reason I run this blog.

So those are my favorite things. What are your favorite things?

The Microwave Cupcake Disaster

I am having quite a day. I'm blaming the rain, because right now I need to blame something.

For those of you who don't know, I have 2 girls, one age 5 and in kindergarten and the other age 3. My 5-year-old has been on Christmas break since December 17 and doesn't go back until January 3, like all of the schools in the area. This is not unusual. What is unusual is the massive amounts of rain we've gotten in Southern California in the last 2 weeks. We usually get 1.31 inches of ran in December. We've gotten 3.68 inches. While neither number sounds high, if you think about it comparatively, we've gotten 3 times the normal amount of rain for the month. This has kept my girls cooped up quite a bit. Add the excitement of Christmas and New Years and we've got two balls of energy flying around an apartment that is less than 900 square feet. Not a good combination.

Which leads us to our recipe. I was in need of chocolate. Lots of chocolate. And while I was searching the web for something completely different, I stumbled on the idea of making cupcakes in the microwave using actual cups. This sounded wonderful. A quick dessert that could help save my sanity. Alas, it was not to be. Instead, it turned into a chocolate disaster.

Here's the recipe I made. I'd love feedback on how to fix it if any of you have suggestions. I will be trying to fix it myself, but not today.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 Tablespoons butter, softened
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


1. Don't preheat the oven. I didn't use it, although I wish I had!

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and sugar.

3. Next add the softened butter and eggs and beat well. It's going to look like that. A slightly damp, mushed up version of the dry ingredients.

4. Add the milk and vanilla and beat them in well. Now it looks more like a batter, although it was a little thin for batter. Maybe only a half a cup of milk next time??

5. Spray your mugs thoroughly with cooking spray to prevent the cupcakes from sticking (HA HA) and pour your batter into them. I have exceptionally tall coffee mugs, so I used 3. If you used normal sized mugs, I'd stick with 6. I also filled them about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. Another mistake, perhaps???

6. Bake in the microwave. The original recipes I found all called for 2 minutes, but since I had more batter I checked them at 2 and decided to microwave them for 4. Oh, at 100% power.

7. Disaster. In the microwave they overfilled and I ended up scrubbing chocolate goo off the tray. The cups were covered too. I bit into one right away and while the top was cooked, the insides were goo. I spent some time trying to clean up the mess and tried them again after about 10 minutes. Of the three, only one came out the way I wanted. They all tasted good, but only one even resembled a cupcake in texture.

There you have it. My baking disaster. And to top it off, that was the last of my unsweetened cocoa powder, so I can't even make regular chocolate cake like I had been planning. Ah well, live and learn.

So, what do you suggest for this recipe? Ever had one blow up in your face like this?

A Basic Egg Strata

Good morning! As I write this, the rain is pouring down again. I keep thinking that I moved to Southern California for sunshine, but December has provided me anything but! At least we haven't gotten snow, unlike the rest of the country.

Today's recipe is great for a morning like today or a quick dinner for your family, like we did last night. It's a very, very basic egg strata that you can gussy up as you see fit (and I may just post some variations on this later, so watch for them!)

Ingredients:
Bread. Type doesn't matter. Amount should be enough to cover the bottom of a 9x13 pan and maybe layer it some.
1 lb Meat. The first time I made this, I used sausage, the second time (the one with pics) I used bacon.
Eggs. The amount of eggs really depends on the amount of everything else. At least 8, but a dozen can easily be used.
2 cups Cheese. Whatever type floats your boat. I used cheddar, but we really like cheddar.


Now, the recipe:

1. TURN THE OVEN TO 350. Yup, I really mean it when I say pre-heat. I am never, ever kidding.

2. Spray the pan with cooking spray or grease the pan with butter.

3. Add the bread to the bottom. Last night, I used 8 pieces of white bread. When I made it last week, I made it with about 16 pieces of wheat bread. Personally, I'm going to stick with more bread rather than less, but that's personal preference.

4. Add the meat. I used bacon last night, but sausage the last time. One big thing to note: you don't need to precook any of your meat. It will cook when it bakes, so that saves a lot of time.

5. Whisk the eggs together. Last night I used 8. The time before I used a full dozen. Again, I'm going back to a dozen, but that's personal preference. I added a little bit of salt and pepper to my eggs, but feel free to add other spices you like to it. Once you've whisked the eggs together, pour the eggs into the baking dish and mix the all the ingredients slightly. The mix will help coat the bread and meat with the eggs.

6. Add the cheese to the top, covering the whole thing. 2 cups should do fine, but if you like more cheese, add it! This is really basic and easy to change if you want.

7. Bake the whole thing for 35 minutes. If you want to make something to go with it, I suggest fried potatoes, but this doesn't really need a side dish if you don't want one.

That's the finished product. The last time I made it (with more ingredients) the dish was much fuller and so were we. It still tastes quite good, though, so enjoy it like we did.