Goat Cheese & Sun-Dried Tomato Meatloaf

When temperatures are chilly and the sun seems to show itself for just a few hours a day, the winter starts to take its toll on me.  Its during these long winter months that I really begin to crave comfort foods.  One of my all time favorite cold weather comfort dishes is meatloaf.  It's one of the first things I taught myself how to cook after I got married.  It just seemed like a "newlywed" kind of thing to cook to impress my hungry husband.  I've read a lot of recipes and tried dozens of different versions over the years before settling on one we like the best.  I switch up the ingredients a bit from the standard run of the mill meatloaf because I find that regular ground beef is just too greasy and heavy for our taste. Instead I opt for a combination of ground turkey and ground veal combined with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese that makes for a meatloaf that is luxurious and tender.  I hope you will give it a try and let me know what you think!

Dice up the bread into small pieces.  

To keep the meatloaf super moist and flavorful, the first step is to cube up some crusty bread and soak it in some milk or cream.  You will want to season the bread mixture with a good amount of fresh cracked black pepper and kosher salt.  As you have heard me say many times before, you want to season every layer while you assemble the meatloaf to ensure it turns out super flavorful.  Use a bowl for soaking the bread that is large enough to fit all the remaining ingredients in the recipe.  That way you won't have a lot of dishes to wash and assembly goes quickly.

While the bread soaks in all that goodness, you can get the other ingredients ready to go.  Mince the garlic, chop up the sun-dried tomatoes and parsley and dice the onion.  You'll want to keep the pieces pretty small so you don't end up with any large bites of the ingredients in the finished product and they can cook through completely.  Some people cook their onions before adding them to the mixture but I find that added step unnecessary. Besides, it will just dirty another pan - - and who wants that?

All the ingredients set out and
ready to get cooking

As you get ingredients cut up, go ahead and add them right to the bread mixture.  Everything else in the recipe, except the meats, gets added to the bowl at this point. Add in some more kosher salt and pepper to the mixture now to be sure it is well seasoned.  I use Herbs de Provence because it has so many great herbs combined together, but if you don't have that on hand (or don't want to buy it) you can use a mixture of dried thyme, basil, rosemary, fennel seeds and/or marjoram.  While variations of Herbs de Provence can be different, I like the ones that contain lavender as it adds a depth of flavor and a sweet floral aroma to dishes.  It is an ingredient that can be used with so many different recipes that I think it is worth giving it a shot if you have never used it before.

Minced garlic, chopped sun-dried
tomato and diced onion

You'll notice I didn't put an amount next to the goat cheese in the recipe because that ingredient is really up to personal taste.  My husband doesn't care for the goat cheese as much so I go lighter with it but if you like that flavor (I adore how well it works with the sun-dried tomatoes and veal!) go ahead and add it in higher quantities.  It adds a creamy texture and consistency that I really like.  It is important that you taste the goat cheese you are using though so you know how salty it is because that will affect how much additional salt you should add.

All the ingredients mixed
together (before the meat)

At this point you want to get everything really well mixed before you add in the meat.  The less you have to handle the ground meat, the better texture the final product will have.  Add the veal and ground turkey to the bowl and mix it gently until just combined.  The only tools to use for this step are the best ones in the kitchen - your hands!  It is a messy job but it is the best way to get the meat combined without over-mixing.  In my opinion, nothing is worse than a super dense meatloaf, regardless of how good the flavor is.  Think hockey puck...   Over-mixing the meat is one of the most frequent mistakes people make when making meatloaf, meatballs, burgers, etc - - basically anything with ground meat that you mix together before cooking.  The key is to just get the ingredients incorporated and then stop fussing with it!

The mixture after the meat is
added, ready to become meatloaves!

Using a large sheet tray covered in foil, place 1/3 of the meat mixture on the pan and gently shape it into a small loaf.  Make sure it is about the same size all the way from one end to the other so it cooks evenly.  Repeat this step, creating a 2nd and 3rd loaf.  Evenly space them on the pan making sure there is room between each of them.

I like making these smaller meatloaves rather than making one large one for a couple of reasons.  First, it takes a lot less time to cook the smaller ones so you go from prepping to eating in about 30 minutes.  That is a huge timesaver when you want to make this meal during the week.  Second, and perhaps more importantly, my favorite part is the crispy, crunchy crust that forms on the outer layer of the meatloaf.  By cooking three small ones, you ensure that almost every bite has a little bit of that crispy goodness.  :)

Shaped meatloaves on the sheet pan, ready for the oven!

Drizzle a little bit of olive oil on top of the meatloaves before you put them in the oven.  That will help give you that yummy crust and help it to brown in the oven.  For this batch, I also sprinkled some of my Maldon Sea Salt over the top of each loaf before I put it in the oven.  Just as I had hoped, it added an even tastier layer of salty, crispy goodness to the final product.  (I'm am becoming seriously addicted to this finishing salt!)

Meatloaf right out of the oven

Cook the meatloaf at 400 degrees until a meat thermometer reads 155-160 degrees.  (Since you are using ground turkey you want to make sure it is cooked all the way through.)  For mine, that took about 30 minutes but it will depend on how you shape your meatloaf, how well your oven is calibrated, etc.  Never trust a meatloaf recipe that gives you a specific time.   Using a thermometer takes all the guess work out of it and ensures a perfect doneness every time.

Take that cabin fever!

Otis was particularly helpful
while I made the meatloaf.  

Plated meatloaf with
roasted veggies! Yummy!

Roasted Cauliflower and Carrots
make a perfect side for the meatloaf

[Note: I also like using this higher temperature to cook the meatloaf because besides helping speed up the overall cooking time, it means I can roast vegetables while the meatloaf is cooking.  For this particular dinner, I chopped up some carrots and cauliflower and added them to a sheet pan with olive oil, salt and pepper.  They were the perfect compliment to the meatloaf and got done cooking in the same amount of time. Perfection!]



Goat Cheese & Sun-Dried Tomato Meatloaf
Ingredients:
2 dinner rolls or small pieces of crusty bread
2/3 of a pint of cream (or whole milk)
2 Tbs Parsley, finely chopped
Sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbs Tomato Paste
1 1/2 Tbs Worcestershire  
1 Tbs Herbs de Provence
1/2 a small Onion, small dice
2 Eggs
Crumbled goat cheese
Kosher Salt and Pepper
1 lb. ground veal
1 lb. ground turkey

Friends Help Friends Stock Their Freezers!

I've been talking quite a bit to my friends and family lately about how I prepare food, what techniques I use to save time in the kitchen, and how I put fast healthy meals on the table after working a 9 hour day.  Even for someone who loves to cook like I do, coming home and relaxing on the couch and catching up on the day's events with my husband is much more valuable to me than slaving over a hot stove or a perfectly prepared dinner.  So in an attempt to maximize the return on my time, and ensure  we still have great food to eat during the week, I have started to prepare certain dishes on the weekend that I know will freeze well.  That way I can make larger batches or quantity and turn to them as my surefire solution to getting dinner on the table fast.

As a somewhat hilarious side note, my husband also really enjoys this pre-planning as well, but for a whole different reason than you might think.  He is a huge zombie fanatic so I'm pretty sure he looks at our freezer full of ready to go meals as the best way to be prepared for the impending zombie apocalypse!  In his mind, you can never be too prepared in case we have to make a stand! Ah, silly husbands....if we didn't love them so much! :)

Mary Beth and I are
cooking up a storm!

On a more serious note - I had been discussing these pre-planed meals and dishes quite a bit with my good friend Mary Beth.  She also wants to come home and have a meal on the table quickly without much hassle, not to mention that cooking for one person can certainly be a challenge.  She is single and works full time so I have been talking to her about how much time it could save her, not to mention the fact that it is healthier than ordering a pizza or eating prepackaged foods.  While Mary Beth thought the recipes sounded great, she was a little hesitant to try them out on her own.  Like I was saying in a previous post, not everyone likes to cook; let alone experiment in the kitchen like I do.  Crazy, right?  :)

So I decided we would get together and I would show her just how easy it would be to make all this delicious food right in her kitchen, and with her own hands!  And thus the plan was set into motion and Mission: Stock The Freezer was born!  

Ready to pour in the eggs for
Cheddar & Bacon Sandwiches

To start, I first sent Mary Beth several dishes and recipes I thought she would like to consider and let her choose 4 of them we could make in the course of one afternoon.  She chose Breakfast Egg Sandwiches (2 varieties), Veggie Burritos, BBQ Pulled Pork, and Chili.  Once she had dishes selected, I customized them to her tastes and dietary needs.  Since Mary Beth is very sensitive to lactose (poor thing!) she can't eat as much of certain cheeses and dairy so we tweaked the recipes to make them work for her. My next step was to go through each of the recipes and compile the list of ingredients she would need and then I sent her the grocery list of what to buy.  I also made a list of what cooking equipment (large rimmed sheet tray, saute pan, colander, tongs, etc.) she should have on hand, just in case she might need to borrow anything from me for our cooking extravaganza.  With all the planning done, all that was left was to set the date and time and prepare to Get Cooking! 

In the course of only 4 1/2 hours we made all the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen and portioned all the meals out for her to easily use.  In the end her freezer (with even some additional servings in the fridge for immediate enjoyment!) was packed full of delicious meals ready for when she needed them. (Note: I gave Mary Beth the BBQ Pork recipe in advance and she prepped the pork butt and started the slow cooker that morning so the meat was ready for us to put on the finishing touches 8 hours later).

Mary Beth portions out the chili
into ziplock bags using my "extra
set of hands" trick which you can
learn about in my 4x4 blog!

For the Chili, we lightened it up a bit from my 4x4 Chili recipe and went with just ground turkey.  She didn't want it too spicy so we just used onions, regular red and green bell peppers and one absolutely gorgeous poblano for some richer layers of flavor.  MaryBeth discovered that she loves cumin! She just hadn't known what the spice was called.  What a fun discovery! Now she can use it in more recipes and she has broadened her cooking repertoire which was also a goal of mine as we worked through the various dishes. Knowing it was a flavor she liked, we made the chili nice and smokey with lots of cumin, chili powder, and dried oregano.  I like to use fresh herbs when I make any kind of soup or stew that simmers for a long time to help freshen up the flavors so we also added in lots of fresh basil.  

Perhaps the most fun we had all day was when we got to squish up the cans of whole tomatoes into the pot of chili.  MaryBeth truly enjoyed the task and I think she might start putting whole tomatoes into more of her dishes just so she can squish them!  Unfortunately, I don't have any good photos to share of that part because she took me out with flying tomato juice from across the room! In fact, you might have noticed that she is wearing a different colored shirt in some of the photos.  Thankfully she changed into the darker shirt before we started having our tomato-palooza!  

BBQ Pulled Pork Goodness simmering
away in the crockpot!

The BBQ Pulled Pork recipe we used could not be simpler and it really makes for a wonderfully tender, fall apart pork that can be used in any number of preparations.  You will find the recipe at the bottom of this blog.  It is so straightforward I would be willing to bet you have everything you need in your pantry right now (minus the pork butt of course!) I haven't done much experimenting with the recipe because it turns out pretty great but I am going to work on a homemade BBQ sauce and see if that has any great impact. For a day of cooking like we had planned, being able to use a high quality bottled sauce (she chose Sweet Baby Rays) was a valuable time saver.  

Oh, and one other thing to note, while the recipe says to shred the meat with two forks, MaryBeth prefers her pulled pork chopped so that is what we did.  After all, there are not many hard and fast rules when it comes to cooking.  Do what you like, and make the food meet your needs.  Well, needless to say, it turned out great, and I think I may have created a new crockpot addict!  After all, what could be easier then setting the crockpot to high and coming back 8 hours later to all that tasty goodness?!  And at the end of the day, Mary Beth prepared this dish almost completely on her own.  

Filling and wrapping the
Veggie Burritos goes very quickly

I will share the recipe for the Veggie Burritos in a future blog the next time I stock up my freezer with the tasty treats.  You can see in the foreground of the picture the first bag of burritos that we already completed - - wrapped up, labeled and dated and ready for the freezer.  A great thing about this dish, besides the ease of reheating them whenever you need them is that they take up very little room in the freezer because you can stack them up into ziplock bags. 

You can find the recipe for my Breakfast Egg Sandwiches by reading the blog under that same name.

But let's take a look at what we ended up with after all that cooking.   She had quite the stash indeed:

The lower half of her freezer
stocked up and ready to go!

• 24 Breakfast Egg Sandwiches: 12 sausage and cheddar & 12 Pepper, Onion and Bacon - - One tasty sandwich had to be sacrificed in the name of quality control and taste testing but that is the price we have to pay for cooking tasty food.
• 3.5 lbs of BBQ pulled pork:  We portioned it out into single servings so she could defrost and reheat the portions as she wanted them.  They are also perfect when you have unexpected house guests who you need to feed! 
• 16 Veggie Burritos - About 8 servings if you figure you'll eat two of them at a sitting.   
• 8 Servings of Turkey Chili 

Mary Beth has reported back that all the food tastes great, and she wants to get together again in a few months to do it again, so I am extremely happy with those results.  Who knows, I might have a cooking convert on my hands!  

I want to thank my friend MaryBeth so very much for sharing her home and kitchen with me and for trusting me to help her create these fabulous dishes.  I had an absolute blast teaching her the recipes, talking about food and cooking techniques and most of all spending quality time with a good friend.  If you have the opportunity to cook with a friend and take advantage of planning ahead and making pre-made meals for those busy weekday dinners (and breakfasts!), I encourage you to do so.  There is nothing quite like that feeling you get when you open the freezer and see all the tasty meals just waiting to be enjoyed....

Mission Accomplished! 


BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe:
Ingredients: 
2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
4 medium garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 cups chicken stock or low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 (4-1/2- to 5-pound) boneless or bone-in pork shoulder (pork butt), twine or netting removed
2 cups of your favorite BBQ sauce (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place the onions and garlic in an even layer in the slow cooker and pour in the stock or broth. Combine the sugar, chili powder, measured salt, cumin, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Pat the pork dry with paper towels. Rub the spice mixture all over the pork and place the meat on top of the onions and garlic. Cover and cook until the pork is fork tender, about 6 to 8 hours on high or 8 to 10 hours on low.

Turn off the slow cooker and remove the pork to a cutting board. Set a fine-mesh strainer over a medium heatproof bowl. Pour the onion mixture from the slow cooker through the strainer and return the solids to the slow cooker. Set the strained liquid aside.

If the pork has a bone, remove and discard it. Using 2 forks, shred the meat into bite-sized pieces, discarding any large pieces of fat.  Return the shredded meat to the slow cooker, add the barbecue sauce, if using, and mix to combine. If you’re not using barbecue sauce, use a spoon to skim and discard the fat from the surface of the strained cooking liquid, and then add 1/4 cup of the liquid at a time to the slow cooker until the pork is just moistened. Taste and season with salt as needed.

Valentine's Day Cherry-Poppy Seed Muffins

Even though baking isn't usually my thing, there are times when I break away from my normal comfort zone and do some baking.  This time when I broke out the flour and measuring cups it was to surprise Andy with some Cherry-Poppy Seed Muffins for breakfast.  I don't bake very often so around here it is a good way to make something, even as simple as these muffins, seem more special.

The recipe was so quick and easy that I wanted to share it with you guys in time for you to try it and surprise the "someone special" in your lives for Valentine's Day.  I got the recipe out of one of my Tyler Florence cookbooks called real kitchen.   I was looking for some fun Superbowl recipes to try out this year when I came across this one.  A quick scan of the short list of ingredients told me that I was in luck and had everything I needed - - complete with some cute heart cupcake liners to make them even cuter!  :)

Getting all the ingredients ready!

The great thing about this recipe is that it just has one bowl of dry ingredients and one bowl of wet, and then you mix them to combine.  For someone like me who doesn't love to bake, I enjoy recipes like this that keep things simple.  If I don't have to break out my mixer or beaters all the better!

Batter mixture before
I added the cherries

So first, I tackled the dry ingredients and measured out the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mixed them to combine.  Then, in a separate bowl, I beat together the eggs and milk, zest of one medium size orange and the poppy seeds.  The zest is the very outer peel of the orange (minus any of the white pith which can be bitter) grated finely.  All the essential oils are in the zest and it adds a real kick and amazing aroma to the muffins.  You can find a zester (or microplane) at just about any cooking store.  That tool will double as a way to grate your nutmeg, garlic and a myriad of other ingredients so its a good tool to have in your kitchen.

This recipe also calls for melted butter to be added to the wet ingredients - - and since I read the recipe all the way through first, I had that on my stovetop melted and waiting for me.  You don't want to add that while it is too hot or you will scramble your egg mixture!

Lightly flour the dried cherries to keep
them from sinking in the batter.

To bring the two sets of ingredients together, I followed the recipe by making a well in the dry ingredients and poured the wet ingredients in, folding to combine.  As the name of the recipe indicates, there are dried cherries in the mix as well, but to make sure they don't all sink to the bottom of the muffin tins while they bake you need to dust them lightly with flour before you add them to the batter.

Rather than worry about buttering the muffin tins, I used some cute heart paper liners to make it clear that these were meant to be a Valentine's Day treat.  And even though the recipe says to fill the wells about 3/4 full with the batter, I found that they didn't rise as much as I would have liked so go ahead and fill them all the way up if you like fuller more rounded muffins.

Cute heart paper liners
make these extra special!

After you have the batter spooned into the cups, sprinkle them with some sugar to help create a sweet crust for the top of the muffins.  Bake them at 400 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until a wooden toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center muffin.  Every oven is different so keep an eye on them.  If you use larger than average muffin tins you will need to bake them longer.

If you want the finished product to be a little sweeter you can be a more heavy handed with the sugar dusting before you bake them.  The batter doesn't make a super sweet muffin and the addition of the orange zest and dried cherries lend a bit of a sour tang so I will probably add a little more sugar on tops the next time I make these.  I went ahead and made a note to that effect right in the cookbook so the next time I go to make these I will remember what I wanted to do differently.  Don't be afraid to do that because it is an easy way to help yourself improve recipes and make them your own as you experiment with various dishes.  Don't trust your memory, because you will forget!

After you take the muffins out of the oven be sure and let them cool completely (unless you plan to eat them right away!) before you store them in tupperware.  You don't want the warmth to create any condensation and make the muffins soggy or ruin that great sugary crust.

All together I think it took me about 10 - 15 minutes to get everything measured, mixed together and spooned in the tins.  It actually took my oven longer to pre-heat than it did for me to get the muffins ready to bake!   I hope you enjoyed learning the recipe and will give these a try for your Valentine.

Happy Valentine's Day!
XOXO

Cherry-Poppy Seed muffins cooling

Recipe (courtesy of Tyler Florence's real kitchen cookbook)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups all purpose flour (plus more for dusting the cherries)
1 cup sugar, plus more for dusting the top of muffins
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (I used skim)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
zest of 1 orange, finely grated
1 cup dried cherries