Just made this recipe for dinner and it was a hit.  It tasted fantastic and filled up our bellies for a quite affordable price.

Hardware:

• Toaster Oven (or a regular oven + a sheet pan)

Software:

• 2 – Breaded Chicken Patties per mouth you’re trying to feed
• 1/2 cup of tomato sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp of Parmesean cheese per patty
• a sprinkle of shredded mozzerella cheese per patty

How to:

This is an amazingly quick recipe to prepare. If you’re using a toaster oven, line your pan with some foil.  If you’re using a real oven, preheat to 450 F.  Spread out your patties out on your pan.  Put about a tablespoon of tomato sauce on the top of each patty and sprinkle the parmesean cheese over that.  Bake the patties at 450 for 10-15 minutes (or for as long as their directions say to).  When they’re done, top with the mozzerella cheese and fire up the broiler.  Looking to melt and brown the cheese.

Side dish:

A great side dish to serve with these chicken parm patties is some pasta.  Boil up your pasta to a doneness you like (al dente works well) and add olive oil and parmesean cheese to taste.  A bit of garlic powder and your side dish is done.

Put your pasta down on your plate and put a patty or two on top of it.  Serve hot with a bit of parmesean cheese on the side.

cheese, F.  Spread, mozzerella cheese, oven, oven line Hide

A second recipe in as many days…you lucky readers.

This meatloaf recipe is an ancient family tradition.  By that I mean my mother just kinda dreamed it up one day due to lack of supplies, and it stuck.  It’s not too much different from regular meatloaf, but is much jucier and tastier!

The Hardware

• Loaf pan
• Larger pan that your loaf pan can sit in and still hold 1″ or so of water
• mixing bowl
• Your hands

The Software

• Ground beef – At least 1lb. Simply double every other ingredient per pound. I tend to prefer an 80/20 because it prevents the meatloaf from getting dry.
• 1 egg – this is the exception of the doubling. Use 1 egg per 2lbs of beef, or 1 egg for 1lb.
• 1/4c breadcrumbs – use your favorite type or omit based on taste
• 1c of cooked rice per lb of beef
• Spices: Onion flake/powder, Lawry’s Seasoned Salt (or other seasoned salt blend), Italian Seasoning blend (typically oregano, basil, parsley, and thyme), black pepper, garlic powder
• Sweet and tangy glaze (Recipe below)
• Optional: Minced onion, minced garlic, minced carrot/celery, worchestire sauce/soy sauce

Meat loaf is pretty damn simple, and this is no exception.  Preheat the oven to 350. Dump your meat into your mixing bowl, add your spices, breadcrumbs, eggs, and rice.  Mix.  How you ask? With the best tools ever…YOUR HANDS!  Wash ‘em good, take off any jewelry and get in there and squish it about!  If you have particulary hair hands or open wounds, slap on some food safe gloves.  It is possible to do this with a spoon, but it will take 5 times as long and the distribution won’t be as good and the final texture will be lacking that hand squished feel.  Get in there and SQUISH!

Got it all squished up? Look pretty evenly distributed? Good, dump it into your loaf pan(s).  Pat it out to a nice even top.  I tend to leave a little gap at the end of the pan for the grease/fat to run.  Got that done? Oven preheated? Now comes the fun part…water bath!  Fill your larger pan with water, as hot as you can get from the tap, enough for an inch or two up the side of your loaf pan(s).  Slide that puppy in the oven and carefully add your meat loaves.  Close the oven…and GO AWAY.  Don’t open it.  No fiddling, for at least 40 minutes.  Then you can start checking it.

While you’re waiting, make some glaze.  It’s really easy.  Get a bowl and a fork.  Add 1/4c of brown sugar and squirt tomato ketchup on top of it. Mix with the fork.  Looking for a tangy sweetness here. Trust me, on top of a meatloaf this stuff is DIVINE!

How long does it take? I’unno…till its done.  That really depends on how you make the loaf, how good your oven is, and how many times you open that oven door.  It more then likely won’t be done at 45 minutes, but you can check it then and make sure you still have plenty of water and that everything looks ok.  Start checking the internal temp at about an hour, hour and a half.  Once you hit about 140-150 degrees fahrenheit, pull the loaf out of the oven carefully (use oven mitts).  That glaze you made? Slather it on the top.  Just looking for a good covering over the whole loaf.  If there’s someone in the family that doesnt like it, only do half.  Stick the loaf back in the oven.

You’re looking for a final temp in the center of at least 160 (shoot for 155, there’ll be some carryover).  When you hit that magic mark, take that puppy out of the oven.  That hot water? LEAVE IT!  That water is HOT and you dont wanna mess with it.  Turn the oven off, let the water cool, and dump it out later.

There’s more then likely a bunch of grease in your loaf pan. You have a dilema: What to do with it?  For a healthier meat loaf, pour it off into a grease can (NOT DOWN THE DRAIN!) and dispose of.  For a far less healthy meat loaf, pour it off into a saucier and turn it into a gravy.  Im not a fan of meatloaf and gravy, so I dispose of it.

This meatloaf may not be pretty, but it is a real crowd pleaser.  Most people think of meatloaf as a dry, tough mess to eat..but this is moist.  You won’t get nice perfect sandwich slices out of it (one of it’s shortcomings and meatloaf sandwiches are awesome!) but it tastes good.  It even pleases very picky eaters, and works great on a tight budget.

What makes it so different? Well, the rice for one and the waterbath for two.  The rice came out of running out of breadcrumbs one day and my mother found it adds a very pleasant moistness and texture to the meat loaf, as well as adding filler for a very cheap price.  The waterbath was my addition.  I still found her meatloaf could come out dry, depending on the meat and other factors.  The waterbath is my insurance against that.  It helps to provide nice even heat, as well as a fast heat transfer into the meat, and adds some moisture into the oven so less is drawn out of the meat.

You could vary this recipe any way you like.  Add more rice or less. Use cracker crumbs instead of breadcrumbs.  I’ve even done it with some diced fresh veggies (cook them first or they won’t get cooked) for added color and flavor and it turned out fantastic.  You can also add other meats to the mix to change up the flavors.  A turkey loaf would be very healthy (but would probably taste AWFUL!). I hope to get some ground venison in the fall and plan to make a Cow/Deer meat loaf.

basil parsley, carrot celery, DON, Lawry, Loaf, oven Hide