Not technically a loaf

Last night, in part of a push to finish up some of the food we had on hand in preparation for this weekend’s move, I did some riffing on a recipe I found on the back of the Bisquick box. First, I fried up:

• 20 oz of ground turkey breast (which, while healthier, is a lot blander than the ground not-specifically-breast turkey meat)
• the remainder of a canister of dried minced onions which had probably come with us in the last move 7 years back
• the remainder of a jar of minced garlic, not nearly so old
• two packets of soy sauce

Then, once that was all cooked, I threw it in a greased glass pie plate, and sprinkled quite liberally with what we call “shreddy cheese”, a premixed set of chedder and a couple other cheese that we buy by the humungous pillowload at Costco.

Then I mixed two eggs, one cup of mik, and a half cup of genuine Bisquick brand cooking powdery substance, and poured that over everything.

25 minutes in an oven that was as close to 400 degrees as our random-temperature oven could put up.

Result: Pretty good, actually. The onion and garlic kept away any concept of “bland” without being overpowering. I thought I was putting a lot of cheese on there, but it could’ve actually survived more. The “bun” created by the Bisquick mix was surprisingly eggy; next time, I might try one large egg instead of the two mediums. Most of this large dish disappeared in one meal for three people, with the remainder quickly being claimed by Mrs. Nat’s TV for today’s lunch.

matzohloaf

The in-laws are in town — who better to experiment on!

Ingredients:

• 20 ounces of ground turkey breast.
• About 12 ounces of ground turkey, non-breast (I reckon it’s mostly noses.)
• 3.5 or 4.5 pieces of matzoh (one piece of which was egg matzoh), soaked in boiling water (to avoid the crunchy/burnt effect that served the earlier Goldfish-cracker meatloaf so poorly.
• A handful of raisins
• One egg
• a couple tablespoons of minced garlic
• some tomato & basil pasta sauce

Set the oven to 365 degrees, which I think means the oven is actually about 400 degrees. Stuck it in for… as long as it takes.

Result: Pretty good, actually. Not the best, could’ve used a bit more flavor (teriyaki would’ve been a good idea, and a dab of BBQ sauce was good on it), but that’s always a risk with turkey breast, which is naturally bland. Overall, a sweet loaf. The matzoh worked fine, mixing in for bulk and a bit of texture. As I always end passover with several boxes of matzoh left, expect its usage to be an annual occurence.

Not really meatloaf. Meatballs.

Had a Super Bowl party today (a good day for it.) Had a 28″ pizza and lots of snicky-snacks for everyone, but one person I knew was coming has problems with gluten, and that ruled out almost everything we had. So I made some meatballs.

• Ground turkey breast
• rice
• raisins

Had wee Allison help me ball them up, then threw it all in a crockpot, covering them with Trader Joe’s low-sodium tomato and red pepper soup. The meatballs could’ve used a little spice (I’d considered adding some garlic, which would’ve been right), but overall, quite edible. Went over well.

Actually, a "meatball log" entry, but for now I don't want that as a category

So, what do I do with about 80 cents worth of leftover on-sale ground turkey to keep it from going to waste? Use up several bucks worth of other ingredients in an attempt to make something of use from it.

So, here’s what’s in the works: about eight ounces of ground turkey. Two or three ounces of leftover Pick-Up Stix brown rice that’s been in the fridge for a while. A good little pile of Mrs. Dash. Kneaded them altogether, rolled into little balls about an inch-and-a-quarter around. Half cover with tomato and basil spaghetti sauce, then when I decide that it would take too much spaghetti sauce to cover it all and that it would end up too thick, I cover the rest with a Trader Joe’s low-sodium tomato and red pepper soup (by the way, the Trader Joe’s low-sodium soup line? Very good. Very flavorful. Doesn’t taste like soups that are pretending to be sodiumy; just taste like something being what they intended to be, and tasting rich.)

That’s all now sitting in a crockpot, set to “high” for now. Dinner is four or five hours away; I may switch the crockpot down to “low” once I’m convinced that the turkey will end up cooked and I will not end up killing the entire little family of mine.

Added at 8 PM: Well, that was a success. Not an A+, but a solid B. It was a light flavor; I worried that the red pepper aspect of the soup might make it spicy, but no. We ended up with a creamy, mild sauce. These weren’t rugged sandwich meatballs, but good little pasta-topping meatballs.

I may do some more meatball experimentation. Maybe make some bigger, spicier, but non-evil meatballs for sandwich usage or flinging at cars.

Chickeny meatloaf

Now working on a meatloaf with:

• 20 ounces ground chicken (so I’m going with less “base meat” than usual, aiming for a smaller loaf.
• Vegetarian refried beans (which I went ahead and added the whole can of, just to not end up with a partial can of this stuff laying around. So that’s 16 ounces right there, which kills this being a truly smaller meatloaf, although it’s not as overstuffed as some.)
• Half a can of leftover canned pasta (shaped like Peanuts characters) with meatballs
• Raisin bran
• A little hunk of leftover salmon, maybe 3 ounces
• Two veggie burgers
• One medium egg

I wanted to add barbecue sauce, but looking at the sheer amount of sodium in the above – certainly more than 200% of the recommended daily allowance – I had to shy away. Watching the blood pressure, doncha know. And it’s not that I’m going to eat the whole meatloaf all by myself in one sitting, but I do consume hearty amounts of these things pretty quickly.

It’s now sitting in the fridge, and I’ll put it in the oven about halfway through Xanadu (never saw it before, got a kid who likes musicals, and it was on sale with a free ticket for Mama Mia! for about 20 cents more than buying a ticket for Mama Mia!, which Mrs. Nat’s TV wanted to see. Plus, it came with a free soundtrack CD, so if the wee lass likes it, we got a bargain.)

Added later: At least a medium success here. The result is definitely food, and nicely edible food. It is not, however, quite meatloaf. It came out too moist and soft to really invoke “meatloaf” in the mind. And considering the small amount of salmon present, that really is the strong central taste factor, which works (and means the barbecue sauce would likely have been a mistake). Plus, we all get to play “guess which Peanuts character is in this bite!”

But, but, we have leftover rice!

Yes, I admit it. Having 25 cents worth of leftover rice from takeout Chinese food a couple nights back means that I go out and spend several bucks on ingredients for a meatloaf. So this one has:

• 20 ounces of ground sirloin (a first), bought for about $3.50 in the meat-on-sale-but-you-gotta-use-it-tonight pile. I like sirloin, and it’s leaner than most ground beef — 10% fat.
• 14 ounces of tofu, firm. And that’s the end of the special purchases. This makes a rather high ratio of tofu to meat, and I didn’t mix it all as vigorously as I sometimes do, so this may be a rather heterogeneous loaf. We’ll see how that serves.
• Shredded green beans, or whatever the right term is.
• The rice (mostly white, a little brown)
• Taco sauce
• Chinese crunchy noodles
• raisins (I’ve decided that’s my signature meatloaf ingredient)
• Spaghetti sauce on top.

Cooking now. Will update with the results.

(time passes)

Pretty much a failure. The tofu and sirloin didn’t mix, the thing had no structural integrity, and it was quite bland (I’m trying to avoid adding forms of sodium, but, well, you gotta.) Not inedible, but not recommended.

One for the in-laws

For what I think is the first time, I’m crafting a meatloaf that is for more than just the immediate family. Sharing the eating of this meal will be my in-laws, Allison’s Papa Bill and Gramma Chrissy.

Not doing much different with this one. I’m sticking mostly with tried-but-true ingredients:

• 20 oz of ground turkey
• lots of jasmine rice
• more raisins that I probably should’ve included
• raisin bran, probably not needed
• sweet corn
• taco seasoning (taken from a taco kit – when we have tacos, we only really need the shells, because we use a vegan taco mix that includes the seasoning, but often the kit is the cheapest way to the shells)
• taco sauce (ditto)
• spaghetti sauce (on top)

First time ingredients:

• soy sauce (just a few packets, swiped from friends who are given way too much when they get take-out sushi)
• crunchy chinese noodles, crushed (well, crumbled)
• 10 oz ground sirloin

It’s in the oven now. I’ll let you know if everyone survives.

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Added later: turned out to be one of the most successful attempts. Most of it was eaten, and everyone has survived!

A not-very-experimental loaf of meat

The supermarket has ground turkey on sale, $1.97 for 20 ounces… and I have (non-doublable, alas) coupons for $1 off each pack. So for under $2, I can get enough turkey for a meatloaf and have some left over to boot. As such, it’s meatloaf time.

Alas, we don’t have any fascinating or intriguing leftovers, and I didn’t score any interesting spices or sauces to experiment with. So this meatloaf will be:

• Ground turkey
• Two ground-up taco shells
• Some ground up Crater Chips, which are pretty light and really aren’t likely to add much. I should try Fritos some time
• One egg
• One packet of taco seasoning, which Allison helped me shaken in (this is my excuse for the line of taco seasoning running down my pants leg and onto my shoe)
• Raisin bran
• Jasmine rice made just for this meatloaf — it feels like such a violation. Usually, leftover rice is an excuse for meatloafing.
• Tomato-and-basil spaghetti sauce
• Sweet corn
• French-style green beans
• Some old minced onion from a shaker that we probably had when we got married
• Raisins
• 14 ounces of soft tofu, bought with good intent for using it for something else, and then not

This is really quite a big pile of food — the addition of the tofu really added up. Overflows my meatloaf pan by a fair bit; I had to remind myself that meatloaf doesn’t rise, so this should not be a problem. The missuz and I both had the silly thought of turning the excess into meatloaf cupcakes. As I type this, I’ve put it into the oven for whatever-temperature-the-oven-gets-to- when-we-set-it-to-360, which is prob’ly about 400 degrees, and I’ll let it sit in there until it looks to be done and doesn’t look red when I cut into it.

Conclusion: reasonably tasty and edible, but not amazingly distinctive in any way. Took a long time to cook, and even then it was a bit of a guessing game (the tofu left it very moist, the spaghetti sauce made parts pink, so it was a little hard to tell from being underdone.)

Chicken meatloaf

Been a while since I did a meatloaf log entry, because it’s been a while since I did a meatloaf. When you count in all the sodium added in various forms, all the calories, cholesterol, and the large quantities I tend to eat, it all adds up. But with sales on various forms of ground meat, I couldn’t resist the temptation to try something at least somewhat upscale from the cheapest-form-of-decimated-turkey which I usually use. So here were are. At the moment, it’s hours before meatloaf-making time, but what I presume will end up in the mix is:

• Ground chicken (because, really, they are ground creatures. One rarely sees air chicken. Chicken of the Sea, perhaps.)
• Chili powder
• Leftover rice and macaroni&cheese
• Raisin bran
• Shredded bread
• Peas and/or corn

There would’ve been more leftovers, but we lost power for half a day yesterday, and that put too many things in the fridge into the “questionable” range (main loss, a mixture of veggies and turkey and chicken broth and little noodles from my first experiment at stirfry.)

Into the oven update

In addition to all of the above ingredients, the mixture includes:

• Egg substitute
• Mixed shredded cheese
• Grated – well, powdered – parmesan cheese
• Onion bits
• Frozen corn
• Spaghetti sauce

The end result

Well, it wasn’t a We are the Uninvited Loud Precision Band, we’re the best intruding band in all the land!… ‘scuse me, as I was saying, it wasn’t a blow-out-the-doors huge success, but it weren’t a failure either. It falls into a category that we consider “It’s Food!”. I should have used more chili powder; this was my first experience with the stuff, and I was cautious. And/or I should have some chipotle salsa in/on it. It wasn’t dead bland or anything, but Mrs. Nat’s TV thought it could use some pepper, although we haven’t any on hand. (I’m serious, we don’t. We don’t have salt and pepper shakers at this point. We’re weird.) The chicken is definitely workable. If the ground chicken hadn’t been on a buy-one-get-one-free deal, I probably would’ve bought one tray of it and one tray of turkey (got a coupon for the turkey!) and tried a blend. Might’ve been good, but then it might’ve been just two fowl to eat.

Tip for next time: gotta get a meat thermometer, and look up safe interior temperatures for such thing. Pulling it out, cutting open, and drying to judge the inner moistness is just a frustrating way of doing things.

The one with the carrot salad

Meatloaf log, August 12, 2007 (transcribed the night after).
Two tubes of turkey
A full load of rice, made the night before for a dinner that turned out not to need it, because we ended up getting the rotisserie chicken deal that comes with french bread and two packaged salads.
Carrot raisin salad, because it had come with the chicken and I was the only one willing to eat it the night before. Shredded carrots, raisins, and some bits of pineapple, soaked in a vinegary dressing.
Powdered seasoning for white chili chicken – which we actually used once and was pretty good. I really should have kept this to use again in that way.
A small amount of bread crumbs (to empty out a nearly-empty canister of Italian bread crumbs.)
Classico tomato & basil spaghetti sauce on top.
One large egg.

Result: medium quality. Quite edible, not a “wow”. Could’ve used a little less rice, but more importantly, a some cereal or bread matter to film it up just a little more. Not a little problem (it wasn’t sloppy, and actually it was nicely moist without being drippy), just would’ve improved the texture a bit. And I wish that there’d been more pineapple in the carrot salad; that may sound odd, but the little sweet bits of things like that or raisins that pop up in the meat actually work surprisingly nicely.
This one stands up pretty well as second-day cold meatloaf.