Meatloaf

Meatloaf.  A staple of cafeterias, TV dinners, and moms everywhere.  I always keep some ground beef in the freezer for impromptu burgers, burritos, and the like, so I decided to switch it up and go for this old classic.  Now in an ideal world, you would have lots of nice ground meats (beef and pork) to incorporate into your loaf (or get adventurous with lamb and turkey).

The fillings for your meatloaf fall under some basic categories: (day old) crusty bread soaked in milk, ground meat, diced veggies, egg, spices.  

Soak your bread that you rip or dice into cubes.  This adds some texture and airiness in the loaf so it isn't completely dense with meat.  

Next saute your veggies.  This time I had onions, carrots, and garlic to work with.  You don't need to get them completely soft because you will be baking them in the loaf for an hour and the juices from the meat will soften them.  

Now combine your ground meat, 3/4 of the sauteed veggies, soaked bread, one egg, and sauces/spices in a bowl.  It looks pretty gross.  For my seasoning this time I went with some soy sauce, salt/pepper, and thyme.    

With the remaining sauteed veggies, I mixed them with some soy sauce and some ketchup in the skillet.  I then filled a loaf pan with the meaty mixture and spread the ketchup on top.  Add as much or as little of this as you'd like.  

I popped this bad boy in the oven for an hour at 350 degrees.  You can serve with additional ketchup if your diners so desire, or perhaps ditch the ketchup alltogether and go for a gravy instead.  I served with mashed potatoes for a nice hearty meat and potato comfort food dinner.  

Three Cheese Mac and Cheese

I discovered this recipe in food and wine magazine a few months ago and made a mental note that I needed to try it.  Well, this week I finally bought the ingredients, and several pots/pans/messy stoves later we had more three cheese mac than we knew what to do with.  aka an entire casserole dish of this stuff is currently sitting in the fridge at work.

The best part about this dish is the sauce.  It seems like a lot of sauce when you first make it, but it reduces when you bake the pasta.  Basically you cook some chopped garlic and onions in 3 cups of cream or half and half (we did 2 cups cream 1 cup milk).  Take some cream out to mix with flour then add the mixture back to thicken the suace.  Next comes the cheese.  Goat, white cheddar, and parmesan.  Sour cream, herbs, salt and pepper to season.  Then remove some of the sauce and mix with egg yolks and return that to the pan.  Then take some of your cooked pasta and sample it in the sauce if you can't wait for it to bake (that wasn't in the recipe).  45 minutes in the oven later and you've got dinner.

Well, I loved this sauce so much when it was on the stove that I was kind of sad to see it reduced so much in the oven, so next time I think i'll only bake the pasta for about 10 minutes, rather than 45, so the parmesan cheese on top can melt, but I don't lose the cheesy goodness coating the noodles.  I scanned the original recipe for all y'alls if you want to try it for yourselves.  Cooking the amount listed fills up a good 2 casserole dishes.  I'm thinking this will make an appearance at my next dinner party.