Easy and Delicious Meatloaf

This one isn't rocket science or gourmet by any stretch but it's an easy recipe that can be whipped together quickly. I don't usually add salt to this. I try to keep an eye on our sodium intake. You may find you want to add salt when it's finished but I never have.

Ingredients

2 lbs lean ground beef
6 tablespoons Kraft Chicken n Rib BBQ sauce
3 dashes of Worcestershire Sauce
1 large egg
approx 1/2 cup breadcrumbs. (the breadcrumbs help bind it together and also absorb the bbq sauce

Add all of the ingredients together in a large bowl and mix until thoroughly combined. This is one where I get my hands dirty and dig in. Form meat into a loaf type shape and place in a small roasting pan.

Sauce:
1/2 cup Kraft Chicken n Rib BBQ sauce
2-3 tsp of yellow mustard
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Combine all the ingredients for the sauce together and cover the shaped meat loaf with the sauce.

Cover the meatloaf in the roasting pan and place in the oven @ 350 F for approx 40 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes until cooked thoroughly.

Serve with Mashed potatoes and veggies on the side.

This one is really good as leftovers for meatloaf sandwich as well. (My kids like with homemade macaroni and cheese)

Beef Round over Noodles

This is an old standby comfort food type of dinner that my family loves. I had some stewing beef in the freezer and figured this would make an excellent dinner tonight.

This recipe is from an old cookbook I received as a teenager and cut my teeth in the kitchen using. It's called the Encyclopedia of Creative Cooking, edited by Charlotte Turgeon. pg 68 (a well worn stain covered pg 68) I usually double this recipe for my large family.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. peanut or corn oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
2 teaspoon sherry (I use red wine, and use one tablespoons)
3 cups thinly sliced onions
2 teaspoons corn starch
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 pounds beef round cut into 1/2 inch cubes (I use stewing beef)
1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp minced garlic (1 clove)
1 can mushrooms (optional...but highly recommmended)

Heat oil in a large skillet with 1 tsp soy sauce, sugar, and 1 teaspoon sherry (or tbsp as I do). Saute onions until soft.

Mix cornstarch, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and 1 tsp sherry (or tablespoon again..my change) in a bowl. Dredge meat in mixture ensuring all pieces are coated. When onions are ready, add the meat to the skillet and brown. Add the worchestershire sauce and garlic, mix well and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add the mushroom about half way through simmering. (juices removed from mushroom can)

Serve over large egg noodles. This recipe as it stands yields about 6 servings, but I usually make a little more and adjust the recipe accordingly.

Shrimp in White Wine Lemon Sauce

Tonight I tried to invent a recipe. I'm going to call it, Shrimp in White Wine Lemon sauce.

I sort of pulled a little of this, and a little of that and developed it. I think it's probably similar to shrimp scampi but I've never actually had shrimp scampi so I can't say for sure. It was tasty though. Light and full of flavours.

The kids ate it pretty quickly and were asking for seconds so I guess I did alright in the end of the day. If you try this recipe and alter it let me know, I'd love some recommendations for improvements.

Ingredients

2 lbs shrimp, deveined, shells removed (you can leave the tail on if you like)

1 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic

1 or 2 shallots. (1 large, or two small)

3/4 cup white wine

1/4 cup cream

3/4 cup shrimp stock (made through initial cooking of shrimp)

salt and pepper

1-2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

Juice of one lemon

2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup shredded parmagean cheese (grated)

Salt and pepper the shrimp.

Heat skillet and add the olive oil. Add the shrimp to the skillet and cook until just pink. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and pour the juices into a measuring cup. I had more than a cup of juices as I used frozen shrimp.

Place skillet back on heat, add the butter and melt. Add the onions and cook until soft (about 2 minutes), add the garlic and cook for another thirty seconds.

Add the wine, add the stock from your measuring cup, and add lemon juice. Bring to a boil and reduce by about a third. Add the cream and reduce again by another 1/3. Add the parmagean, and mix well until melted. Return the shrimp to the pan and add the parsley. Adjust the salt and pepper if needed. Simmer for another minute or so (longer if you need it to thicken a little more)

Serve over angel hair pasta.

MarioKart Cake

Yesterday was my youngest son's 8th birthday.  He is having a little party today.  He LOVES MarioKart.  I have been working on a plan for his cake for a couple of weeks.

I'm really proud of this one.  This is probably my most ambitious cake yet.  It took some time (about 6 hours from start to finish) but so worth it.  Little man is too excited. 

It was a little iffy when placing the planet on top but we made it work. 

So here we begin.  I used a bundt cake pan to make the bottom layer and placed a paper towel roll covered in plastic food wrap to support the planet.  The planet is made with a round ball pan from Wilton.  This plan didn't work.  The planet was too heavy so we added some dowels, and I cut a small section off the bottom of the planet.  I took  a stiff piece of cardboard and covered it in foil, placing it on top of the dowels and paper towel holder to support the planet.  That worked. 

The Snow land is really just icing (can we say sugar buzz??).  All of the embellishments are made of marshmallow fondant and painted with food colouring.  Shaping all of the mushrooms and letting them air dry is the easiest way to do this.  Assembling with toothpicks.  We made the castle with toilet paper rolls and some brickwork I made on photoshop and printed out.

Rainbow Road is made of  fruit by the Foot and held in place with toothpicks.

Here is the bottom layer with a fondant road, the papertowel holder in the middle of the bundt cake.  All of our little embellishments follow air  drying.

Using the dowels and cardboard we assembled the planet, filing in the space between with white icing.   From there we just started adding all the characters and accessories as we went along to complete the cake.

Pork Tenderloin with White Wine Mustard Sauce

I found this online at SafetoEat blog and it's lovely!!

I had a couple of tenderloin that needed to be used up and decided to search about for a recipe to stretch the two tederloin to feed seven.

I made a few alterations to the original but not many. Instead of using the tenderloin as a single piece I filleted the pork into thin strips. It made the meal a quick easy dinner as opposed to browning and roasting the pork.

I served this over a bed of fusilli, but have also used linguine. Both are lovely.

Ingredients.

2 pork tenderloin

3 tbsp butter

dab of olive oil

4 large shallot onions, finely chopped or sliced very thinly

1 tsp minced garlic

1 cup white wine

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoon dijon mustard

Heat a skillet (try to avoid nonstick skillets for best results) to medium heat. Melt 1 1/2 tbsp butter and dab of oil until bubbly. Add the pork and continue to saute until cooked. Remove from pan into a seperate plate and keep warm.

Add the last of the butter to the pan and melt. Add the shallots and garlic, cook until soft and tender. Pour the wine into the pan and reduce to low heat. Simmer until reduced by half. Scraping the bits off the bottom of the pan while simmering.

Once it is reduced, add the heavy cream and thoroughly combine. Again reduce by half. Finally add the dijon mustard and stir to combine.

Return the pork to the pan and simmer a few minutes to infuse the flavour into the tenderloin.

Serve over fusilli, or linguine noodles with a few spoons of the sauce. It is delightful.

I made this tonight and easily served 8 with a little leftover for lunch tomorrow.

Chicken Burgers

Decided on a change up today on the burger front. I had some ground chicken so decided to make chicken burgers instead.

I didn't follow any recipe for this one and kind of made it up as I went along. They turned out absolutely delicious!! I used home made hamburger buns using the Sour Cream Bread recipe posted earlier. Instead of making bread loaves I shaped the dough into buns.

Chicken Burgers

Preheat bbq grill

Ingredients

2lbs ground chicken

approx 1/2 cup bread crumbs

1 clove finely chopped garlic (minced)

1/4 tsp salt

2 dashes cayenne pepper

a pinch of "Old Bay" seasoning.

Mix together ingredients until thoroughly combined. Form patties.

Grill on bbq until thoroughly cooked, top with cheese, and any condiment of your choosing. It was a really nice change from the beef burger standard fare. The kids just gobbled them up and were begging for more!