Mexican Turkey Meatloaf

One of my favorite meatloaf recipes has an Italian twist and was made by Giada De Laurentiis. She uses sun-dried tomatoes and feta cheese to make it super flavorful, and unlike many other turkey meatloaves, this one is really moist!
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/turkey-meatloaf-with-feta-and-sun-dried-tomatoes-recipe/index.html


I make this meatloaf AT LEAST once a month- probably more. I have a tendency to play out things I love very quickly by doing them over and over (I can't listen to Regina Spector anymore), so I thought I would try a spin on Giada's recipe and do a Mexican theme.


We are huge fans of Mexican flavors. My half-Mexican stepdad made my sisters and I burritos pretty much every other day when I was growing up, and my husband Ted taught Spanish in Puerto Vallarta for a year, so we joke that we are part-Mexican based on how much we love the food.


This Mexican Turkey Meatloaf turned out soooo good!! Definitely has a kick, but is not too spicy. The lack of pictures in this post is because we dug right in as soon as it came out of the oven. Hope you like it! 

Mexican Turkey Meatloaf


Ingredients:
1 6 oz can diced jalepenos, (we used the "hot", but you can use medium or mild to tone it down)
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 C jarred roasted red peppers, diced
1/2 C chopped fresh cilantro
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 C plain bread crumbs
1/2 C part-skim ricotta cheese
1 t. cumin
1 t. chili powder
1 t. salt
1 t. pepper
1 lb. ground turkey (white or dark meat works fine)


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix everything but the ground turkey together first. Then add the turkey last and combine well. Place into a oiled deep dish pie plate and bake for 45 min at 375 or until it reads 165 degrees with a thermometer. Serve with sour cream and salsa and chopped fresh cilantro.

Cauliflower-crust Pizza with Butternut Squash and Chipotle-Chicken Sausage

Pizzinterest: Pinterest-inspired Pizza! I have come across some wonderful pizza recipes on Pinterest lately, including one with a cauliflower crust from the blog Eat.Drink.Smile (http://www.eat-drink-smile.com/2011/04/cauliflower-crust-pizza.html) and one made with thin-sliced butternut squash on a garlic-olive-oil base, (http://www.alexandracooks.com/2011/10/21/butternut-squash-and-crispy-sage-pizza-five-minutes-a-day-style/).


I decided to combine the two into an super-veggie-full, low-carb dinner. I also found a few more ways to make it weight-watchers friendly, so one-quarter of the pizza turns out to be about 5 points+, or 4 points+ without the chicken sausage if you want it to be all-vegetarian. Despite the low points, this has a rich flavor that is so satisfying.


To roast the Butternut Squash:

Cut off the skin, and use a mandolin to slice the squash very thin. Place in a single layer on a oiled (I used Pam spray) baking sheet, spray with more oil, and season with sea salt and crushed red pepper. Bake on 400 for about 15-20 minutes, until the edges are crispy. (These make delicious chips to eat as a snack too!)

 To make the crust:

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Take one whole head of cauliflower, leaves removed, and cut into small florets. Working in batches, pulse on high in a food processor for about a minute until it has a mealy texture. Place in a micro-wave safe bowl, cover with plastic wrap and cook for 8 minutes.You'll end up with about 3-4 C. Take 1 C. cauliflower, 1 C of shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese and 2 egg whites and mix together in a bowl. Add 1 t. dried oregano, 1/2 t. of garlic salt and 1 t. minced garlic. Place on an oiled pizza pan and spread out to a 10 inch diameter circle. Bake for 15 minutes in the 450 oven.

After the crust is cooled a bit, I added a t. of olive oil and spread it around the crust. Then I mixed together 2 cloves of minced garlic with 1/4 C. part-skim ricotta cheese, then spread it evenly on the crust. 


Next, I added my toppings: the roasted butternut squash, some diced roasted red peppers from a jar, and some thinly sliced pieces of a chipotle-chicken sausage dogs I found at the store and couldn't resist. I topped with about 1/4 C. part-skim mozz and baked together for about 5-7 minutes.

This meal was so tasty!! I think the best part was the garlic-infused ricotta- it was so delicious with the strong garlic balanced by the mild ricotta. You also have to eat it with a fork, since the crust isn't sturdy enough to pick up, but the dish still gave us the deep satisfaction that you'd get from traditional pizza. I still have a few cups of cauliflower ready to make a few more crusts later this week. So glad I tried this!!! Ted was pretty happy about it too. :)

Homemade Liquid Hand Soap

One of my new favorite ways to pass the time (mostly when I am stuck on the couch nursing!) is to cruise Pinterest. All of the DIY crafts, home design and recipe ideas are so compelling, I want to try them all! One idea that seemed pretty approachable was homemade liquid hand soap (over one gallon made from a single bar of soap!) Here is a link to the original blog post: http://familyoffarmers.blogspot.com/p/diy.html. 


I chose to try it out with a bar of Green Tea scented French-milled soap with Shea Butter. It is more expensive than Dove or whatever, but I thought it was okay to splurge when you can turn it into a gallon of hand soap! 

This turned into a wonderful hand-soap:
it has a nice light scent that even my
husband loves, and leaves hands super soft.

The recipe was pretty straightforward. Grated up the soap just fine with the cheese grater, although it took forever to wash the chunks of soap caught in the grates. I found the glycerin from a natural health food store in town called Capella Market (I couldn't find the liquid glycerin in any regular grocery or drug store that I went to). The soap dissolved into the glycerin and water fairly quickly over the medium-high heat, so I turned it off to let it sit and start to cloud up. 

My batch didn't take long at all (just a few hours) to cool and harden into a stiff gelatin consistency. Working in batches, I added more water and used a hand mixer to get the soap into a consistency that I liked.

I bought a pretty glass container with a pump for our bathroom (cost about $5), and then reused an old handsoap container for the kitchen. The liquid glycerin cost about $7 for a medium-sized bottle, but the recipe only calls for 2 T. to one gallon of water. The soap cost about $6. Overall, about a $20 investment for a never ending supply of hand soap! 

Breakfast Mini-Quiches with Sausage & Spinach

Today is Monday, and on Thursday I go back to work after a 3-month maternity leave! Been thinking of some last minute things I can make ahead to relieve the stress of feeding myself and our family during what I expect to be a slightly hectic transition.

I came across this great recipe for mini-quiches made in a muffin tin on another blog called "Eat. Drink.Smile". Her recipes are pretty great! 

I pretty much followed her recipe found here: Breakfast of Champions, but I did my own variation of ingredients and spices. This individual size servings are great for portion control, and for freezing and storing then popping into the microwave for a quick and super nutritious breakfast.

These guys are easy to make up 
on a Monday and eat all week!

Substitutions:

Instead of 16 eggs, I used 8 eggs and 2 C. of Egg Beaters.

To the egg/onion/green pepper mixture, I added one package of frozen spinach that had been thawed and drained really well. 

I used about 1/2 pound of my homemade pork sausage instead of a full pound.

For the seasoning, I used 1 t salt, 1 t black pepper, 1/2 t red pepper flakes, 1 t. dried thyme and 1/4 t. nutmeg and 1 t. of minced garlic.

I also used 1 C. of 2% reduced fat shredded Mexican four cheese blend instead of regular cheese.


Note: I have made a batch of these before and sauteed the vegetables first. They turned out pretty juicy and deflated a lot when they cooled. Putting the veggies in raw is my preferred method, since they still get cooked in the oven, and the muffins have a better texture.

These pop out really easily if you 
remember to use a liberal coat 
of cooking spray!

These little guys ended up only being 3 Pt.+ each in the Weight Watchers program, which I just signed up for this week! Looking to skip the holiday pounds this year, and work on getting back in shape after having my baby girl.

Homemade Sausage

I came across this recipe by Lucinda Scala Quinn to make your own sausage in the October issue of Martha Stewart Living. Unless you have a KitchenAid mixer and a meat grinder accessory, making your own sausage always sounded too hard and not worth the effort. But this one seemed doable since you only need a food processor and a little room in your freezer. I tried it out, still skeptical, but it worked great and the spice mixture for the sausage is soooo good.  You could also just add this spice mix to already ground chicken or turkey and not even need the food processor!

You start with a 4 lb. Boneless Pork Shoulder Roast (per LSQ, this has the best ratio of meat to fat for sausage):

I found mine on sale for only $3 
per pound- much cheaper than
 a $5 package of Jimmy Dean!

The next step is to cut up the roast into 1/2 inch cubes, which can be a little time consuming, but also a little cathartic if like working at your cutting board like I do. Place the cubed meat on a parchment lined baking sheet and freeze for about 20 minutes.

I froze the meat in batches, 2 pounds at a
 time so that I could keep it in a single layer.

While the meat is hardening up in the freezer, put together the spice mixture. Lucinda's recipe calls for fresh herbs, but I cut costs (fresh herbs are $4 a piece at my grocery store!) by using a 1:2 ratio of dried to fresh herbs, i.e. one T. of dried thyme instead of 2 T. fresh. I did use fresh sage because I really like the taste of it fresh. I was also surprised that this has so much nutmeg in it! 

Lucinda Scala Quinn's Sausage spice mix: 

2 T. Fresh Sage

2 T. Fresh Thyme (I used 1 T. dried thyme)

1 T. plus 1 1/2 t. course salt

7-8 cloves of garlic, minced

1 T. nutmeg

1 T. cayenne pepper

Take the meat from the freezer, and working in four batches, add 1/4 of the spice mix (a little less than 2 T.) to 1 lb. of the frozen, cubed pork in a food processor. Pulse on high until only small pieces of fat remain, about 1 minute. Transfer to a piece of parchment paper and shape/roll into a log. Use fresh or store in the freezer for later. 

The sticky, almost whipped texture of the sausage 
doesn't stick to the parchment paper,
 even after you defrost it.

This tastes delicious in a pasta sauce, in an Italian lentil stew, or sliced into patties when the log is slightly defrosted. I like having this on hand in my freezer because you don't need much of it to add a lot of flavor to a meal!

Sweet & Hot Corn Dog Muffins

My husband has two favorite foods in the whole wide world: Nathan's hot dogs and Frank's hot sauce. Tonight, in honor of game night, I put them together in one dish! We didn't have any buns or bread to make chili dogs, but I did have a box of Alber's corn meal on hand.

I started with the recipe for Sweet Corn Muffins off the side of the corn meal box (http://www.food.com/recipe/albers-sweet-corn-muffins-300405), added some Frank's hot sauce (about 2 T.) to balance the sweet with some heat, and then added cut up pieces of the Nathan's straight to the muffin tins. They baked up really great!

We topped them with turkey chili and shredded cheese, and a few more dashes of Frank's to taste.

CrockPotRoast with Fresh Herbs, Apple and Oatmeal Stout

Pot roast and the Crock Pot were made for each other. If they got married and had a baby they would call it CrockPotRoast. It is so simple and easy to get it going in the morning and come home to a smelly house and a warm meal.

I like to buy pot roasts when they are on BOGO (buy one get one sale)and then freeze them for later. I'll defrost it a day or two before in the fridge, and cook it on a day I know I want a quick meal for dinner.

Cooking a roast in the crock pot is pretty versatile in terms of ingredients. You basically throw some vegetables in the pot, add some herbs and other aromatics to flavor the meat while it cooks, place the roast on top and add some liquid to keep it moist. You can be creative with the ingredients, or just use whatever you have on hand like I did this morning.

Here is the recipe I came up with things I had on hand in my kitchen. I think adding the apple brought a nice sweetness that complimented the other strong flavors. Using the oatmeal stout instead of water or broth added an earthy flavor and kept it extra moist. I used Oatis from Ninkasi, a local brewery here in Eugene that has really great micro-brews, but you could use any kind of beer.

Pot Roast with Fresh Herbs, Apple & Oatmeal Stout

1 C. of baby carrots

1 onion, chopped in large segments

1 apple, peeled and chopped in large segments

4 whole cloves of garlic, peeled

Sprigs of fresh Rosemary, Oregano and Sage

salt & pepper

1 3-4 lb. Pot Roast

3/4 C. Oatmeal Stout

Place the carrots, onion, apple, garlic and fresh herbs on bottom of crock pot. Generously salt and pepper the roast on both sides and place on top of vegetables, then pour in the stout. Cook on low for 5 hours. Serve with a side of roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes or squash (which is in season during the fall and likely to be on sale). I like to roast veggies in the toaster oven with olive oil and sea salt on 375 degrees for 30 minutes (no need to wait for the big oven to heat up).