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Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: Ben-San on July 02, 2008, 12:57:34 am

Title: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: Ben-San on July 02, 2008, 12:57:34 am
My sister does not like meatloaf as a general rule so I tuned one to her tastes. She liked it and I like it okay too. Here is pretty much what is in it:

Ground turkey
Teriyaki Sauce w/a little pineapple juice and sesame seeds (also ginger, garlic, other good teriyaki seasonings)
Half a red pepper (chopped up real small)
An onion (also chopped up real small)
About a palmful of pineapple (basically shredded)
A bunch of baby carrots/one real carrot (grated finely)
A chunk of stale baguette
An egg

The stale baguette chunk is soaked in teriyaki sauce and then mushed up into breadcrumb paste. Everything is mixed together very well and then it is put into a pan. It is baked around 350-375 for 45-50 minutes or so. Halfway through you brush some more teriyaki sauce over the top. It is a basic meatloaf procedure.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: side_show on July 04, 2008, 03:41:47 am
In other ground meat related news, I made some terrific turkey meatballs the other day.  Instead of breadcrumbs or the like, I used Caesar salad croutons pounded down to powder, and I made them in my fancy European convection oven/microwave.  Let me tell you.  You don't know moist meat until you've had meat cooked in the convection oven.  (Seriously, I made some chicken legs in there and I was actually angry that they were so juicy.  How dare meat be so nice and tasty!  How dare it keep this secret from me for so long!)

This was caused by me reading the ingredients on the frozen chicken meatballs I usually buy and realizing they were made predominantly of texturized soy protein. I am supposed to avoid soy due to my thyroid problems, and am finding it harder and harder to do so.  Soy is in everything these days.  It's in yogurt and salad dressing and all sorts of weird places you wouldn't imagine soy being.  Damn you soy!   
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: pmcd9 on July 04, 2008, 05:43:56 am
Ditto to Asherdan.  Hang in there buddy.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: Ben-San on July 04, 2008, 06:15:26 am
Things could be worse in that regard. She's home and increasingly active, but is causing some Problems as she refuses to acknowledge that she is not in charge of the kitchen as long as I have to do all the planning and cooking and tries to overrule my requests for what to buy on shopping trips.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: wombat on July 04, 2008, 12:36:30 pm
After many years we finally instituted what we call the Shut Up And Eat It rule in our household. If you can't or won't for whatever reason do the cooking, you are required to shut up and eat what the other person cooks and be thankful that someone else is doing it. No nitpicking about ingredients, cooking methods or menus allowed.

It's much pleasanter to live in a household that obeys this rule. For all involved - letting go and just enjoying letting someone else do it turns out to be remarkably pleasant. I highly recommend that your mom try it. It's the sensible angle.

Of course depending on the kind of person she is it might take threats. We do occasionally have to enforce it with the "it's this nice food I'm cooking or McDonald's every night" approach.

Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: Ben-San on July 04, 2008, 07:54:46 pm
It's not quite that - she never complains about what I'm cooking. Instead she will offer her own shopping lists to whoever's doing the shopping, ignoring whatever the fuck I've told her about what we already have or need, and then when I call her out on it say "Well you never told me that!" This leads to situations like having three bottles of vinegar and no milk because if she was cooking she would've gone through much more vinegar by now and would have bought an extra jug of milk midweek already.

It is vexing as hell. My sister's learned to run Mom's lists by me, and I actually know what I'm buying, but when my father decides it's his turn to go shopping inevitably there's some kind of fuckup or ridiculous wastage because my mother's arbitrary list overrides end up with us having six containers of ice cream in the freezer and no meat except for a single pack of kosher breakfast sausages or some other insanity.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: wombat on July 04, 2008, 08:26:25 pm
Another principle that we try to stick to is that whoever's cooking does the shopping. It's nice of everyone to want to take turns but maybe they should just take on other chores instead.

Although, if our screwups ended up with six cartons of ice cream in the freezer I might not bother about principle.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: Doc on July 05, 2008, 12:33:35 am
end up with us having six containers of ice cream in the freezer and no meat except for a single pack of kosher breakfast sausages or some other insanity.

When this happens at my place it's generally not cause for complaint.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: wombat on July 05, 2008, 01:38:34 am
The sausage part sounded good to me at first too, but then I remembered that kosher sausage have no pork in them and are therefore mostly useless.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: Ben-San on July 05, 2008, 04:13:39 am
Another principle that we try to stick to is that whoever's cooking does the shopping. It's nice of everyone to want to take turns but maybe they should just take on other chores instead.

Although, if our screwups ended up with six cartons of ice cream in the freezer I might not bother about principle.

The problem is I don't have a driver's license. I can get around the city, I can't carry the groceries for a family of four without a car. I can't go solo shopping, I need someone to go with me and sometimes when they can go isn't when I can go.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: wombat on July 05, 2008, 02:00:14 pm
We made crepes for breakfast this morning and I was thinking, ice cream filled crepes with breakfast sausage on the side... it would be a better emergency dinner than cold cereal, that's for sure.

Also, I will circumvent the Shut Up And Eat It Rule by blowing off some steam here:  God dang it Technical Staff you need to put salt inside the meatballs even if there is going to be salt in the sauce.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: CortJstr on July 05, 2008, 06:42:01 pm
I'm making dulce de leche for the first time today. I had intended to buy some of those packaged crepes that Whole Foods sells to fill with it, but naturally they didn't have any. They seem to specialize in running out of things that I want, then having them again the following week.
Title: Re: I made a pretty okay meatloaf
Post by: AugustWest on July 07, 2008, 02:53:08 am
you need to put salt inside the meatballs even if there is going to be salt in the sauce.

I think that after 20 years of marriage (next month) I have finally browbeaten my spouse into understanding this concept.