November 4, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Meatloaf Muffins

I feel the same way about meatloaf that I do about meatballs. Ugh! The name! It really is gag inducing. I will eat a bite of it and be enjoying it, but then it always happens… I start to think, “I am eating a loaf of meat.” A shaped form of meat. M. E. A. T. And then I will push it to the side and eat my mashed potatoes. Which, really isn’t winning any name contests of its own anytime soon.

I sure know how to sell a recipe, don’t I?

Well, this is all to say my husband LOVES meatloaf.

Loves.

And I like to make him happy. Making him happy makes me happy. I am hoping when he reads this he will remember this meal and my sentiments and not the dress that came in the mail today.

So, sometimes I form a mashed-together-pile-of-meat into a loaf. Just for him. I’m a keeper.

Still selling this recipe, aren’t I? Bear with me.

A few years ago, I made a batch of spicy meatloaf muffins (that recipe is not the one featured here). The kids liked the meatloaf made in muffin tins. I liked not having to cut a loaf of meat. Swallow. Breathe. And the other day I decided to make meatloaf muffins again using a variation of my meatball recipe. Would that make these meat muffins? There has to be a better name!

I served the meat muffins over mashed potatoes and it was so good. My husband actually groaned. And in a good way, not in a, “these recipe names are disgusting,” way that you are doing now.

I will absolutely keep making these little round suns of meaty happiness over clouds of potatoes. They are easy. They are fun. And everyone liked them.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound of ground beef (I like 96/4 so that there is not a huge layer of fat on top of the meat at the end. I hate that!)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup dried Italian bread crumbs
1 egg
1/4 cup diced Onions cooked sautéed in 2 Tbsp. butter
Pinch chili flakes
2 Tablespoons of Dalmatia My Mom’s Red Pepper Spread (any kind of red pepper spread is good. I also really like the one Trader Joe’s carries)
1 tsp. worcestershire sauce
1 clove or 1/2 tsp. of minced garlic (sautéed at the last minute with the onions)
1/4-1/2 cup ketchup

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Grease muffin pans. This will yield eight meatloaf muffins.

Your package of meats are probably about one pound each. If that is true, split each package in half and save the remainder of the meats for another meal. I used mine as a substitute for the whole pound of meat in the coffee ground spaghetti recipe that I love. It was delicious.

In a small pan, sauté onions in the butter for 7 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for an additional one minute.

Add butter, garlic and onions to a large mixing bowl. Allow to cool for five minutes.

Add all remaining ingredients except ketchup and mix with hands until incorporated. You do not want to over mix. Just make sure everything is together.

Now with an ice cream scoop, scoop meat into muffin pan.

Repeat until all meat is in the pans. Now layer ketchup over each muffin so that no meat pokes through.

Place in oven and bake for twenty-twenty five minutes. I removed mine at twenty two minutes and cut open one to make sure it was done inside. I know this goes against every culinary rule (but, I mean really, we’re making meatloaf muffins here. How technically accurate do I need to be?), but I rest my meatloaf muffins on a paper towel for two minutes because I do not like the excess fat.

I served mine on top of mashed potatoes.

And it was good, despite the flaw of its name. It had a perfect blend of flavors and the creamy mashed potatoes brought it all together. I am actually craving them as I write this. I am a meatloaf convert. Let’s just keep this between us.

Shakespeare once wrote,

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Well…

“Meatloaf by any other name will still taste of meat.”

Hmmmm… still not sure I’m sellin’ these right.

May 26, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

The Lord Of The Pizzas

No. This pizza is not really “Lord of the pizzas.” Nor am I, “Lord of the pizzas.” In fact, the title was simply in reference to some silly movie quotes throughout this post.

Blame my thighs. They lord over everything around here.

One of my favorite things to make at home is homemade pizza. We take the term “homemade” a little loosely in our house. We made it in our house. But everything is bought and put together. As in pre-made. And put together.

As in my lazy soul continues to be happy.

And my thighs continue to rule them all.

Isn’t that how the saying goes?:

“One thigh to rule them all. One thigh to wine them.
One thigh to eat it all and in the kitchen dine them.”

Or somethin’ like that.

I have tried almost all of the different store’s pre-made pizza dough. And I know which dough is my favorite. Safeway’s pizza dough can’t be beat. And I will not use any other pizza sauce except for Pastorelli. As for the cheese, I use whatever I can get on sale.

So, my ingredient list has my preferred labels for the pizza I make at home.

With school being out for the summer soon, I know my kids will want to be in the kitchen cooking more. I wanted to post this in case you, too, want to ~~trick~~ get your kids to cook dinner for you this season.

This would be great for second breakfast, too.

Ingredients for two pizzas:

2 Safeway Select Traditional pre-made (but not precooked) pizza balls of dough (usually found next to their pre-made take and bake refrigerated pizzas and usually $1 each)
2 8 oz. cans of Pastorelli Pizza sauce (you can use a 15 oz. can and split it in half. I buy the two little cans so each child has their own can to work with)
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Optional:

We use:

1/2 cup feta cheese
1/2 bag pepperoni
1/3 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes

Any other topping you like. Maybe Po-ta-toes.

Directions:

Let refrigerated pizza dough rest on counter for thirty minutes before using.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Since I have two children, I let each of them roll out one ball of dough. Stretch the dough. Pull the dough. You really cannot hurt it. The more you work pizza dough, the better it gets.

My kids do all of the following instructions. What do I do? Well, somebody has to drink the wine.

I always have them make it in a rectangular shape. This is so the finished product fits on my baking sheets.

The baking sheets should be lightly oiled with olive oil.

Once the dough is made into the desired shape, place each pizza dough on a baking sheet.

Pour one can of pizza sauce on to each pizza dough. Sprinkle two cups of cheese onto each pizza. Then top with your ingredients. One of our children likes plain cheese. The other, pepperoni. And our whole family likes sun dried tomatoes and feta.

Those last two ingredients are not added until there are only two to three minutes left to the baking time. I want them warmed up but sun-dried tomatoes burn very quickly, so you can not put them on at the beginning. I feel like feta dries out if I put it on for the entire baking period because the flakes are so small. But you can definitely add it for the entire baking time if you prefer.

Bake pizzas for 13-15 minutes. The cheese should be melted but not brown.

Let the pizza rest for 3-5 minutes. Cut the pizza into slices.

Plate the pizza.

Serve the pizza with salad. I use this easy recipe.

Homemade pizza. Spinach salad. Red wine.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

Isn’t that right, my precious?

April 25, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Nutella Whoopie Pie Cookies

I know.

It is at this point that you are probably wondering if I am sticking to my diet. The answer is, “yes.”

“How?” I can hear you wonder.

Well, I do not recommend that you do what I do. But let’s just say, a cookie for lunch ain’t somethin’ I’m new to.

You, of course, could eat some carrots, too.

I won’t.

But you could.

Priorities, peeps.

I recently shared my Peanut Butter Nutella Cookie recipe here. These are very similar. One day, I thought, Hey, Jenni. Why don’t you add all Nutella and skip the peanut butter?

So I did.

Only… While the rest of my family liked the cookies just fine. Well, I thought to myself, Self. These are still needin’ somethin’.

What if you added frosting? Self, what if you made a cookie sandwich and put the frosting in the middle?

Then when someone asks you what you had for lunch, you can say, ‘a sandwich.’ And nobody will be the wiser.

So I did.

If you cannot tell by now, that voice pretty much makes all of the decisions in my life. I am not sure… But, you guys, I think it is coming from my thighs.

The voice is booming. And it’s ~~kinda~~ shaky.

And that is why I am writing this recipe and not doing laundry.

And that is why I had a sandwich for lunch.

And that is why I am happy.

On to the happiness:

Ingredients:

1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 stick (1/2 cup) softened salted butter
1 egg
1 and 3/4 cups flour
2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
2 Tbsp. Milk
2/3 cup chocolate hazelnut spread (I use Nutella)
Caviar from one vanilla bean (if you do not have this, you can use 1/2 more tsp. vanilla extract)
1/2 cup melted semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 Tbsp. Cold brewed coffee
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup organic brown sugar (organic brown sugar is so much better. I am not part of the organic movement, but I will not buy anything else.)

Ingredients for frosting (you have options here):

1 can of cream cheese or vanilla frosting

Nutella

Or my favorite: I chose to use this recipe for most of my cookies. You will need: 5 Tbsp. Flour, 1 cup milk, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 cup butter, 1 cup granulated sugar. It is a surprisingly easy and delicious frosting.

Marshmallow fluff

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Or 325 degrees Convect Bake if you have a convection oven.

Pour the 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a separate bowl and set aside while you work on the following.

In a bowl with a hand mixer or in your bowl on your stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light. Stop mixer and add in your vanilla and vanilla bean caviar. Mix.

Now add Nutella, melted chocolate chips and coffee and mix together until completely incorporated.

Add the milk and mix.

Add the egg and mix until light and fluffy.

Turn mixer to low and add in salt, cocoa powder and baking soda. Mix until incorporated.

Add flour and mix.

Turn off mixer. Now take a small ball of cookie dough and roll it on your hands. Drop the ball into the bowl of granulated sugar and gently roll it around.

Place the ball of dough on a baking sheet. Repeat this step until your baking sheet is filled with cookie dough balls evenly spaced apart.

With a fork, make two flat indentations onto each cookie.

With a spoon, scoop up some of the granulated sugar and pour a little sugar over marks left from the fork.

Place baking sheet into the oven and bake for 10-11 minutes until edges are just a little brown. Do not cook longer. You do not want these overcooked.

Transfer baked cookies to a cooling rack.

Repeat with remaining dough. Turn oven off.

Let the cookies cool.

For these cookies, I opted to make the best frosting to put between them. This version tasted like a homemade Oreo. Frost one backside of a cookie. Place the backside of another cookie against the frosting.

You made a sandwich!

Now eat your lunch!

I also did a pure Nutella Whoopie Pie (the cookie appears lighter because I forgot the melted chocolate chips in this batch. Doh!) by spreading Nutella in between the cookie layers.

Gosh. I love that voice inside my ~~thighs~~ head.

And that voice loves…

~~Ryan Gosling~~ Sandwiches.

Oh! But what about a Ryan Gosling Sandwich?

Self. You’ve gone too far. Eat your cookie.

P.S. I shared this on Savvy Southern Style.

And My Romantic Home.

April 4, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Peanut Butter Nutella Cookies

Be still my heart. Girdle my belly. Cinch in my thighs.

‘Cause I am about to share a cookie recipe that has become my new favorite.

And I cannot stop making them.

And I cannot stop eating them.

This is a humble cookie. It is simple. I find I like cookies with those two descriptions the best.

Most cookies are best the very first day you make them. These cookies stay soft and yummy for at least two and a half days (this is the longest length of time they have ever lasted in our house).

When I was eight, my grandmother gifted me a cookbook called, “For Good Measure: A Cookbook For Children” (I highly recommend this cookbook for children. Heck, I still use it myself). In it, was a peanut butter cookie recipe. I have never made or had a peanut butter cookie as good as the peanut butter cookies made from that recipe. I have been making those peanut butter cookies for twenty eight years. Sometimes I change it around by adding new ingredients. This recipe is adapted from that one. Because that recipe is so simple, this makes these cookies a cinch to put together.

Here is a little poem my thighs threw together for you, in honor of these cookies:

The faster to make.
The easier to bake.
My mouth will wake.
And my thighs shall quake.
For goodness sake.
This poem shall take.
The cake.

For being the worst…

The cookies take first.

On to the recipe!:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup of Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread)
2 Tbsp. Milk
1 stick of softened salted butter (8 Tbsp.)
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Caviar from 1 vanilla bean (if you do not have this, you can increase your total vanilla extract to 1 1/2 tsp.)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup organic brown sugar (it makes a difference)
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda

This recipe makes twenty four cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you have a convection oven, preheat oven to 325 convect bake.

Pour the 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a separate bowl and set aside while you work on the following.

In a bowl with a hand mixer or in your bowl on your stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light. Stop mixer and add in your vanilla and vanilla bean caviar. Mix.

Now add peanut butter and Nutella and mix together until completely incorporated.

Add the milk and egg and mix until light and fluffy.

Turn mixer to low and add in salt and baking soda. Mix until incorporated.

Add flour and mix.

Turn off mixer. Now take a small ball of cookie dough and roll it on your hands. Drop the ball into the bowl of granulated sugar and gently roll it around.

Place the ball of dough on a baking sheet. Repeat this step until your baking sheet is filled with cookie dough balls evenly spaced apart.

With a fork, make two flat indentations onto each cookie.

With a spoon, scoop up some of the granulated sugar and pour a little sugar over marks left from the fork.

Place baking sheet into the oven and bake for 10-11 minutes until edges are just a little brown. Do not cook longer. You do not want these overcooked.

Transfer baked cookies to a cooling rack.

Repeat with remaining dough. Turn oven off. Enjoy!

I think these cookies are better completely cooled down. There is just somethin’ that happens to the Nutella and peanut butter when they blend together at that time.

Now I’m off to make these guys.
My thighs…
They sighs.

P.S. I shared this on Savvy Southern Style.

And My Romantic Home.

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

bake

Meatloaf Muffins

The Lord Of The Pizzas