12 January 2007

meatloaf muffins with barbecue sauce

Yesterday I was sent a link for something called a "meat cake"... Click here to see for yourself.

I was repulsed and facinated at the same time. Then I had a craving for meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Weeks ago I would have been bummed about this, with our oven being on the fritz and out of order, but it was just fixed last week and I was ready to bake!

Now, meatloaf takes FOREVER to cook. The prep time is negligible, but the cooking... Ugh! You could starve before the damn thing comes out of the oven!

Thanks to the internets, I found a recipe on foodtv.com by Rachel Ray of the 30-minute meal fame. The wonderful thing about her 30-minute meals is, obviously, they're ready in 30 minutes! Now maybe you're wondering how you'd prepare and bake a meatloaf in 30 minutes? Well, I'll tell you how! MEATLOAF MUFFINS!!!

Ingenius!

Like I said, the prep time was pretty painless... For the meat part, you pretty much just dump all the ingredients in the bowl and then mix everything with your hands. The sauce is super simple and should be made in a separate bowl and mixed with a spoon, which you'll use again. So don't throw it in the sink like I did and then smack yourself on the head after, muttering, "Why did I do that? I could have used that spoon again!"

The recipe called for use of an ice cream scooper to get the meat mass into the muffin tin, which is what I did but if you don't happen to have a scooper, I'm sure many other things will work. ...
Fill all the muffin cups and use the remaining sauce (plus that spoon you didn't chuck in the sink) and slip the pan into a pre-heated oven and let them bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes.

Once they're done, you let them cool a bit and then pop them out and serve!


Now I left out a bunch of steps, which will make sense once you check out the recipe in-full. So if you click here you can check it out at your leisure.


It's also here...

1 2/3 to 1 3/4 pounds ground sirloin
1 medium onion, cut into chunks
2 ribs celery from the heart of the stalk, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 green bell pepper
1 large egg plus a splash of milk, beaten
1 cup plain bread crumbs
2 tablespoons grill seasoning (recommended: Montreal Steak Seasoning by McCormick)
1 cup smoky barbecue sauce
1/2 cup tomato salsa
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil
(or oily cooking spray, which I found to be easier)


Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Put ground beef into a big bowl. Put onion and celery into a food processor. Cut the bell pepper in half, rip out the seeds and throw them into your garbage bowl. Cut the pepper into a few pieces and add to the food processor. Pulse the processor blades to finely chop the vegetables into very small pieces then add them to the meat bowl. Add egg, beaten with milk, bread crumbs and grill seasoning to the bowl. Next, mix together the smoky barbecue sauce, the salsa and the Worcestershire sauce. Pour half the sauce mixture into the bowl with the meatloaf mix. Mix the meatloaf together with your hands. Wash up. Brush a 12-muffin tin (1/2-cup each) with vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil. Use an ice cream scoop to help you fill meat into a each tin. Top each meat loaf with a spoonful of extra sauce. Bake about 20 minutes. Cut open 1 muffin to test that the middle is cooked through.

08 January 2007

images from oz