meatloaf!

meatloaf. when it is not done well and you are not in the mood meatloaf can be completely gross. when well made and you want it, then you fucking WANT IT. SEX JOKE OF SOME KIND.

this is vaguely based on something I saw on Diners Drive Ins and Dives. but not very well. I used a blend of pork, turkey, and beef for this. Basically cos i saw it on the show. This has advantages, but means you cannot have it rare in the center, which is the preference of my special lady friend. personally I had never seen rare meatloaf before, so take that for what its worth.

cooking the way i am going to describe has the advantage of a great, all around crust, lots of drippings for gravy, but will dry out the meat. so this is good for great sandwich meatloaf, but if you are in the mood for classic meatloaf maybe stick to a loaf pan.

1 package each of ground beef, turkey, pork.
1 onion
garlic
4-5 mushrooms
1-2 carrots
celery with a lot of leafy bits
breadcrumbs
cornmeal
worchestershire sauce
honey
1 bottle IPA (thanks rob)
flour
1 egg

so clean the veggies, and toss them in the food processor and cut the shit out of them. toss them in a big mixing bowl with the meat and the egg. alton brown advises not squeezing the meat, but i didnt see that eppisode yet so i dont know why. i tried to just carefully fold everything together. if you have a stand mixer this will be easier. I do not own one.

*weeps in the corner*

mix equal parts bread crumbs, corn meal, and salt and pepper to taste.

when well blended, place meat into a loaf pan, coat the top with the breadcrumb mixture. then turn out onto a cookie sheet that has been nonsticked in some way. I was advised to use parchment, which worked on in terms of nonsticking the meat, but then i had this big peice of parchement floating in my gravy drippins. no im not in love with it, but i havent tried oiling yet so i cant attest to how well it works.

oh you should probably preheat to 350 or so.

anyway, i ended up not being able to get all my meat in the loaf pan, so after i turned it out i packed the leavings towards one end then tried to kind of cinch it onto the main loaf. this didnt work overly well.

once the loaf is on the pan, sprinkle the breadcrumbs all over the loaf. tilt the pan to get it on the sides if you need to, but try not to roll the loaf. it should be fine. once it is coated, drizzle the top with whorcestershire sauce and honey. the more honey you use the more carmelization you'll get, so dont be shy.

my rescipie said to bake for an hour, but i had to do an hour and a half or so. cince this has poultry in it, you'll want the internal temp to reach 160. if you have a reliable probe thermometer, use that. mine was kind of crap. I may have left it in too long since i was not pleased with my thermometers. if you are pretty sure it is at 160 you can maybe pull it out and let it rest, since the internal temp will continue to rise and finish cooking any remaining pinkness. this might avoid drying it out.

once it is out, move the loaf to a serving diosh and let it rest. take your baking sheet to the stove. if you have two burners that can be joined use them, this is where they shine. put the pan on the stove top, add flour a bit at a time to thicken the gravy. when it starts all sizzling like a pancake, let it toast a bit, then add the beer. i like peppery gravy, the time for that is now.

serve to your family, or eat it alone and muse on the fact that you made enough food to feed a somali villiage for a month.

how fun is this posting two days in a row shit? firewall is down at work, so i can do this now. sweeet.

tomatoless veggie broth

Back when my fiance friday was one of them vee-gans i would have problems when I made soup. My problem was that both of us love soup, so I liked making it, but the veggie stocks on the market were unacceptable for most recipes. It wasn't really a flavor issue, in most recipes chicken stock and veggie stock are basically equivalent since all you really want from stock is richness and salt content, and usually just the salt. the issue was that most commercial stocks use tomatoes as a shortcut to flavor.

Now, I like tomatoes, and I even like tomato soup, but I do not like tomato in everything and my way hetero lady-friend is allergic to cooked tomatoes. Even were she not, the tang of tomato is no replacement for the richness of chicken. This ubiquitous use of the reddest member of the nightshade family kind of makes me want to go on a rant about the homogenization of american culture. there are many, many good veggies out there. none are available as the base of a stock. could i get a mushroom stock up in here maybe? or celery! celery is nice, and it is in fact what differentiates boiled chicken water from chicken soup (along with salt and your mother's love, which they bottle now). So i set out to create a good, veg-an stock that wouldn't taste like a lemon or kill anyone I am fond of.

I failed pretty badly.

again, not because there aren't great veggies out there! but concocting a perfect stock from numerous ingredients is very tricky. I had a couple minor successes but nothing that was perfect or even got near that term, until this weekend.

Yes this weekend, after years of effort, I stumbled on the perfect veggie stock, completely by mistake, as a side dish, and whilst barely paying attention. I also fucked up the dish it went into for other reasons, so that was fun. also? My wife-of-the-future is no longer fueled only by vegetables, and has been enjoying real chicken stock for several years now quite happily. so fuck.

anyway, here it is. it is absurdly simple, just go easy on the pepper.

the green parts of 2 leeks

3-4 cabbage leaves

handful or so of spinach

a bunch of water?

salt and pepper to taste

getcha self a big old pot (not like a stock pot. pasta pot? a big one) and fill with water. toss in the leeks and simmer for a half hour or so. cut up the cabbage to bite size pieces, throw that in there. simmer for fifteen or so. throw in the spinach. simmer a bit. be generous with the salt if you are going to use this to flavor other things. be careful with the pepper. i kind of overdid it.

and that's about it. for a richer broth, brown the cabbage and an onion in a few tablespoons of butter, if you don't mind dairy. As you enjoy the broth, contemplate the HOURS. you spent building the broth for that vegan matzo ball soup that FAILED.

FAILED.