Rainy Day Meatloaf (low carb!)

Fall is upon us, which means two things: winter is coming and hot foods are the best. I made the trek through a crazy rain storm to visit King’s Red and White Super Market, which is a small, local grocery that specializes in great meat and local produce. I picked up some hot country sausage, a big tomato, and a bag full of fresh beans of some sort.

I’m not totally sure what they are (field peas, maybe?) because I forgot to ask before I was already back in the car, and the rain was way to heavy to run back in. Give me a shout-out if you know what they are!

In any case, I’m back on the South Beach diet decided to take advantage of the chilly, damp weather and the country sausage to make something delicious and low carb: meatloaf.

There are a few key ingredients that go into making a low-carb (no breadcrumbs!) meatloaf as fluffy and moist. The first is to include some fat. In this recipe, I used pork sausage with the 99% lean ground turkey. Using all lean ground meat will result in a dry loaf. The second is to include vegetable matter. My typical meat loaf includes chopped carrot and onion and is cooked on a bed of some kind of veg or beans. Finally, substituting a nut or seed meal for the breadcrumbs will help deliver the texture of a good meat loaf as well as a nice, nutty flavor.

For this meatloaf, I started by chopping two carrots, 1/2 an onion, and three medium cloves of garlic and rinsing/picking through the beans.I layered 1/4 of the onion in the baking pan and put the other 1/4 in the meat mixture.

For the meatloaf itself, I combined the following ingredients:

• 1 lb lean ground turkey
• 12 oz hot country sausage
• ~1/4 c almond meal
• ~2 T ground flax seeds (I just threw whole flax seeds in my Magic Bullet and pulsed them)
• the vegetables shown above
• 1 bloop each of stone ground mustard, prepared horseradish, Sriracha, and Worcestershire
• 1 egg (forgotten in the pic of the ingredients above)
• ~2 T freshly grated pecorino romano (also forgotten above)
• salt and pepper (your guess is as good as mine)

When making meat loaf, it’s good to remember that you can vary pretty much anything. I like the tiniest bit of crunch in the carrots, but if you don’t, cook the vegetables beforehand or leave them out all together. Use mild sausage; a mix of beef, pork or veal with the sausage; no mustard; more mustard; whatever. You could even use breadcrumbs instead of the nut meal if you like! Go crazy.

I had arranged the ingredients attractively in the mixing bowl for a picture, but I forgot to take the picture. Instead, please enjoy this selfie of me playing with my food while making sauteed spinach last night.Mix the meat with your hands. This really helps keep the texture light and prevent the meatloaf from becoming a dense meatlump. Also, it’s fun.It’s difficult to take pictures with your left hand.

Gently form the meat loaf on top of the beans in the baking pan. Don’t press down too hard. You want to leave room for the drippings to get under the loaf and make the beans nice and tasty (I said low carb, not necessarily low cal).Slide that bad boy into a 375 deg. oven and bake for a while. I checked the temp at 30 minutes and put it back in for another 15. Your oven may vary; I highly recommend a thermometer if you, like me, enjoy a poultry-based meat experience when it comes to loaves.Give it a bit to cool and then go to town, serving it in slices with the under-beans.I also recommend enjoying this dish with a good Liam Neeson flick (I’m on a quest to see every Liam Neeson movie in existence before Taken 3 comes out). The flavor is like a punch to the throat, Neeson-style!

 

 

 

Roasted Tomatillo and Avocado Salsa: Mean and Green

Yes, it’s another food post. Sometimes, you just have to get your cook on.

I’m heading to my friend Sinclair’s Spiralfire pre-album-dropping listening party extravaganza (yeah, that’s right. i’m totally friends with a band) and needed a tasty, easy-to-prep (I got yard work to do too!) app to feed a bunch of people I don’t really know. The answer is naturally a dip.

Here’s what you’ll need: jalapenos, garlic, onion, a large quantity of tomatillos, avocados, lime, cilantro, salt, and oil that won’t smoke at high temperatures.Even though it’s pictured here, don’t use olive oil. You will fill your house with smoke. I used rice bran oil instead (healthier and has a high smoke point).

Remove the husks from the tomatillos. You’re fingers will get sticky. Power through and take a selfie if that will keep you going.Eventually, you’ll have a big, artfully arranged pile of vegetables. Give those bad boys a rinse (and clean your cutting board if you’re like me and only have one). Then, slice them in half and place them cut side down on a baking pan with a couple cloves of smashed garlic, half of a chunky-sliced onion, and a jalapeno or two.Drizzle them with oil, add kosher salt and fresh black pepper, and roast in a 450 deg. oven for 10-15 min.I did two batches of roasting, so I put the second pan in the oven and got started prepping the first batch. First, I added one avocado to the blender. If you don’t know the secret to getting the avocado out of the avocado, here it is. Cut the skin and flesh in half around the large pit and then separate the two halves by gently twisting them in opposite directions. It might squish a little. Don’t freak out. Then, holding one half in your palm, score the soft flesh in squares, dragging the point of the knife along the inside of the skin. Remove the pit from the other half by hitting it with the knife (to embed the knife’s edge) and twisting the knife.Doing this makes scooping the inside out using a big spoon super easy. Given that I’m adding the avocado to a blender, I probably didn’t need to do the scoring part; I could have just scooped willynilly. But then I wouldn’t have gotten to brag about my avocado skillz. Mad skillz.

As soon as I add the avo to the blender, I like to go ahead and add the lime. I’m pretty weird about avocado turning black (GROSS). Sometimes, it’s ok to indulge your quirks. Also, for all of those unitasker-avoiders out there, a pair of tongs makes a super lime juicer.One less tool to buy, one less tool to wash! It works even better with two hands, but then, you can’t take a picture.

Over top of the avocado and lime, scoop in the roasted tomatillos, onions, garlic, and jalapenos. I usually peel off the jalapeno skins (if you wrap them up while they’re still hot from the oven, the skins are easy to rub off). Don’t stress about doing a great job. I was in a hurry and probably only removed 1/2 the skins. This is artisanal salsa. Also toss in the cilantro (I used about 2/3 of the bunch in total, but it was pretty weak smelling) and some salt (go easy at first).Blend the heck out of the mixture, tasting and adjusting as you go. This is a pretty mild version. I could see adding quite a bit more jalapeno or a hotter pepper for fans of the burn. As it is, my hands are still a little fiery, and I figured I’d err on the safe side when feeding people I don’t know super well.

I was totally going to make tortilla chips as well, but I’m kind of tired and it’s getting close to go-time. It’s pretty conceptually easy (brush tortillas with oil, sprinkle with salt and other things, bake until crispy), but it’s time consuming. Maybe next time!

In any case, here’s the final product packed up and ready to par-TAY (we won’t be tardy!).

 

Curd Rice, Amy style

I realized today that it’s been more than a week since my last post and that, because this one is about food, it seems like I’m not doing anything. I’m totally doing stuff! It’s just not stuff that takes good pictures (getting the cars inspected; they passed!) or stuff that is still only half done (replacing the drilled-out drywall after the re-wire). I’ll have an awesome house-related update soon. Pinky promise!

In the meantime, check this out: curd rice! My friend Suja (Vaska’s friend and keeper) shared her recipe with me a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been craving it since. I got busy doing chores today, forgot to make a good dinner, realized I had both yogurt AND rice (you’d be surprised how rarely that happens), and gave in to temptation. Here the basic ingredients for curd rice: rice, ginger, dried coconut (unsweetened), garlic, mustard seed, salt, dried guajillo chilies, EVOO, and Greek yogurt. The authentic recipes seem to generally include green chilies, curry leaves, and urad dal (black lentils). Suja also recommended whole cumins or fenugreek as good additions. I have none of these things, which is what makes this recipe Amy-style.

I first started the rice (1 c uncooked) and then moved onto “popping” the chilies and mustard seed in oil.There’s no action shot of this part as I failed to take the popping part seriously enough, which resulted in exploding mustard seeds flying everywhere. Those little suckers are hot and they HURT! Anyhow, I started with approximately 2 T and estimate that I ended with about 1.5 T and kind of a mess. Oops!

I then moved on to the ginger and garlic. I minced approximately 2-3 inches of a thick piece of ginger and 2 big garlic cloves.Once the rice was finished, I combined all the aromatics: ginger, garlic, peppers, mustard seed, coconut, salt.I mixed it and then folded in the Greek yogurt (~2 c). I garnished the finished product with a little paprika and pumpkin pie spice and served it in a small bowl so that the rest would have a time to get good and tasty in the fridge overnight. Looking forward to breakfast tomorrow!It was probably a little thicker than it should be, but I kind of like it that way. I think that using regular (non-Greek) plain yogurt, adding a little milk, or serving it with a juicy Indian pickle (like Suja did) would fix that if you like it a tad runnier.

Additionally, while you’re cutting up ginger anyway, now is a great time to make some ginger tea. It’s great for the stomach and is hot-hot and spicy-hot, making it a great sip if you’re tired or chilly. There are a million and a half ways to make it, but the basic strategy is to put chopped ginger in water, bring it to a boil and then cook over medium-low heat for a long time.

If you use a longer cooking time or a higher ginger:water ratio, the tea will be stronger and spicier. I also add a couple lemon slices and some pumpkin pie spice (that stuff is IMPOSSIBLE to use up; they should sell it in 1-T packages) and cook it for about 30 min. When I go to serve it, I stir in some honey or turbinado and a squeeze of fresh lemon. Yum!

 

Mo-what now? Mofongo.

My eyes got bigger than my recipe box this weekend, and on a whim, I bought 3 unripe plantains (green cooking bananas, according to the sign at Compare). It’s times like these that I’m so happy to be living in the age of the Internet. Type “unripe plantain recipes” into Google, and you get about 32,000 results. Heaven.

I eventually settled on making mofongo for a couple of reasons. First, I actually own a wooden mortar (or pilon, because learning things is cool) (thanks, Aunt Dottie!). Second, I had most of the ingredients. Third, mofongo, which is basically mashed plantains with gravy and meat, sounded super good after a whole day of cold, drizzly weather.

I found a basic recipe with tasty-looking pics here and made it work for my kitchen and ingredients.

You’ll notice that a lot of these ingredients are not the ingredients listed in the recipe I linked above. Substitutions happen: turkey kielbasa for pork cracklings, homemade chicken stock for beef broth, etc. Details below.

The first step is to mash the garlic. To do this, I suggest practicing your mashing face. I went with a couple of looks: initially nice and happy……and then full of rage when I realized that “gently” is not a great way to crush things.CRUSH THE GARLIC, ARRWWWWAAARRRRRRRRRR!That’s about 4 big cloves. I didn’t make a fine crush. I then threw about 2/3 of that into a frying pan with about a tablespoon of oil and cooked it over medium low until tender and aromatic.While that cooked, poured approximately 3 cups of the chicken stock I made this weekend into a sauce pan and added extra turmeric (for the curcumin and pretty yellow color), dried oregano, a bay leaf, a guajillo peruano chile (picked up at Food World this weekend), the remaining crushed garlic and peppercorns. I brought it to a boil and let it reduce while I cooked the rest of the meal. Next, I peeled the plantains.I did this by slicing off ~2″ pieces, cutting the peel off, and then cutting the fruit a little smaller. If anyone knows a faster way of doing this, please leave a comment. ;P

I heated ~1/2″ of oil over medium-medium high (6 out of 10) heat, added the plantain pieces and ignored the pan for quite some time. I usually leave the kitchen while frying things (staying very close in case of fire) because I can’t resist the urge to fiddle with stuff, which usually ruins the frying process. I stirred the pieces one or twice to make sure that all sides turned golden brown. The total frying time was probably 15 minutes (maybe a little more?).Once they looked very tasty, I strained them out of the oil, dumped them on the cutting board, added the cooked garlic, ~1 tsp of kosher salt, some fresh pepper, and went to town on them with the mortar.Once it was sufficiently mashy (I added a drizzle of the cooking oil and a spoonful of the broth to keep up the moist consistency), I topped it with some browned turkey kielbasa and served it with a side of the concentrated, strained chicken broth. To further thicken the broth, I added my super-secret pink magic ingredient (equal parts red wine vinegar and corn starch). I had initially thought of making a roux (hence the flour and butter in the first pic) but decided that I’d probably add a little red wine vinegar anyway. It’s important to know your own style. 🙂This was totally delicious but quite heavy. I couldn’t eat all of that serving, if we’re being honest. In the future, if not using a salty meat like kielbasa, I would add a little extra salt to the plantains. Yum!

Mowing: Thought I would hate it. Tried it. Still hate it.

I admit it: I made it until age 29 without ever mowing anything. As a result, I’ve been dreading the arrival of the mower (delivered by my brother last weekend), when I’d actually have to face the yard-jungle that had grown over 12 weeks of North Carolina summer. Yikes.

I mean check this out:

You like that? Well, you’ll LOVE this!You think your neighbors are bad? I’m way worse.

Let’s just say, I’ve been sneaking to the car when I didn’t think any neighbors were looking, just in case they wanted to comment on the embarrassing state of the yard. It had to stop. So, I finally grew a set, filled up the gas can, bought myself an egg mcmuffin (sometimes treats are not optional), spent two hours picking up sticks, and fired up the beast. Ok, maybe “beast” is an exaggeration. It’s a 22″ Toro with front-wheel drive. YES! POWAH!

The total time investment here, including McDonald’s wait time, calling Dad and whining, and spending 10 minute having a hissy fit trying to start the thing, was approximately 4 hours. The vast majority was spent raking up sticks and dumping them into the yard waste bin (now full). Actual mowing took about 1 hour because I missed tons of spots and went over a second time with the blade slightly lower (during the first pass, I had it all the way up because the weeds were super tall). In the future, I anticipate this will be way quicker. 😀

You can’t tell, but I totally did the Dad-special diagonal stripes.

Piles o’ detritus that will be removed once I obtain additional yard waste disposal bags.

That’s curb appeal, yo. Check it.I still can’t say that I “enjoyed” it. I hate the noise, I hate pulling the thingy and hoping it starts, and I’m experiencing some hand pain, but I think I’ve successfully overcome the dread part. Yay! Now it’s shower time.Give me a shout out if you like my jaunty straw hat!

 

 

HVAC Filter: Anyone ever used a reusable one?

Because this house is a former residence of cats and because my allergic-to-cats brother was visiting, my mom asked me if I had replaced the HVAC filter lately, to which I replied, “No.” I totally didn’t know that those are supposed to be replaced monthly. I replaced the one in my duplex exactly once–right after I moved in–and lived there for almost two years. Oops. So I opened up the intake in the hallway and discovered that it was in pretty grim shape.To everyone who has already visited… sorry?

At the hardware store, I discovered that there are a LOT of types of filters ranging in price from about $4 to about $20 for the size I needed (16″x25″x1″). I also discovered that there are reusable ones. Guess what I bought.The good thing is that it cost less than $20, so it should pay for itself in a few months. The bad thing is that I had to cut it into the correct shape, which is harder than it sounds. It turns out that 16″x25″ actually means 15 and 5/8″ by 24 and 58″ outer dimensions (easy with the frame, which just snaps into place) and 15 and 1/4″ by 24 and 1/4″ for the dimensions of the two screens and the mesh filter. The instructions suggest using heavy scissors, and based on my experience with a pair of cheap kitchen shears (ouch, my hand), following the manufacturer’s instructions is smart. Also, remain calm while actually assembling the thing. It’s awkward and a pain, but it will eventually go together.Success is mine.

Then, just pop it into the slot and remember to wash it once a month. The instructions say that it can be cleaned in the sink or with a garden hose. Wish me luck. I’ll let you know if anything goes wrong.

 

Team fix the car fixes the car!

Last weekend, my 2002 Toyota Highlander developed a very interesting engine shudder while driving home from the grocery store. A little Googling and a couple phone calls to both brothers indicated that the problem was possibly a cylinder misfiring. Because I don’t have any experience or tools relevant to fixing actual things that go wrong with cars (I put on a mean leather conditioner and wield a mean air hose at the gas station), I decided to leave it parked until my brother Kevin could come up to visit over the three-day weekend. Hi Kevin!

Kevin brought his code reader, which revealed that it was indeed a misfire in cylinder 2. This was quite lucky. The back three spark plugs (1, 3, 5) are located under the intake, which makes them more difficult to replace. The front three are way easier, as you can see below:Kevin confirmed that the issue was the spark plug and not something else once we pulled out the spark plug:The gap is where the spark goes, and as you can see, it is super gross. Here’s a pic of the replacement:Way prettier, am I right?

After seeing the condition of the first plug, we decided to take out all the other ones we could get to. They weren’t in quite as bad a shape, but they were damn close. With my “assistance”, Kevin replaced the front three spark plugs in about an hour, including the trip to the autoparts store. The total cost (including 6 Bosch iridium-tipped spark plugs, 1 tube of anti-seize, and 1 spark plug socket that was longer than the one Kevin brought with him) was about $45. The Bosch spark plugs also came with an online rebate for buying 4 or more, so I’m looking forward to receiving my $10 rebate soon!

Because the front three were in such bad condition, I’ll also take the Highlander into the shop to have the back three replaced (and have my PCV filter replaced as well, but that’s a different issue). Luckily, it should be a pretty cheap repair. Hooray for brothers!