Sausage Rolls

For as long as I can remember, Sausage Rolls on the menu meant that it was a special occasion. Birthdays, graduations, and other special days were often celebrated with Mom's special sausage rolls.

Preparation of these little pockets of goodness involved making dough, frying bacon - then draining and crumbling it, cooking sausage - then draining and crumbling that, too - and dicing up romano cheese. The advent of the microwave made the bacon preparation a bit easier, but these were still labor intensive little treats.

As I moved away from home and started cooking for one, I often had the hankering for these little treats - but soon realized that a whole batch was a lot of work, and made way more than one appetite could handle.

Then I started to use the freezer as my friend - I would cook a batch of bacon or sausage when it was on sale and tuck it, crumbled, into the freezer. The romano cheese, cubed up, froze nicely as well. And frozen dinner rolls were pre-portioned, allowing me to make just a few sausage rolls at a time when I had the hankering.

Now that I am cooking for the family, I still use the freezer - although I have chosen to get fresh dough (or homemade when I can get Matt to oblige) - and have opted for pre-crumbled bacon.

I portion out a bit of each of the bacon, sausage (Hot Italian is our preference - but you can use what you like) and cheese into prep bowls - as there is some cross contamination. I add more during the assembly process as needed, but try not to portion out too much, as it can't be put back (it usually gets nibbled in the preparation process, too).

The only things you need are some dough (this pre-packaged fresh from our grocery store is the equivalent of most single batch dough recipes), corn meal, sausage, bacon and romano cheese.

Prepare the pan by sprinkling liberally - very liberally -with corn meal. You don't want these little babies to stick. We prep them onto the pan and then move them to our pizza stone, but you can also bake them directly on a pan.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.


You can make these any size you like, but I find that a "fingers" sized portion of dough allows for a good balance of dough and stuffings - too much bigger and your roll is mostly bread. Too much smaller and your stuffings threaten to poke out of the dough.

Stretch the dough out lightly and lay it on your hand. You don't want it to be too thinly stretched, as the bacon especially can easily poke holes through thin dough.


Add a pinch of bacon.


Then a pinch of sausage.


Then a few cubes of cheese. (You can add these in any order -whatever works for you - this just happened to be the order the bowls were in for me tonight.)


Pinch the sides of the dough together over the toppings, being sure to get everything enclosed. If you have cracks, the cheese will ooze out. If the dough is drying out a bit, you may have a tougher time getting the sides to stick together. Sometimes stretching and pulling it a bit over itself will help. Sometimes you might need to dab on another tiny piece of dough to patch it.

If you are "holding" your rolls on the pan and will use a pizza stone, then spacing on the pan is not a concern, but if you plan to bake these on the pan please be sure they are not too close together, as they will rise and expand.

Bake at 500 degrees for approximately 7 minutes (longer if you are making your rolls larger) - all the inner ingredients are pre-cooked, but you want your bread to bake and your cheese to get warm enough to melt.


Tonight we served these along with a good hearty salad (note the "leftover" romano chunks sprinkled on top of the salad - that's where the extra bacon crumbles ended up, too). These are tasty good on their own, or dipped into pasta sauce. They reheat fairly well and make a good "meatroll" for a bag lunch.

sausage rolls

ingredients:
sausage (Italian recommended)
bacon
cheese (romano recommended)
pizza dough
cornmeal

Cook and drain the bacon and sausage, allow to cool and crumble into small pieces.
Dice the romano cheese into approx 1/4" cubes.

Stretch out small portions of dough into a palm sized circle, filling the center with a pinch each of sausage, bacon and cheese. Pinch closed.

Liberally cover a baking sheet with corn meal and place assembled rolls onto sheet. Bake rolls at 500 degrees for approximately 7 minutes or until brown.

Eat cautiously - insides will be very hot.

Experiment with different fillings and different cheeses - just be sure everything is on the 'dry' side (if you use spinach, for example, wring it out well to get most of the moisture out before adding it to the middle) - otherwise your rolls will be soggy on the inside.

Enjoy.

Lazy Lasagna

Lazy Lasagna
Matt's Wife's Lazy Lasagna
Matt's Lazy Wife's Lasagna
Four Pound Pasta

Call it what you will - this dish is quick, easy, and yummy. It's family friendly, budget friendly, fridge and leftover friendly, and freezes very well.

And it's also one of the dishes I like to make (yeah - go back and note how many of MY posts have actually contained recipes. Um - yeah!)

So what are we waiting for? Let's get cooking!


Lazy Lasagna
1 lb pasta
1 lb mozzarella (I use part skim)
16 oz jar of pasta sauce**
15 oz container ricotta cheese (I use part skim)
oregano to taste
grated Parmesan cheese

** the sauce is the primary source of seasoning in this dish, other than the oregano. If you like garlic in your pasta dishes, I recommend a garlic based sauce rather than adding raw garlic because there is really no chance for raw garlic to get cooked and for that flavor to mellow. I was in a cheesy mood this go round, so chose the Four Cheese sauce. Diavolo is also a nice spicy variation.

1. Bring one gallon of salted water to a boil in a six quart (or larger) pot. Add your pasta, and cook as directed on the box. Try not to over cook the pasta, as it'll pull some moisture from the cheese sauce. Also, don't pre-cook your pasta. You'll need the heat from the freshly drained pasta to help melt the cheese. (hmm -this sounds like Matt's mac-n-cheese - but he says it so well!!)

2. Shred the mozzarella. You could use a food processer for this, but I like doing it by hand.

3. Reserve about a 1/2 cup of the cheese for later.

4. Combine the ricotta and shredded mozzarella together in a LARGE bowl. You will be mixing everything in this bowl, so give yourself some extra room. I like a stainless bowl, as the tomato sauce will stain a plastic bowl.

5. Drain the pasta and add it to the cheese mixture. Mix everything together thoroughly. Don't give the pasta a chance to cool down -the heat of the pasta will help melt the cheeses and make everything combine more uniformly.


6. Add the jar of pasta sauce to the cheese and pasta mixture. Add grated Parmesan and dried oregano to taste. **if you crush the dried oregano between your hands before adding it, it will release more of it's flavor.

7. Mix thoroughly to combine. Mixture should be on the wet and sticky side.

8. Move the mixture into a large casserole and top with the remaining shredded mozzarella. (nnd of course you can never go wrong with even MORE shakey cheese aka grated Parmesan)


9. Bake at 400F for 20 minutes, or until cheese on top is bubbly and melted.

Serve and enjoy!!!

Halloween Leftovers -if there is such a thing

The first Halloween Matt and I spent together, away from our respective families, we did what our parents had always done - we went out and bought candy for the neighborhood kids who would come trick-or-treating.

We did not even stop to think that we lived at THE dead end of a dead-end road (the end of the road turned into our driveway) and that this road was a turn off of another dead-end road, and that most of the homes were summer cottages, and those few people who were left were years older than we were and unlikely to go trick or treating.

Needless to say we had leftover candy - LOTS of leftover candy (I think I bought four bags).

It was SweeTARTS - I will never ever ever forget that it was SweeTARTS, because I think we were still eating them in August - 2 years later.

Not a lot you can do with leftover SweeTARTS.

We stayed away from buying candy for a while after that - until we bought our house, which is at the corner of a subdivision, right in the village, right across the street from two houses that go OVER THE TOP decorating - and we realized we would get a lot of traffic.

Right then we decided two things:

1. we would buy GOOD candy that kids would actually eat, and not be the house with the strange candy or 'gasp' non-candy toys.

2. we would buy candy that we could use in other ways.

... and of course we would buy candy that WE liked.

Our choice ended up being plain chocolate Hershey Bars - very versatile, very yummy. We even used them in lieu of cigars as birth announcements when the Munchkin was born.

Ah - The Munchkin -the new wild card in this Halloween equation. See, now that we have a family member out collecting candy from others, we have lost what delicate control we had over the contents of our candy dish at home.

Enter the "baking with candy" quest - Mommy's proactive search of the internet to see what ideas I could come up with to help wrangle the candy influx. Surprisingly I did not find many ideas - but those that I did find I decided to copy here. Since links are tenuous - and many dead links were found in this quest, I decided to copy the recipes here but to tell you that these little tidbits came from The San Marcos Record in San Marcos, TX.

These have not been field tested by our team - YET. If you try these and have any feedback, please let us know.

Baby Ruth Crater Bars

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups coarse chopped Baby Ruth

Preparation
Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 15 x 10-inch jellyroll pan.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.

Beat brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter and peanut butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Spread dough evenly into prepared pan. Sprinkle with Baby Ruth; press in lightly. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars.


Three Musketeers Fried Pies

Ingredients
1 (10-count) can biscuits
1 large Three Musketeers bar
confectioners sugar

Preparation
Separate biscuits and roll thin. Cut candy bar into 10 pieces. Place 1 piece in center of each biscuit; fold over and seal edges. Deep fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

Oatmeal Brownie Crunch Bars

Ingredients
1 (18.5-ounce) fudge cake mix
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
2 eggs
4 ounces finely chopped Hershey’s Special Dark (or semi-sweet chocolate bar)
2-3/4 cups quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats, uncooked
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup coarsely chopped dry-roasted honey peanuts
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, melted
1-3/4 cups M&Ms or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 15 x 10 x 1-inch pan with non-stick foil.

Stir cake mix, water, butter, and eggs until combined. Add chopped chocolate and combine. Set aside.

In large bowl combine oats, flour, sugar, nuts and baking soda; add butter until mixture forms coarse crumbs. Toss in M&Ms until evenly distributed. Reserve 3 cups mixture.

Pat remaining mixture onto bottom of baking pan to form crust. Pour prepared fudge cake mix over crust, carefully spreading into thin layer. Sprinkle reserved oatmeal crumb mixture over top of fudge mixture; pat down lightly.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs. Cool completely. Cut into bars. Store in tightly covered container.


Peanut Butter Milk Duds Cookie Cups

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) margarine (not the type in a tub)
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated white sugar, packed
1/2 light brown sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 (10 ounces) package Milk Duds candies
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

Optional Glaze:
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp smooth peanut butter

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375 F. In a large bowl, cream together margarine, peanut butter, egg, white sugar, and brown sugar. In a smaller bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add flour mixture, half at a time, to margarine mixture, beating well to combine. Place a heaping teaspoon of cookie dough into the palm of your hand. Press one candy into the center and press dough around it to form a ball. Roll in confectioners' sugar and place in ungreased mini-muffin tin. Bake 12-14 minutes, until lightly browned on top. Let cool in the baking tins at least 15 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely.

Optional Glaze:

Melt chocolate chips and peanut butter together until smooth. Pour into a plastic zip-top bag, squeeze out the air, and seal. Cut a small corner from the bottom of the bag and drizzle chocolate over the tops of the cooled cookie cups.

Note: Rollo candies, Reese's Bites or any other candies that will mix well with peanut butter can be substituted for Milk Duds.

Candy Corn Rice Crispy Treats

Ingredients
1/2 cups butter
10 cups Crispy rice cereal
9 cups miniature marshmallows
2 cups of candy corn
3/4 c miniature chocolate chips
Candy pumpkins
Yellow and red food coloring

Preparation

Melt butter and marshmallows; stir until smooth. In a large bowl, mix rice cereal, candy corn and miniature chips together. To marshmallow mixture, blend in 2 drops yellow food coloring and 1 drop red food coloring, adding more coloring if necessary to reach desired shade.

Add marshmallow mixture to cereal mixture; stir quickly to combine. Spread on a large buttered pan; press with buttered hands. While warm, press on candy pumpkins spaced 1 to 1/2-2 inches apart. Refrigerate and cut into squares.

Smashed Bugs Candy Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups (about) square snack pretzels
1 package (12 ounces) Rollo chocolate-covered caramel candies
8 (about) large marshmallows, each cut into 8 pieces
1 cup (about) pecan halves

Preparation
Preheat oven to 300 F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Place pretzels in rows 1 inch apart on lined baking sheets. Top with chocolate caramel candies.

Place marshmallow on top. Bake for 3 minutes only. Immediately place pecan half on top of each and gently press down so all layers stick together.


Snickers Cookie Bars Recipe

Ingredients

1 package (12 ounces) Snickers Popables chocolate candy pieces, chilled
1 roll (1 pound) chocolate chip cookie dough, at room temperature

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with non-stick foil.

Cut cookie dough in half lengthwise. Oil your hands and use your fingers to gently press the dough into the bottom of the pan.

The layer will be thin. Evenly distribute the chocolate candy pieces on top of the dough and gently press down so they don’t roll.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool about 20 minutes, then cut into bars while warm.

Tootsie Roll Ice Cream Sauce

Ingredients

35 Tootsie Roll Midgees
1/4 cup of water
1 extra cup of water

Preparation
Using the cutting board, cut up each Tootsie Roll Midgee into three or four pieces.

Place the Tootsie Roll pieces and 1/4 cup of water in the smaller of the two pots. Pour the extra 1 cup of water into the bigger pot. Place the smaller pot into the bigger pot (it will float on the water).

Heat on stove, on medium heat, until Tootsie Roll pieces melt.

Stir them together with the water.

Let the mixture cool and then pour on top of ice cream.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween

the day when it's perfectly acceptable to play with your produce!

Ghosts in the Graveyard

This was a classic example of a "back of the box" or magazine advertisement recipe. Simple to make, approachable ingredients, and oh so fun to eat.

If I recall correctly, we even added some gummy worms into the dirt for a bit more creep factor. Easy to do when your Mom has a store with a candy counter!!!

There are many great spooky desert ideas out there for Halloween - the cupcake variations alone are amazing!!!

If you are looking to put together your own Halloween feast, Family Fun has a great list of creepy spooky recipe ideas to cover every course of the meal. Most are family friendly to make and serve, but also are a great starting point for creating your own creepy goodness. Better Homes and Gardens is another ghoulish resource.

Happy Haunting!

The Head of Medusa

Boy do I wish I had a picture of this dish.

This dish all started when my sister Terri and I found a package of Squid Ink Pasta. Now I don't remember where we bought it - but I do remember thinking it would make a great Halloween Dish - just with red sauce.

Terri thought it looked kind of like Medusa's snake hair.

So she got ambitious.

She made some bread dough. Then she inverted a pyrex mixing bowl onto a baking sheet. She covered the bowl with foil (and I think sprayed it with cooking spray), and then proceeded to mold a bread bowl of Medusa's face and a few snakes out of bread. The whole thing went into the oven to bake.

After it was baked, she flipped it over, cooked the pasta, tossed it with red sauce and filled the "head" with the black pasta.

It was deliciously creepy.

Dem Dry Bones

These aren't really "dry" - but they make great spooky body parts!

And they have bacon - everything's good with bacon!!!

Ingredients

* 1 box sesame seed breadsticks
* 1 lb. bacon
* grated Parmesan cheese - probably about 1/2 cup.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Wrap breadsticks in uncooked bacon. (frugal note - you can stretch the bacon further by cutting it in half lengthwise down each strip. You will be able to wrap more breadsticks but they won't be as tightly covered in the bacon. Up to you.)

Place on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan and bake for 30 minutes. (I like to cover mine with aluminum foil for this -makes clean up easier)

Put the Parmesan cheese in a shallow dish. Roll each stick through the cheese while still hot.

Allow to cool and crisp, then serve.

...there are a lot of variations of this recipe out there in cyber land. Different kinds of breadsticks, some with garlic (keeps those vampires away), and some with different baking temperatures.

But they've all got bacon -so they all must be good, right?

"I Want To Drink Your Blood"

When you are having a spooky Halloween dinner, of course the punch MUST be red. And what better way to serve red punch than in bottles with old style "blood bank" labels on them.

This recipe will make both + (spiked) and - (un-spiked) versions, so be sure to label your bottles accordingly.

Regina's Quick and Easy Red Punch

1 bottle cranberry juice
1 bottle club soda

(spike with your choice of alcohol - or you can swap things out and use red wine in place of the cranberry to make a wine punch)
Serve in a carafe (ours are recycled wine bottles) - with a "blood bank" label on them.

Enjoy.

What's In Your Cauldron?

A few years back, Matt and I hosted a Halloween Party. We asked each guest to bring a "spooky" dish to pass, and then labeled each one with a big manila "specimen" tag, giving the spooky name of the dish as well as a goofy made up Latin name for it.

It was loads of fun.

Unfortunately it was loads of fun pre-digital camera, and I have no idea where the prints and/or negatives are from that event. I hung on to the tags for a long long time, but think I finally let them go.

At any rate - in the spirit of Halloween we thought we'd share some "spooky" recipes with you all this week. Some are things we have made again, some are memories from that party.

Our first one is "Great Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts" - better known in non-Halloween (or non-elementary school) circles as Sausage Stew.

This dish was provided by one of our guests - and was DEELICIOUS!
Unfortunately he never shared the recipe - so I went hunting online for one instead.

And I found this one.
It even has pumpkin in it - for those of you looking for ways to recycle Jack's innards.

Building Tastebud Memories

It never ceases to amaze me how powerfully the senses of taste and smell are connected to our memories. I think that must be why we turn to favorite recipes from childhood - especially around the holidays - those little mouthfuls of memories that take us back to the magic of the season as it was when we were young.

Matt's pretzels from yesterday's post were more than just a tasty treat last holiday season, they were a special memory for me. It was not exactly a holiday memory - but these big puffy soft hot pretzels brought back memories of my own childhood attempt at pretzels, straight out of Cricket Magazine - of which I was an avid reader. I still have them all - from Volume I Issue I on up for about 5 years. I am saving them to share with the Munchkin when he is old enough - and I hope that he finds as much enjoyment in them as I did.

In the meantime, we are starting to share the kitchen with the Munchkin, giving him more and more of a role in "helping" as we cook, create, and consume, starting to build his own Tastebud Memories.

I wonder, when he grows, what taste or smell will bring him back to his childhood? I am sure it won't be the same as mine, or Matt's or Bobby's.

What is your tastebud memory?

comfort food: lentils & pasta

comfort food: food prepared in a traditional style having a usually nostalgic or sentimental appeal. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Ah, comfort food... the woobie of the culinary world. Everyone has their own special dish that just feels right when you don't. Be it a rough week, a rainy day, an illness or a heartache, comfort food is the warm hug when Mom can't be there.

Comfort food is easy to prepare, usually contains only a few ingredients, and is relatively inexpensive. I consider our comfort food ingredients to be staples in our kitchen, and at any time, I'm sure I could produce at least four different comforting dishes.

We have a number of dishes that fit the bill, and we'll be sharing them, well, when we need them ourselves (easier on the digital camera and pantry that way). The first one up is one of those concoctions that have morphed from the original way that Regina's family prepared it. And it couldn't be a simpler meal.

Here we go...

Lentils & Pasta
(serves four)

8 oz. Barilla Plus Multigrain Rotini*
1 can Progresso 99% Fat-Free Lentil Soup, or similar
small handful of baby-cut carrots, bias cut
parmesan cheese**, shredded or grated
fresh ground black pepper to taste
crushed red pepper flakes to taste

* The Barilla Plus is a fantastic product for dishes with heavy sauces. It's a sturdy, yet tasty pasta, and dog-gone-it, it's better for you than regular pasta. Rotini holds the sauce best, but we have been know to use whatever pasta is on hand.

** Okay, I got a little fancy here and picked up a shredded parmesan/romano blend. nice.

1. Cook the pasta to 'al dente' (follow the box time) in one gallon of boiling water, with one tablespoon of kosher salt. Try not to overcook the pasta, as it is going to absorb a fair amount of moisture from the sauce.

2. While the pasta is cooking, and this is the tough part, empty the can of soup into a microwave-safe bowl. Add the sliced carrots, cover and nuke on high for four (4) minutes. If your microwave-safe bowl does not have a well-fitting lid, just cover it tightly with plastic wrap, but be sure to poke a few holes in it to allow steam to escape (Note: If you "need" comfort food, I don't think you'll be wanting to clean out your microwave oven). If you don't have a microwave oven, just heat up the soup in a medium saucepan on the stove.

(See what I did there? I just hinted that it's possible this recipe could be prepared while either camping or if the power goes out... provided you have a gas stove... or campfire...wait, that's another post....sorry... continue as you were... )

3. When the pasta is done, drain the pasta and move to bowls. Ladle the heated soup over the pasta. Wipe drool off camera.

(sorry, still working on my macro photography.)

4. Add the parmesan.. a LOT of parmesan... as we say 'round these parts, "Let it snow!" Add fresh ground pepper and red pepper flakes to taste.
5. Enjoy! Now wasn't that easy?

Serving suggestion: Bowl and spoon make it much easier to eat when curled up on the couch. Add a little bread. I picked up some of Boomper's favorite "round breads" on the way home from work.

As far as beverage pairings with this dish, I say "comfort with comfort". This dish was wonderful with an Ithaca Beer Co. Nut Brown Ale. For other beer pairings, I'll defer to our resident brewmaster, BobbyC.

What's YOUR idea of comfort food? We'd like to hear from you.

...it's not his mother's meatloaf

Meatloaf is one of those tricky things. Especially when you are married and your mother-in-law has her own style of making meatloaf. One that is different from how your own mother made it.

I don't know when I first started making meatloaf for Matt - or when I started venturing further and further away from my mother's recipe. All I know is Matt loves my meatloaf, the leftovers are awesome, and even my father-in-law has been known to chow one of our special meatloaf sandwiches. If that isn't ever recipe endorsement, I don't know what is.

So even though you may already have a meatloaf recipe that works for you, I will throw my own variation out there into the world of meatloaf mayhem, perchance that someone else will be tempted.
Regina's Meatloaf
(makes 4 big servings - usually gets eaten half for dinner and half as leftovers)
1 lb ground beef (your choice - I usually use 80% lean, but 90% lean works, too)
1 egg

...those are the only two ingredients that are measurable -the rest are "guesstimates"
approx 1/4 c (or more) pasta sauce of your choice (I prefer "four cheese" or "tomato garlic")
approx 1/4 c Italian seasoned bread crumbs
approx 1/8 c wheat germ
approx 1/8 c grated Parmesan cheese
approx 2 tbs coarsley chopped chive or garlic chives
1/2 small cooking onion, chopped
salt
coarse ground pepper (coarser the better)

1. Prepare a baking dish. I use a glass dish lined with foil, but you can use dish of your choice. It is best to prepare the dish first because you will be mixing this with your hands (works the best for this type of mixture -wear gloves if you like)
   
2. Preheat the oven to 400°F
3. Place the ground beef into a large mixing bowl.
4. Sprinkle the meat with a bit of salt and pepper.
5. Add the egg, pasta sauce, chives and onion.
   
6. At this point, I begin mixing everything together with my right hand, and have all the other ingredients opened and ready to add in with my left hand - that way only one hand gets all goopy.
7. Your mixture is at it's wettest now - you will be adding the dry ingredients in as you mix, trying to bring it to the consistency you want.
8. Add in fairly equal amounts of the cheese and wheat germ, then begin to add the seasoned bread crumbs, mixing as you go along. You may have to add more if your meat is particularly "wet". If you add too much dry ingredients, your mix will get crumbly and you will need to add more sauce. You want it so that it is sticky enough to hold together but firm enough to hold a loaf shape. (I know - really scientific here)
9. Shape into a loaf and place into the pan. I tend to make my loaf squarish and flatten the top slightly -this shape works well later with the shape bread we usually get for our sandwiches.
10. Now grab that coarse ground pepper -mine happens to be straight from the grinder - and cover the entire outside of the loaf with cracked black pepper. And I do mean cover!!!
    
11. Bake for one hour - let rest 15 minutes - then serve.

Serving Variations
Our standard go-to is cous-cous, frozen corn and perhaps a salad for the first go-round, although Matt whipped up a tasty side dish the night I took these photos that he will share with you soon.

Leftovers (and we DO plan on these)
Due to the long cooking time, meatloaf is usually planned for a non-working day, although we have been know to bake one late at night after our normal dinner and pop it right into the fridge for "planned leftovers."

But for the standard leftovers, our preference around here is sandwiches - crusty bread, provolone cheese, baby spinach and reheated meatloaf slices. Mmmm...

You can freeze this, too - after baking - if it gets that far.

who's who in the kitchen

Neither one of us just started cooking one day - each one of us was taught and influenced by a variety of experiences, and we still continue to learn, taking ideas from one cookbook or chef or restaurant and incorporating it into what works for us. Wherever possible we will try to cite our original inspiration, and we have links to some of our favorite cooking blogs and shows. Many of these people have influenced not only our cooking, but also our food photography and presentation. We hope to make them proud by our efforts here.

Name: Regina, Reg, Reege, Mommy

First Cooking Memories: Baking Christmas Cookies with the family

Cooking Influences: Mom's Italian influenced cuisine, four years of living and eating in Japan, many hours of FoodTV, and being able to bounce ideas off of Matt, who will then put them to the test.
Favorite Go-To Recipe: Meatloaf or Lazy Lasagna (both recipes to be shared later)

Favorite Herb/Spice: OOh - a toughie. Much depends on what I am cooking. I like my herbs fresh from the garden when possible - basil, oregano, chives, nira (garlic chive), parsley - and a dash of cinnamon makes anything comforting. And although I don't cook with it much - I LOVE wasabi!!!

"If I were on a deserted island with one food it would be..." Another toughie - but it would probably be cheese.


Name: Matt, Chooch, Daddy

First Cooking Memories: November '72... standing on a chair in the kitchen, with an apron wrapped around my chest, making molasses bar cookies (future post) with Grandma "Little Grandma" Spahn as Mom and Dad bring my new baby sister home from the hospital.

Cooking Influences: Mom (of course), my older sisters, Little Grandma, any chef who had a cooking show on PBS, most chefs on Food Network, especially Alton Brown (sorry, I'm a kitchen geek, too).

Favorite Go-To Recipe: Good Eats Stove Top Mac-n-Cheese (with slight variations)

Favorite Herb/Spice: Does a blend count? While I like fresh basil and parsley, I like to reach for my rendition of a classic Louisiana Seasoning. Mine involves cutting WAY back on the salt, and boosting the paprika.

"If I were on a deserted island with one food it would be..." a good loaf of bread.

hi there.

For any of you that read Regina's blog or Matt's blog, you've probably gotten the idea that we both like to eat... sometimes too much...and that Matt especially likes to cook, although Regina knows her way around the kitchen, too. Our meals are often a collaboration of ideas and effort, sometimes including child-wrangling duties to give the other person room to work, and we love to test the results.

Working full time, commuting, and sometimes cooking on the fly has led to some favorite recipes, fortuitous accidents, and short cuts that have been sanity savers at times.

"Any ideas for dinner?" Yes, we have a few. Join us as we combine efforts here to share this with you.