Saturday, March 16, 2013

Meatloaf ThisMuffins: Meatcake but in a good way!

There were a lot more but dang! they were good.
Meatloaf lets you use up leftovers and tag-ends in an efficient way. While I suppose that there may be such things as meatloaf recipes, the basic idea is to take some ground meat, add an egg or two so it holds together, and then add whatever leftovers you have in fridge and pantry, suitably cut up. Try to get some sort of balance of ingredients, and if it goes too far in one direction, add something that takes it in another direction. Put into the oven at 375F until it's cooked all the way through and there it is.
Meatloaf has two basic problems:

  • It's hard to tell when it's done, because you need to check the inside to make sure the meat is really cooked;
  • It's hard to tell when to stop eating, because after you finish a slice, there's all this unfinished loaf ready to be eaten. 
Yesterday I stumbled upon a solution to both of these problems: meatloaf muffins! The same mixture that I was about to put into a loaf pan, I instead put into my silicon cupcake forms. 
  • These baked quickly and it was easy to tell they were baked all the way through.
  • Eating a single muffin is a satisfying experience; I don't have the urge to finish the whole bowl because there's nothing left half done.
This particular batch of meatloaf included ground meat, two eggs, peppers, dandelion greens, oat meal, flax seed, leftover beans (squashed flat so they mixed in better), the tag-end of a jar of horseradish, ground garlic and bread that was heading toward staledom. The resulting combination was pretty satisfying, although I'm sure I'll never be able to get the exact same formula again.
The only downside of meatloaf muffins is that I'll never again hear George Carlin's brilliant "leftovers" spiel again in the same way, for I've shown that MEATCAKE

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