bread crumbs – Ali Does It Herself

Mmmore Meatloaf!

Happy Birthday to Papa John!

One of the weirder, yet endearing things about my husband is the fact that if he goes to a fancy restaurant and they have meatloaf on the menu, he will order it. Every. Single. Time. Like a total weirdo. I’m carving my way through a juicy perfectly cooked steak. And he’s eating meatloaf. So we make quite a bit of meatloaf at home, too. Here’s another version of my classic: feel free to double it as I did and freeze one (or both) for later!

First ye grab yer meat. A lot of it. Enough for two loaves. I prefer the lean stuff – the extra lean is wayyyy more expensive and is harder to stick together.

Then ye take yer onions.

And yer mushrooms.

And ye put them in a bowl.

With a lot of other stuff: panko bread crumbs, Newfoundland savoury, oregano, salt, pepper. The works, really.

Then you chuck the meat in a bowl and add some eggs. Like, four or five.

Dump in the rest of the stuff too and give it a good stirring. Feel free to use your hands. Tip in some Worcestershire sauce as well for flavour.

When you’re ready, whisk up a concoction that’s a mix of barbecue sauce, Dijon mustard, and honey.

Spread that in the bottom of your two loaf pans.

Cram the meat on top and smooth it down. See how that sauce comes up the sides? That’ll keep it from drying out.

When you’re done, you can either cover it up and shove it in the freezer …

Or you can bake it at 350°F until it reaches an internal temperature of 160°F.

Then you eat it. Unfortunately cooked meatloaf does not photograph well. But you get the picture.

Cheesy Cauliflower and Broccoli

Oh Jamie Oliver, you rarely let me down. Today is no exception. This recipe takes your standard cauliflower with cheese sauce to the next (actually, the highest) level with very little effort. Plus it involves SO MUCH VEGETABLE. A great source of good food in these final days of winter. I like to buy the flash-frozen vegetables at the supermarket, especially in the winter, because I know that they were at their freshest when they were frozen and haven’t spent days or weeks rattling around in a truck to get to me before they rot.

Start by preheating your oven to 350°F. Grab 1kg cauliflower florets (A WHOLE KILOGRAM) and dump that in a large baking dish. I used half frozen florets on the bottom …

… and half fresh ones on top.

Scoop up a decently medium-sized pot and dump in about 4 tablespoons butter and the equivalent of 2 cloves of garlic (you can peel and slice it, but I used it from a jar here and I’m not sorry). Heat that on medium until the butter is melted and the garlic is sizzling.

Sprinkle in about 4-5 tablespoons flour and stir that until it forms a gummy paste, like in the picture.

Now, drizzle in, a little bit at a time, 2 cups milk. Whisk it all the while as you add so you don’t get lumps.

Tip in 500g broccoli florets (fresh or frozen). Let those simmer away until they’re pretty much mushy.

When they’re nice and mushy, you should mash ’em. I found the potato masher didn’t quite cut it so I used my immersion blender.

Glorious.

Now add in like 1/2 cup grated cheddar (or any cheese of your preference). Turn down the heat a bit and let that melt.

Now pour your green creamy mixture on top of the cauliflower.

Dig the cauliflower up a little bit to make sure the sauce gets into the middle.

In a food processor, whaz together about 2 slices stale bread, 2 sprigs fresh thyme, and about 2-3 tablespoons flaked almonds and a drizzle of olive oil.

Bread crumb topping!

Sprinkle another 1/2 cup grated cheese over top of the cauliflower, then top with the bread crumb mixture.

Bake the whole thing for an hour, until the crumbs are golden and everything is bubbly. I found that it was best to cover the crumb topping with foil so it didn’t burn.

Sooooo good!

Oh, Crumbs!

It’s one of my resolutions this year to try to get every last ounce of goodness that I can out of the food that I buy, and that means trying not to waste one iota of it if I can help it. Carrots looking a little flaccid? Toss ’em in a soup! Apples a little bruised? Make some applesauce! Bread gone stale? Time for some custom croutons and bread crumbs!

So you take your stale bread and you cut it up into smaller pieces. This is easy or hard depending on how stale your bread is.

Chuck it in your food processor.

Add some fresh woody herbs like thyme or rosemary. Dried ones are good too.

Salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Give it a good whaz for a little bit.

Look at those lovely crumbs!

I sealed mine in a plastic bag and tossed them into the freezer for a lovely Jamie Oliver dish I have my eye on but haven’t gotten around to yet – stay tuned!

Sausage Rolls

I made these for our end-of-the-year softball team potluck, and despite me making four dozen of them, they were gone within five minutes of opening up the container. I’ve never made sausage rolls before, but I do love them, so it was easy to figure out what should go in them. I will definitely make them again, and probably tweak what I throw in, just for variety’s sake – you should, too!

I started by chopping up a bunch of end-of-season herbs from my garden: a bit of sage, parsley, and chives. There is probably about 1/2 cup chopped fresh herbs here.

Then I chopped up 1 package white mushrooms, about 3 cups minced. Ordinarily I’d probably mince up 1 large onion and do half onion, half mushroom, but one of the potluck attendees is allergic to onions so I left it out.

Then grab some (500g) uncooked sausages. These are a little on the spicy side, but nothing too crazy.

Slice through the casing and remove the meat.

Chuck the sausage meat in a bowl together with your herbs, the mushrooms and onions (if you used onions and/or mushrooms), 2 large eggs, 2 tablespoons minced garlic, and about 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs. Feel free to season with salt and pepper as well. It turned out that I had bought pre-seasoned panko so I didn’t bother.

Mix the sausage up thoroughly with the other ingredients. I found it was easier (if more disgusting) to use my hands, but you could probably get away with doing this in the bowl of a stand mixer as well.

Now, remove from the fridge that package of puff pastry sheets that has been defrosting in there overnight. Slice each sheet into three equal strips.

Grab some mustard. I bought this fancy Tarragon Dijon stuff and I don’t regret it.

Brush a line of mustard down the length of each strip of puff pastry.

Evenly distribute all your sausage meat on top of your mustard line on each strip.

Bring the edges of each strip of pastry together to seal the meat into a long tube. You may have to stretch the pastry a bit to do this, depending on how full it is.

Shove your sausage tubes into the freezer for 15-20 minutes to firm up the dough and the meat and make it easier for you to slice them. You can preheat your oven now, to about 425°F. My oven cooks a little hotter (you’ll notice the finished ones are slightly charred on the bottom) so feel free to reduce the heat to whatever you need to if you have the same problem.

Slice the now-firm tubes into 8 equal pieces – this will give you 48 sausage rolls.

Bake the rolls for 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown and puffy and the sausage is cooked through.

Allow them to cool slightly before you stuff them all in your face. I don’t know how long they will last after baking them, in terms of storage, because I never got the chance to find out.

… Squasage?

I did not name this, for the record. When I was looking up basic cooking times on the internet, I found one for sausage-stuffed squash that was entitled “Squasage” and now I can’t get it out of my head. Sorry about that.

Anyway, I had this squash (I think it’s a kabocha?) that needed eating and this is what I decided to do with it — it makes a nice winter meal for two.

Preheat your oven to 400°F and cut your squash in half. I use a grapefruit spoon to remove the seeds — it’s easier that way.

Place the squash cut-side-up on a baking dish or in a roasting pan and brush with olive oil. Dust with salt and pepper and roast for about an hour, until you can poke it all over with a fork with little resistance.

In the meantime, rinse and drain 1/2 cup quinoa. This is red quinoa.

Dump the quinoa in a small pot with 1 cup broth (your choice) and bring to a boil.

Lower the heat, cover it, and let it simmer until the broth is all absorbed. It’ll look all fluffy with little white tails like this when it’s done, after about 15 minutes.

You’ll also want to chop up some veg, about half an onion and half a red pepper. Or a whole pepper. Up to you.

I had three Italian sausages here, but you can use two as well.

Slice open the casing and dump the contents into a bowl.

Heat up some olive oil in a pan and start sautéing your onions.

When they’re soft and translucent, add your sausage and break it up with a spoon while it cooks.

When it’s cooked completely, add in your red pepper and some herbs. I used fines herbes, a combination of things like parsley, chervil, marjoram, and chives.

Stir that around for a bit until the red pepper is softer.

Then you can dump in the quinoa and lower the heat just to keep the whole thing warm until the squash is ready.

In a small bowl, dump in a few teaspoons panko bread crumbs and a little bit of grated cheese (your choice). Mix that together.

When the squash is ready, lower the oven heat to 350°F and start spooning the sausage mixture into your squash halves. You may end up with leftover mix, but it makes a great lunch the next day.

When the squash halves are holding as much as they can, sprinkle the cheese/panko mix over the top and chuck it back in the oven for about 15 minutes, until everything is thoroughly warm, the cheese is melted, and the bread crumbs are starting to brown.

The result is an all-in-one, piping hot meal.

We did find it easier to tip out the contents and scrape out the softened squash before mixing it all together and eating it. It was less molten that way.

Spinach and Mushroom Stuffing

We made this for our Canadian Thanksgiving celebrations, but maybe the next time you cook up a turkey (say, for American Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or various other turkey-related feast days), you could try this stuff(ing) out. You can make it all the day before and chuck it together at the last minute, which is awesome for big dinners. It’s also the kind of stuffing that doesn’t actually go into the bird, so you can feed it to vegetarians, too!

Start with your bread. You can buy bags of pre-cut, pre-toasted bread chunks specifically for making stuffing, but I kind of like to make them myself, because I can decide what kind of bread I’m going to use in my stuffing. Here I used a loaf of Italian sourdough.

I ripped each slice up into bite-sized chunks and spread them out across two baking sheets. Shove them in your oven and bake them at 350°F until they’re dried out and lightly toasted, about 12 minutes. Make sure to stir them occasionally.

Dice up about a pound of fresh mushrooms. The wilder the better. Unfortunately all we had around were some oyster and regular white mushrooms, but feel free to experiment. You should have about 9 cups diced mushrooms when you’re done.

Chop up as well 2 large onions, so you’re left with about 3 cups chopped onions in total.

And while you’re at it, go to town on 4-5 stalks celery, ending up with about 2 cups chopped celery in total.

Find yourself some herbs. These were all growing in our fall garden: sage, parsley, and thyme. I thought about adding some rosemary to add to the “Scarborough Fair”-ness of the whole thing but managed to restrain myself.

Chop up a couple bunches of each. You can never have too many fresh herbs in your stuffing, so just go with what feels right.

Dump 1/4 cup of butter and a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a large skillet and melt over medium heat.

Plop in your mushrooms and sprinkle them lightly with salt and pepper. Sauté those suckers until they’re all squishy and starting to brown, about 8 minutes. Dump them in a large bowl for now.

Slide another 1/2 cup butter into that skillet and let that melt.

Add in your onions and celery and cook, stirring, until the veggies are tender, probably 12 minutes or so.

Sprinkle in your herbs and cook for another minute.

Then plop in a whole package (5oz) fresh baby spinach. Toss in the skillet (maybe use a lid) until the leaves are just wilted.

Chuck all that stuff into the bowl with the mushrooms. If you’re making this ahead of time, this is where you stop. Let the stuff cool, cover it, and bung it in the fridge overnight.

When you’re ready to get this on the go, preheat your oven to 350ºF and butter a large casserole dish or 9″ x 13″ baking pan. Whisk 2 eggs and some salt and pepper in a bowl.

Pour in 1 cup low sodium chicken broth (you may need more if you find it dry) and stir that around.

Toss your bread bits with your vegetable mix and pour your broth/egg stuff over top, stirring to make sure it makes it all the way through.

Jam that into your baking dish and bake without covering until it’s brown and crusty on top, about an hour. Let it stand a few minutes before serving (like, take it out when you start to carve up your bird and you’re set).

Turkey Meatball Rigatoni with Pesto

Happy Canada Day! Today is a holiday here in the Great White North. Last Monday was also a holiday for those of us in Newfoundland, and I cooked this recipe up on that particular day. We are trying to consume the contents of our pantry and freezer before we move (and we’re doing a pretty good job) so this gets rid of a chunk of the stuff in there.

Anyway, my landlord is doing some renovations to her house, which is directly behind ours, and she needs our yard for access. The first thing I said to the Pie when he got up and joined me in the kitchen last Monday morning was, “Oh good, you’re clothed — there’s a man in our tree.” And there was. And there were several in the backyard.

And in the front yard.

And in the side yard.

And everywhere. All. Day. Which made Gren very grumpy.

And all the shops were closed so we had to make do with what was around for our dinner. So start making up some meatballs, okay? Preheat your oven to 375°F and grab a baking sheet. Ignore the small highway being created in your backyard.

Finely grate up a medium-sized carrot. Chuck that in a bowl.

Slice up some green onions.

Then dice ’em. Chuck those in the bowl with the carrots.

Then add a few spoonfuls minced garlic.

Plop in 2 eggs.

And about 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs.

Give that a thorough stirring.

Add in some ground turkey, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Stir that all together, then use your hands to squish it into golf-ball-sized meatballs.

Plop those onto your baking sheet and let those cook in the oven for 20 minutes.

To test for doneness, cut one open and see that there’s no pink inside.

Grab yourself some pesto, too. However much you want. I like lots. You can buy it or make it yourself, it’s up to you.

And slice up some tomatoes. I used grape tomatoes here.

Boil up a pot of water and cook up some pasta. We used rigatoni, because it was something we needed to get rid of.

Drain the pasta. Dump the tomatoes and the meatballs into the pot with the pasta.

Add the pesto. Stir like there’s no tomorrow.

Serve it up hot!

Panko Chicken with Savoury

This is quick and crunchy and very handy if you’ve got a harried husband on his way out the door.

About an hour and a half before you want to eat, submerge 2 chicken breasts in about 1 1/2 cups buttermilk. Add in some hot sauce (and/or tabasco) as well and leave that to marinate for an hour. The acid in the buttermilk makes for a tender, juicy chicken that is hard to beat.

When the chicken is marinated, preheat your oven to 400°F and generously spray a baking sheet.

Pour about 1 cup panko crumbs (or other bread crumbs, brown rice ones if you are going for the gluten-free version) into a bowl with a pinch of sea salt and a tablespoon of dried savoury (or other dried herb of your choosing).

Mix that all together. Lift one of the chicken breasts out of the buttermilk and let it drain before dredging it in the panko crumbs until completely coated.

Place the chicken on the baking sheet and repeat with the other breast.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the crumbs are starting to turn golden. We served ours with some corn and carrots. Mmm, tasty!

Sweet and Sour Pork Meatballs

To accompany the legendary Chocolate Moose Cake on Rusty and Mags’ inaugural Newfoundland dinner, the Pie and I decided to try something new and accompany it with something old.

These meatballs come from the Canadian Living Test Kitchen and are super scrummy. There are lots of ingredients involved but the process is simple and they can be made ahead of time, which is great. They also make for great hors d’oeuvres, if you put them on little pointy sticks. Or plastic swords. With paper umbrellas.

Preheat your oven to 375°F.

Crack an egg into a bowl and scramble the sucker until it’s nice and frothy.

Plop in the following:

1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs (I used panko but it doesn’t really matter)

1/4 cup chopped green onions

2 tablespoons grated carrot (I used one whole small carrot here)

1 teaspoon grated ginger (I used powdered because I had no fresh and no minced – if you’re using powder use a little extra)

Mix that all together, then add in 1 lb lean ground pork and smush that all together.

Scoop the pork mixture up with a tablespoon and roll it into balls. Place the balls (I ended up with exactly 24) on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake until they are no longer pink inside, about 15 minutes.

Reduce the oven heat to 350°F and leave it on.

Meanwhile, you can start your sweet and sour sauce.

In another bowl, whisk together the following:

1 cup pineapple juice (I like to keep several small cans of this handy, for use in sweet sauces and also in starters for sourdoughs.)

1/3 cup ketchup (we used barbecue sauce, because the Pie won’t let ketchup across the threshold of our house)

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon corn starch

2 teaspoons grated ginger (again, I used powdered)

1 tablespoon minced garlic

Chop up one small onion and sauté it in a small saucepan with a tablespoon of olive oil until it is tender. I added some more green onions in, just for colour.

Add in the sauce and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and allow it to simmer, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes or until the sauce is thickened (that’s the corn starch working there).

Add in your meatballs and stir them around to coat them.

Now, here is where you can stop, if you wish. You can let the meatballs and sauce cool completely, seal them in an airtight container or freezer bag and then refrigerate or freeze them until you are ready to use them. Just make sure they’re thawed completely before you do the final cooking.

Transfer the meatballs and sauce to a baking dish and bake in your 350°F oven, stirring once, for 25 minutes, until the sauce is bubbly. You can sprinkle the meatballs with more green onions for garnish, if you wish.

We served the meatballs with fresh bread from the Georgestown Bakery and our favourite Hash Wednesday potatoes (minus the chicken). Because it’s Wednesday after all.

Roasted Asparagus with Cheese

For you Canadians out there, don’t forget to VOTE! █♣█

The Pie and I took Easter easy this year, and it was just the two of us (well, plus Gren), so we kept Easter dinner simple. We had a maple-glazed ham, creamy garlic mashed potatoes, crisp mashed rutabaga, and roasted asparagus with cheese and bread crumbs.

Now of course you all know how to keep asparagus nice and crispy. Today I’m going teach you a new trick.

The bottom ends of asparagus are woody and tough, and need to be removed before cooking. To do this, all you have to do is bend the asparagus until it snaps. I was doing this with one hand so I could photograph it and the stalks were flying across the room.