Meatloaf Cupcakes

Today I made meatloaf cupcakes. Sounds kind of strange when you think about it, and something I normally wouldn’t eat as a ‘sweet’ item. But the cupcake part is just solely for the type of pan I used. Why use a cupcake pan you may be asking, well honestly it’s more to help with portion control and to cut cooking time in half!

The process was fairly simple, mix meatloaf as if you were making a regular loaf style meatloaf. And then portion it out into the cupcake pans.

Ingredients1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion (I buy and use the pre-chopped)
1 teaspoon dried oregano. (I used Gourmet Garden’s Organic Oregano)
2 garlic gloves, minced (I buy pre-minced garlic so it I used 2 teaspoons)
1 ½ pounds ground beef. (I used the 90/10 extra lean meat)
1 cups of Italian bread crumbs
¼ ground black pepper
¼ sea salt
2 Large eggs and cooking spray
                                                                                                                                                                                            Additional items you could use
1 cup ketchup, divided
1 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons mustard
** I don’t typically use these unless I am cooking for a lot of people as my daughter don’t like mustard nor Worcestershire sauce.

Mashed Potatoes
4 cups peeled potato (I use red potatoes or Yukon gold)
¼ cups of 2% reduced-fat milk
3 tablespoons butter
¼ cups Philadelphia cream cheese
½ teaspoons sea salt
¼ teaspoons ground black pepper

Garnish (if preferred, but didn’t use this time around)
3 tablespoons chopped chives
4 pieces cooked bacon and chopped.

Preparation
Preheat oven 350°
Mix ingredients in large bowl, (If you choose to add the Ketchup divided add too).
Spoon the meat mixture into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Top each with 2 teaspoons ketchup. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until a thermometer registers 160°. Let stand for 5 minutes.

While the meatloaf is cooking, make mashed potatoes.

Put the potatoes into a pastry bag with a wide star tip and pipe the mashed potatoes on top of the meatloaf. Sprinkle with bacon crumbs and chopped chives.
**If you don’t have a pastry bag as I don’t you can use a sandwich baggie and cut a small part of the corner of the bag off.

My Little Helper Liljana, She mixes the Meatloaf mix as
 I prepare the potatos

MeatLoaf cupcakes before cooked.

Meatloaf cupcakes cooked and toped, My daughters request was
for greenbeans on top drizzeled with katchup

 

Nutella Cookies

NUTELLA COOKIES

It’s my understanding that everyone loves Nutella, the delicious hazelnut spread. So when I came across a recipe for cookies I was like a kid in a candy shop overly excited about the endless possibilities of items I could incorporate in them. I have an adorable 4.5 year old little girl that LOVES to get into the kitchen and help her mommy cook and this recipe was just easy enough to allow her to do it by herself, yep I said it all by herself!

Difficulty:          difficulty of this recipe is easy as an almost 5 year old can do it alone.
Prep time:         about 5 minutes or more depending on who is in the kitchen doing it.
Cooking time:   I estimated between 5-9 minutes depending on each person’s oven.
Servings:            About 24 depending on how big you make your cookies.

So as you know the main ingredient is Nutella, but there are only 3 other ingredients in this simple yet cleaver idea for a chocolate cookie.



Ingredients:
1 Cup Nutella ½ cups Sugar
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 Egg



 Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 F
Blend all ingredients together well. Form 1" balls.
Pace onto cookie sheet. Press down frimly with bottom of glass. Bake for 7-9 minutes or until
set. Cool.

**In order to make 1” balls I used a 1 TBSP (tablespoon) measuring spoon and I packed into the spoon a little tight as the mix is a little hard to work with. From there I proceeded to shake it gently onto my cookie sheet.

**I also adjusted the recipe a little as I thought ½ cup of sugar would make them the cookies too sweet therefore I only used 1/3 cups of sugar. And I still thought they were sweeter than a normal chocolate cookie. Over all the process was easy and quick. The final product turned out wonderfully and tasty!

Introduction

Hello my dear fowler’s, I am very much an amateur cook and quite honestly an amateur to new foods and different taste. Are you asking how someone can write a blog about cooking when they are new and stubborn with their taste?

Well for so many years, actually all my life I have been eating the same thing. One could say that I didn’t think quite outside of the box when it came to food, and I give part blame to my parents but 100% of the blame to myself.

Recently I began really getting into Pintrest. Now in case you don’t know what pintrest is; it’s an online site that you can tack everything you ever imagined to. Such as recipes, hairstyles, crafts and clothing you would wear. The possibilities are endless.

So who am I? Really no one special to the world but to my two girls and my husband of over 8 years I am the world. I would love to be the little 50’s house wife but this isn’t the 50’s. While I would love to be a 50’s house wife, I don’t want to cook like they did with all that butter. I want a healthier option for my family.  

With all this said my motive for the blog and my cooking is to keep me inspired to try new things. I could run down of a list of things I have NEVER ate before this week and you would be surprised that I ever lived on Chicken, Rice and Hamburgers for so long, but it’s true I did, and now I almost regret not trying new things when I was in Europe (Albania) because I was afraid, even though the foods smelled amazing.

So what do I need from the people following my blog, well I need support more than anything! I can cook a mean meal and be terrified to try it, why because it’s something new! Some could say I am afraid of change and to a degree I am, but with your help and some wonderful ideas I will try everything and anything at least once.

Stay tuned for my next post and if you have an idea for a meal please feel free to send it my way! Here’s to new experiences and hopefully mouthwatering tastes!

P.S. Oh and I would like to give a special thanks to Joan G for helping with the Blog name it’s so clever!