Mom's Meatloaf

Onions, celery, mushrooms and garlic

Hello lovely readers! I'm really excited to share this recipe with you all since it's one of my absolute favorites. Meatloaf is one of those dishes that is really easy to prepare, totally customizable, and always a crowd pleaser. The recipe below is one that my Mom sent me years ago with a few of my own additions. I also have a confession to share: Nick and I were so hungry when this came out of the oven that we tucked in straight away and I neglected to take a photo to share with you all. Additionally, I realized when I sat down to write this blog post that I had also forgotten to take a picture of the assembled meatloaf before it went into the oven. Oops. But, I think we'll be ok... 

Carrots

I was very relieved that Nick enjoyed this since I think it makes a great winter dinner served with mashed potatoes, gravy and veggies. Really warming and filling, but still a decently healthy meal. And, as mentioned, you could completely customize this recipe with whatever you had on hand - for example, it might be nice to swap half of the beef mince for sausage meat (with the casings removed). Be warned however, the ketchup will get very dark and look almost burned when it comes out of the oven (due to the sugars in it). You could cover the meatloaf with a bit of foil for the first half of the cooking process but I never bother. Also, ketchup is just the easy shortcut where the coating is concerned. If you're feeling fancy, you could make your own mix of tomato puree, brown sugar, cider vinegar and mustard... delicious! 

Onion mix with the bread pieces 

Prep Time: 30 min

Cook Time: 90 min

Serves: 4

Ingredients: 

2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 large onions, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, finely chopped 

5-6 large button mushrooms, sliced
3 slices of bread (white or wholemeal)
2 pounds (900g) lean beef mince
2 medium carrots, grated
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 large egg
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp ketchup, plus more for coating the meatloaf
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Worchester sauce

Method: 

Preheat the oven to 350F / 175 C.

In a large pan over medium heat, sauté the onion and celery in the olive oil until translucent. Add the mushrooms and garlic and continue to sauté until the garlic is fragrant and the mushrooms have softened.

While the onion mixture is cooking, tear up the bread slices into very small pieces and place in a large mixing bowl. When the onion mix is ready, add it to the bread pieces and stir to combine. Next, add the carrots, beef mince, salt, pepper, egg, tomato puree, ketchup, balsamic vinegar and Worchester sauce.

Using your hands, mix the ingredients all together until they are completely combined and evenly distributed. Shape into a 4 x 8 loaf and place onto a baking tray. To make clean up easier, line the tray with aluminum foil or parchment paper.

Finally, coat the meatloaf in ketchup - approximately 3 tbsp. Spread the ketchup evenly over the meatloaf and then place into the oven. Bake for one hour and a half or until the meatloaf is cooked through. Enjoy! 

Sunday Roast: Beef Topside

Hello lovely readers! These next couple of posts have been a very long time coming! Why the long delay? Basically, life happened. Work has been busier than I anticipated (in a good way) and my PhD work takes up a lot of my remaining time so cooking hasn't been as much of a priority. Actually, I've been cooking - it just hasn't been convenient to take the time to properly photograph or write out recipes unfortunately. I'll try to make more of an effort I promise! Also, as a side note, my previous post mentioned the food challenge I do with some of my friends every month... and promised the recipe would be up soon after. However, that month's ingredients (ham, ricotta and tofu) combined to a not so appealing lasagne so I thought I'd save you all from that. This month's ingredients are tuna, cheddar and onions so I'll be trying to think outside the tuna melt shaped box... 

Ready to roast!

Anyway, moving on! This recipe was my first ever attempt at a Sunday beef roast and I have to admit I was a little scared of it. In the past if I wanted to make a roast dinner, I always opted for roasting a whole chicken because it's pretty simple and offers lots of great leftovers. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how equally simple this beef topside was. The only slightly fiddly bit is figuring out when it's cooked to your liking but luckily my lovely friends Laure and Eurydice were content with the slightly pink but mostly well done version we ended up with.

Finished product lined up with the other offerings

I had a quick look around the internet for cooking tips and finally ended up merging a few simple recipies that included mainly salt, pepper and olive oil. I like the idea of roasting meat on top of vegetables so I threw in some carrots and onions since that's what I had on hand. The key to this recipe is really just the cooking time. Everything else takes care of itself. Perfect! We served this along side your usual Sunday roast options: red cabbage, honey glazed carrots and parsnips, yorkshire puddings (unashamedly store bought!), mashed potatoes and a store bought gravy jazzed up with some caramelized onions. I think it was on the whole a pretty successful evening and I'm looking forward to trying more of these roasts at home! Finally, a good tip is to remove the beef from the refrigerator 20-30 minutes before you want to roast it so that it can come up to room temperature. 

Ready to eat!

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: Varies

Serves: 4

Ingredients: 

Beef Topside (weight will vary)
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Carrots
Onions
(assorted other vegetables)
Large roasting tin

Method: 

Preheat the oven to 230C/

Cut the vegetables into large pieces and place in the bottom of the roasting tin. Next drizzle the beef with the olive oil and liberally season with the salt and pepper. Place the meat on top of the vegetables and place into the preheated oven.

After 20 minutes, turn the oven down to 170C and continue roasting depending on the following:

- 12-15 minutes per 500g for medium rare
- 20 minutes per 500g for medium well

My roast was nearly 1,000g so my total cooking time was 50 minutes. After removing from the oven, leave the rest for 20 minutes while you finish up the other dishes. Enjoy! 

Tortilla Pie

Hello lovely readers! I know I haven't been posting very much this past week but I have an excellent reason for my absence: I've been on holiday in gorgeous Cornwall! We had an amazing time filled with beautiful scenery, tasty food and good friends. It was pretty hard to leave yesterday (both figuratively and literally since it took us over ten hours to get home!) but I'm glad I've got the weekend now to prepare for a pretty busy upcoming week. This was a recipe I made while trying to use up leftovers in order to try not to waste too much on our last night at the house. We had made tacos earlier in the week (perfect dish for a big group!) and therefore we had a lot of the seasoned beef leftover. After searching "how to use leftover taco meat" on the internet I came across recipes for tortilla pie. I'd never even heard of this dish before but it seemed like a tasty option!

Stunning cliffs near our house!

Finished tortilla pie

SInce I was relying on leftovers I ended up taking quite a few liberties with the different recipe versions I found online. However, the end result confirmed my suspicion that Tex-Mex is incredibly forgiving. Basically, if you have cheese, you're good to go. I paired this with a quick and simple olive salsa (again, trying to use up bits and bobs in the fridge). If you aren't an olive fan, feel free to ditch them! Also, you will note that the recipe below calls for 8 slices of packaged cheese... and yes, I'm referring to the awful/delicious versions that you top hamburgers with if you're feeling lazy. Obviously, feel free to skip them! I normally don't buy that cheese but again, I was using what we had on hand. Don't judge me! Finally, I'm guessing with the ingredient amounts here based on the size of our dish but this could easily be whipped up with whatever leftovers you had and a smaller pan!

Simple olive salsa

Final dish!

Prep TIme: 15 min

Cook Time: 15 min

Serves: 8

Ingredients: 

6 flour tortillas

800g seasoned taco meat

250g cheddar cheese

300ml sour cream

8 packets of pre-sliced hamburger cheese

2 onions, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 red bell pepper, chopped

250g cherry tomatoes, chopped

1 bunch of coriander, chopped

5 spring onions, chopped

1 handful of olives, chopped

1 -2 limes, juiced 

1/4 cup of jalopenos, chopped

Method: 

Preheat oven to 400F/200C.

In a large pot on the stove, heat a splash of oil over medium heat and begin to saute the chopped onion. When the onion is starting to soften, add the red bell pepper and saute for a minute. Next add the garlic and saute gently for two minutes or until it becomes fragrant. Finally, add in the leftover taco meat and leave until it is reheated, stirring frequently. It should be a bit juicy so if it's a bit dry, add a splash of water. Leave over a low heat while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Mix the sour cream and 3/4ths of the cheddar cheese in a bowl and set aside. 

Prepare a baking dish by spraying or buttering the bottom and sides. Lay two tortillas on the bottom, overlapping slightly to fit. Next add half the taco meat mixture, spreading evenly around the dish. Top this layer with 4 slices of the pre-packaged hamburger cheese, tearing them to evenly distribute around the dish. Next add another layer of tortillas by laying another two tortillas onto the cheese. Spread the sour cream and cheddar cheese mix on top of these tortillas. Add the remaining taco meat onto the sour cream and top with the remaining four slices of pre-packaged cheese. Finally, layer the two remaining tortillas onto the cheese and top with the remaining grated cheddar cheese. 

Bake for 15 minutes or until the cheese on top has melted and is beginning to crisp. 

For the salsa: mix the cherry tomatoes, spring onions, olives, jalopenos and coriander in a bowl and drizzle with the juiced limes. Set aside to let the flavors mingle. Enjoy!