A month ago I was perusing a 1965 Family Circle magazine and ran across a full page ad for Campbells Soup, some recipes too. One recipe was some kind of a meat loaf cooked in a bundt cake pan, covered in Cheddar Cheese Soup & bacon. They called it Crowning Glory. It scared me. The next recipe was a mini meat loaf & traditional American spaghetti with a red sauce. Looks like a gut glump to me. However, the featured recipe was a meat loaf slathered with creamy mashed potatoes and a gravy (yes, made from Campbells soup) over all. This I could do, after all, Comfort Food is what I’m all about. So when Moira from Who Wants Seconds? offered up a contest for a making of some “Comfort Food”, I knew what I had to do. I was on a mission.
Category Archives: Oven Roasted Meat
Rich & Juicy Turkey Breast – Meathenge Style (it gots bacon)
Tuesday late afternoon found me at the local supermarket feeling a bit wishy washy. I knew I had to find something for dinner, along with some trash bags and kitchen scrubbies. Shopping for meat at one of these places doesn’t fill my heart with glee. The chance of getting something worth while is usually quite slim. I figured just so I could get out of there fast, I grabbed the first thing I thought would work, a turkey breast piece. I was on my way out when a light went on, an idea. In my frame of mind though, this light was no larger than a bic lighter flame. It was enough to pull me back to the meat coolers and pick up some halfway decent bacon. I was OFF !!!
Photography Note: I find that my best shots come from single focal length lenses. I know I know, everyone loves those zoom rigs. I suppose their good for many things, but last night wasn’t one of them. For this one I pulled out the Nikkor AF-D 60mm f2.8 Micro set to f33. KERPOW.
Pork Loin Roast with Bacon Twizzles & 3 Cheese Potato Gratin
This meal was a spur of the moment decision. A few days ago my uncle sent me some recipe for a 3 Cheese Potato Gratin. The vision was dancing in my head all that day and by late afternoon I found myself at the grocery store picking up all that was required. First I had to find a hunk of meat that might go with taters. I decided on a pork loin, no bone. Didn’t have a choice, if I did I would choose bone-in. Off we go!
Beef Roast – Red Wine Basting Involved
As simple as it is, a beef roast during the week brings a warm felt slab of love to the dinner table. We don’t have it as often as you’d think, maybe once a month. So I don’t get a lot of chance to fuss with different preparations. And since this one was during the week, keeping it simple was a must. Simple, rich, beefy that disapears off the plate too darned fast. Good thing I bought a whole roast.
BON APPÉTIT’s Chicken with Green Olives, Orange & Sherry
Sometime late last week I came home and noticed a foodie magazine on the table. The name was Bon Appetit, I heard of it before. Never actually ‘looked’ at one. The theme of this issue was and still is, “What’s Hot, What’s Not & What’s Next”, keeeripes. Whatever. Plus there was something about a Pan-Asian menu, not sure what that is all about. Probably something tasty, but full of vegetables no doubt. First page is a car ad, then an ad for a Celebrity Cruise. Neither of which anyone I know can afford, so I continue. I find Bon Appetit is from Los Angeles, what do they know about anything? Botox!!! That ad is on page 113.
Mama notices me flipping at the magazine and says there’s a really nice sounding chicken recipe on page 111 that she’d like to try. I nod and say it really looks like a nice rag and we should definately give it a try!
Meat Dinner – The Second Day
Unless you have children, please take that ugly ass space hogging microwave oven (and I use the term oven loosely) and have it recycled in to a spoon. Or something equally as useful. Yeah, I don’t want to hear the whining. “But it’s so fast, it saves time” and “oh it’s so economical.” And it ruins every piece of food you put into it. “oh but it does corn & taters & bacon so nicely.” Great, you have something the size of a large dog on your counter to steam corn. You’re so SMART !!!
Are you ready? Are you?
Are you hosting a holiday meal? Is it coming up soon?
You figure you got it all sorted out huh? Your turkey/ham/duck/quail is on order. Family & friends know what they are bringing, the florist will be on time. The yard is mowed and trimmed. There’s gas in the minivan, you’re set.
Maybe not. There’s always something, possibly ninething. How does one see if they have it together or not? Do a test run.
That’s right, cook the meal a week in advance or so and run it through. Your kitchen has changed over the year, maybe your turkey serving platter has disapeared. That’s what I found out.
Today I ran through a test turkey meal to see what was there and what wasn’t. My turkey serving and/or carving platter is missing. Plus I noticed my linen table clothes all had serious creases in them.
Another damned thing to put on my todo list, but that’s okay. I have time now to take care of those things along with everything else.
How is your silver looking today ?
Xo Xo
MeatHenge’s Fried Chicken Stew
Yes, it is exactly that. Fried Chicken stew and it must be about the most hillbilly thing I’ve done in quite some time. It doesn’t match my country fried pork ribs, but it still ranks pretty darned high. Read on if’n you’re interested, if not, I understand.
Whole Chicken Stuffed with a Lemon
Last week, during the Time Capsule adventures, Grampa & Gramma mentioned something about a recipe that included putting an entire lemon in a game hen. It’d have to be a small lemon, fer sure. Well, this last weekend I had a big chicken and a big lemon, it was time.
Beef Tri-tip stuff with Guanciale Amatriciana
Most everyone loves beef tri-tip roast, smoked, grilled or otherwise. From what I hear, Californians have really pioneered this cut. Robert in New Orleans says finding a tri-tip locally is damned tough if not impossible. And when he did find one, the butcher asked if he was from California. Yeah well, I found a way to improve the cut. Add cured pork (see above).
Arista Panzanese – Pork loin roast rolled with belly & herbs
Arista Panzanese, oven roasted. That’s what you’re gazing upon. How many of you made it to The Fatted Calf’s stall this last weekend? How many of you picked up a roast, like I TOLD you to? Fess up. Good. But for the rest of you, SEE what you’re missing? CHRIS YOU FOOL !!! You admitted to me at the baby shower you missed last weekend. See what happens? I didn’t miss out, in fact my wife didn’t miss out either. It was delightful, a bit much maybe for a tuesday night meal. But what could possibly follow last night’s Dreamland smoked rib dinner? This one did, very well too.
Chicken Pieces with a sprig of bacon
Got chicken pieces? Was the butcher out of whole fryers? Rick was. So I bought three breasts & a pound of bacon (to make up for lost pieces I wasn’t going to get). I believe I can work with this, chicken & cured pork. Nothing wrong with THAT.
Meatloaf rules for life
Meatloaf can be one of those wonderful comfort foods that nearly anyone can cook. The simplicity is at the heart of this meaty wonder. One can use just ground beef or stir in some ground pork to help out. Emeril adds half & half and stuffs the center with an italian sausage in the casing. I usually just do a few eggs, crumble up some crackers or old bread, herbies with spices. Coat with que sauce or ketchup, install in baking dish and in the oven it goes along with some bakers.
There’s one thing you simply can not leave out, no matter how you make meatloaf. The lack of this turned our meal in to a meat brick. It sat at the bottom of my tummy for over 24 hours, gack.
Salt Marinated Chicken
Salt, doesn’t that look nice? I finally got a chance to use a portion of the Coarse Italian Sea salt I bought a while ago. A few months ago I marinated a whole chicken in a salt marinade for nearly 3 days. This bird came out absolutely amazingly moist & happy. You’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between that and a fancy rotisserie one. Interested? Yes you are. That was a bit long and the Meathead family had a disaster of a time reproducing it. So, this last Saturday I decided to lay down some recipe that was reproducible. What I came up with only takes 2 hours and just couldn’t possibly be any easier. This will render you rotisserie juice flavor action with almost no work. How do you like that? A lot. Time to move on.
Cut Choices – Grill or Not?
One of the most frequent fears I hear from people is the one where you show up at the Super Market and don’t know what cut of meat to purchase.
Sometimes the lead butcher tries to help by installing stickers that say, BBQ or Grilling or Pot Roast. Okay, that helps to some degree. But what if you don’t have a grill or smoker ready and you want something juicy?