When is a burger not a burger? When its Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf

One of my friends hates meatloaf and I can agree with her that meatloaf done wrong is oh so very bad. Meatloaf done right is ok. I'm not a huge fan of meatloaf but I have to say that it does have its place. Everybody's mom and grandma and aunt suzie-q has their own to die for recipe of meatloaf. I like my mom's meatloaf. It's drenched in pasta sauce, stuffed with mozzarella, and is sorta like eating a really yummy sliced meatball. I, however, am a meatloaf snob. I will not buy it at a restaurant or pre-made. I will certainly give your recipe a taste but as I am only on an ok like sort of status with it to begin with I'm not going to guarantee I will like it.

I have seen a thousand different types of meatloaves. I've seen them coated with cornflakes like a little armadillo. Slathered in ketchup, smothered in gravy, covered in mushrooms, stuffed with mashed potatoes, Jellied in grape jelly. Meatloaf is one of those meals that people find a style they like and they run with it. I myself make 4 different style meatloaves. I have the classic oniony gravy style that is fairly traditional and I Like to take the leftovers and turn it into a sort of meatloaf stew. I have a mexican style that gets coated in nacho cheese that is sorta like a slice of taco yummyness. I also make one similar to my mom's stuffed with mozzarella though she always seems to get her cheese to stay in better than I can. The last style is my Cheeseburger Meatloaf and this time I kicked it up a notch.

Why? Well who doesn't love a bacon cheeseburger? And guess what was in my fridge? Lots of bags of what they call Bacon End Pieces. Now as far as I understand a bacon end piece is little hunks of bacon that come off when they make sliced bacon. Rather than toss those bits out, they bag them up and sell them. They are GREAT for homemade bacon bits or crumbled bacon. They are also fantastic for things like Baked beans where you want the little chunks not the big long slices.

So the first thing I did was take a bagful and fry them up. Then I set them on a plate of papertowels to cool and drain while I searched the fridge to see what I had for a yummy burger.

So here's a list of what I put in: (And please remember that these are not exact measurements. I often just squirt and add and adjust things until it seems about right!)

• 5 slices of wheat bread, crumbled and squished
• 3 celery stalks, thinly sliced
• 1 large onion, quartered and thinly sliced
• 1-2 cups of shredded Marble Cheese
• 2 lbs ground beef
• 3 large eggs
• 3-4 tablespoons of Hot and Spicy Ketchup. (If you don't have this that's ok. Do regular ketchup and then add a couple of dashes of tabasco or other hot sauce you may have.)
• 2-3 tablespoons of yellow mustard
• 2 tablespoons of bbq sauce
• Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
• Slices of Marble Cheddar Cheese

Ok so the first thing I did was mix the celery, onions, and cheese together. Then I squished in the ground beef. This takes a while as you really want to incorporate the larger chunks throughout the meatloaf. Then I added the bacon, eggs, a couple squirts of the ketchup and mustard. I mixed those in by hand until it was a really squishy ball. Then I worked in the crumbled chunks of bread. Now this is a REALLY gross thing to have your hands in. I really dislike this part of the meatloaf. But the only way to make it work is to squish the meat between your hands and fingers. Fully working the bread into the meatloaf until it starts to pull away and make a sort of loaf. There will be chunks from the veggies and cheese. You may not need all the bread that is there.

Once everything is incorporated I like to lay it out on some foil for 2 reasons. One its easier to make that signature football shape on that then the broiler pan. You can pull up the sides of the foil to help you shape it. Once shaped I plop it onto a broiler pan and do some minor shaping adjustments. Now i have my foil cover and it looks something like this.

I place this on a boiler pan with the slots to allow the grease into the pan below. I like to do this so that the grease and fat can be separated from the meat. I then cover it with the foil I used to shape and transport it and place it in an oven at 400°F for approximately 30-40 minutes. Basically until you smell a yummy cheeseburger and the outside looks done.

Then I pull it out of the oven and coat it in a mixture of BBQ sauce, Ketchup, and Mustard. I remove the foil and let that cooked uncovered for about another 10-20 minutes. What you are looking for is the signature glazed look. You don't want it to burn but you want that flavor to crisp around the meat. Once that happens I switch the oven to broil and placed slices of cheddar cheese across the top like you would a burger. I put it uncovered in the oven at the same level until it looked like this:

Now your meatloaf is ready to serve. From all accounts this was a yummy meatloaf. I served it with Kraft Mac and Cheese and dill pickles. My husband stated it tasted excellent in a sandwich and I added a little bbq sauce to mine and ate it like meatloaf. It wasn't the healthiest of meals but it used up some bbq sauce left over in the fridge and a bag of those bacon ends. It was delicious and I thought a nice twist to an old family staple.

It's Shake and Bake and I helped!

A couple of days ago I was craving chicken nuggets. Now I love chicken breasts. They are so very versatile and a great way to make a few breasts go far is to make chicken strips or even chicken nuggets. I find that often a single breast can feed two people til they are very satisfied. Fried chicken doesn't always have to be fattening. Stay tuned later this week and find out about my fattening version. A lot of times I simply "oven-fry" the chicken. With less than a tablespoon of oil I cooked 5 chicken breasts cut into strips and coated. They were crispy, flavorful, and the chicken was moist and tender inside. Here's how I made this from "whats in the fridge."

The Breading:

A good chicken strip or nugget is all about the breading. What is the most memorable part of a McDonald's nugget? That coating. Yes you want all white meat and not processed but once you've established that, the art is the breading. For this batch of strips I decided to scan through the pantry and see what I had on hand to make a nice coating.

I found a package of Vinta multigrain crackers. Inside the box was one of the rolls of crackers already open. They were going stale sitting in a far back shelf of the pantry. I stopped buying breadcrumbs in general. Mostly because I usually have some crackers lying around if I ever want to make breading and I don't coat things very often. I also found a mostly full 99 cent bag of Buffalo Wing and Ranch flavored Doritos that no one in the house liked. To me that equaled hotwing flavored chicken strips.

Now with crackers, chips, cereal, or just about anything that you want to make a breading with you have to first crush. I'm not that good at this. My attempt was to simply put it in a large gallon freezer bag and run a rolling pin across it until either I got tired of it or it was all crushed. I got tired first. So my husband, being much better at this sort of thing took over. He'd really like my mortar and pestle or really any sort of larger industrial size mortar and pestle for the cracker crumbling but he makes work with it. Another method he's been known to use if you don't like the ziplock method is a large glass or ceramic bowl and a rounded metal thermos lid. The problem with that one is the lid is uncomfortable in the hand after a while.

So now we have the base of our breading but since no one really liked the flavor of the Doritos I needed to incorporate its mostly generic and fairly bland buffalo flavor into something that we all would want to eat. Candy has a ton of powdered sauce packets. I'm sure you've seen them and they really are handy to start out as a base flavoring. Then you can adjust and add from there. Well I flipped through them like a rolodex of spices and found 2 that I thought would be pleasing: Nacho Cheese and Hot Wings. I added them to my cracker and chip crumbs. I also added a little sugar for crystalizing while baking, some dry mustard powder, paprika, and cumin.

Now my shake and bake was all ready for the chicken.

Coating:

I wonder how you bread your chicken. I find for myself the best way is to do a three dip system. I like to take some flour mixed with salt and pepper as my base layer. After it is well coated I shake off the excess and dip it into some egg beaten with water. In this case I used 3 eggs, a squirt of mustard, and some water and beat them together. And lastly after the egg wash is the cracker crumbs. I like to put a couple pieces into the cracker crumbs, put on a lid, and shake shake shake. This is a fun step for kids if you have them. You flour and egg wash and then let them shake them up in the tupperware. Everything gets well coated and you have a happy helper.

Cooking:

Finally these are ready to cook. Now there are many methods to making them. I don't have a deep fryer but they can be deep fried to get a hard outer layer and then placed in an oven on a metal grid and a pan underneath to drip dry and cook the inside the rest of the way. I'm trying to find healthier options in my cooking so what I did this time was to very lightly coat the tops of the broiler pan to keep the chicken from sticking. Then I placed the chicken on and cooked them in a 450 degree oven flipping them halfway til done. No I don't know how long. Once the chicken was in the oven, I made the side dishes. Half way ... I flipped the chicken and when the side dishes were done so was the chicken.

Results:

These were really good. Everyone seemed to love them and they used up some staling chips and crackers! Out of about 40 chicken strips we only had 5 left. While they weren't healthy, they did satisfy a craving and we chose a healthier way to make them! All in all it was a great night for chicken.

Ham it Up 2: The Soup Bone's Connected to the Hambone!

So finally we reached the heart of the ham, the hambone. Well I didn't want this to be forgotten. I had stuck it in the freezer knowing that someday I'd make some ham broth or some hambone soup or something with it. It's been insanely cold in Edmonton the last week and from what the evil weatherman is saying its going to stay that way for another week. So I decided that now rather than later would be an amazing time for some fresh, hot homemade soup.

Now I've seen a thousand recipes for hambone soup, split pea soup, bean and ham soup, and a million other uses for the hambone. I find that in some cases the best thing to do is use what you've got. So I looked around and I decided to make something simple with a nice slow simmer. According to one of the Food Network Chefs a soup is all about the building of flavors in layers. If you add something too early it can be destroyed or if you add something too late it won't have the full impact. I find that soup is simply about simplicity and texture. Here's how I made it

1 - Hambone

2 - Medium onions, chunked

3 - large celery stalks, chunked

2 - heaping tablespoons of jarred minced garlic

2 - Bay Leaves

5 - large carrots - sliced

1 - bag of mixed dry beans

3 - medium potatoes chunked

Several small handfuls of real bacon bits

Sugar, salt, and pepper to taste

Now this is not a recipe. This is simply what I do so measurements are not accurate. I took the onions, garlic, hambone, and celery and placed them in a large soup pot. I added just slightly more than a pinch of sugar over the onions. I then added enough water to just cover the veggies (most of the hambone was still out of the water). Placed that on the burner at High and let it start to bubble. When you could smell the ham cooking I added more water to cover it and then added the carrots, beans, bay leaves, and a pinch or two of salt and pepper. That's it. I then let simmer for 4 hours. At the 4 hour mark I added smallish chunks of potatoes and let cook until the potatoes were soft.

It was a big success to everyone. It was very simply spiced. The bay leaves, which always make me nervous were quite nice. A tip: They never tell you to fish out the fat and bones and bay leaves. I'm sure its just assumed. I did fish out the meat, bones, and bayleaves. I then shredded the meat some more and removed the fat. It was yummy. I'd also add the carrots, more onions, and celery at the 2 hour mark. That way you have some crunch and texture. Oh and cook the potatoes less. I let them cook a little too much.

But those are nit picky. There are maybe 2 bowls left of the huge pot. It of course was yummy.

Ham it Up: Leftover Ham Meats its Match!

I love ham. It`s one of my favorite cuts of meats. I`m not particularly fond of any sort of roasted bird so if I`m cooking for a holiday or family event its most likely going to be ham. It`s my go to big meal that is simple and easy and the leftovers are so easy to turn into other meals. You can`t say that about a Lasagna. Lasagna is wonderful but Lasagna leftovers are pretty much reheated lasagna. Leftover ham opens up a whole world of possibilities.

Recently I`ve had to change my glaze for ham. I`m still trying to find that flavor combination that shouts Me! I`ve always had to be careful with ham glazes. I`m allergic to cloves and cinnamon. That means most commercial glazes are out and I feel horrible when I have to ask a well meaning friend how they cook their ham before I visit. Even the smell of cloves can make me sick for days. I`m sure it tastes lovely or people wouldn`t do it but it is so very bad for me. Now my favorite ham glaze constisted of marachino cherries and juice, pineapple rings and juice, brown sugar, and mustard. It was magnificent. BUT my husband is allergic to citrus fruits especially pineapples. So I`m on the hunt again tno find a glaze that screams me.

In true tradition of What`s in the fridge cooking I attempted a new ham glaze on Tuesday night. I found some Light Cherry Pie Filling that was leftover from a Cherry Yogurt Cake I had made the week previously. And in the pantry is a mostly full 12 pack of generic cola that my husband didn`t like. I had heard about a Dr. Pepper ham glaze and thought to myself how about a cherry cola ham glaze instead. I put the two of them in a pot over med-high heat and let it simmer for a few minutes. The cola foams and it looks kinda of cool as it bubbles. Then I tasted to see what it needed. To me that cola had tasted as if it had sat in the can for far too long. It had this metallic aluminum taste so I slid in about 3 tbs of maple syrup and a pinch of salt and pepper. I let that simmer and cook down. I should have let it form like a syrup but I am the queen of impatience. About halfway there I was ready to coat my ham.

Now in a Ukranian Cookbook I found on my inlaw`s shelf it said for the best glazed ham I should COOK the ham mostly first. This allows the water in the meat to come out and make room for the glaze. Or some such thing. So I thought I`d give that a try. I made the glaze about an hour before I wanted to eat dinner. Then I poked holes in all the areas I could find meat and I poured the glaze all over it. Rolled it in the glaze and just kept it coated. About every 10 minutes I`d pull it out and recover it. Waht I found was 1. my glaze didn`t dry out or get that slightly charred taste. and 2. If doing it htat way definitely let your glaze get to a syrupy state before coating. Otherwise it is a little too runny. I do have to say that it was QUITE the yummy ham though.

While I waited for all of that to finish I made a quick and dirty version of mac and cheese. Cooked macaroni, a couple cans of cheddar cheese soup and chez whiz, a little salsa for flavoring, and some tomato sauce for creaminess. I added half an onion and baked it all in the oven. It was a creamy and quick mac and cheese.

At the end of the meal ther wasn`t that much in leftovers. That is ALWAYS a good thing in my book. Just a little bit of mac and cheese, some small fatty hunks of meat, the pork rind, and a slightly meaty hambone. So I saved it all and planned my leftover reincarnations for the week.

Yesterday: Lunch: Ham Macaroni Salad

I took the fatty pieces of ham, stripped off the fat and cut them up. I am still learning to adjust quantities from 2 to 4 people so sometimes as in the case of the macaroni I make too much. So the night before, I had tupperwared about a third of cooked macaroni and threw it in the fridge. Now i had cold noodles all ready for a cold salad. I took 1/2 an onion diced fine, 1 celery stalk diced, 3 small eggs hardboiled and cut up, and 1/4 of a red bell pepper. I put them in the with macaroni. I then added 2 tbs of miracle whip, a whole slew of mayo, 1 pkg of roasted garlic and sun dried tomato pasta salad seasoning, mustard, sugar, and the final dregs of a roasted red pepper and sweet onion dressing i found in the fridge. Mix well and serve. This was a huge hit. Even with my husband who hates peppers. He liked it so much that after dinner that night he ate the rest of the pasta salad. It was yummy.

Yesterday: Dinner: Pork Rinds

Oh Buddy! Can those cracklings Crackle!!! I have never really made pork rinds before last night. I've watched others do it and I've watched others eat them. In the case of one of my former coworkers I could listen to her praise all day her homemade cracklings. So not to be outdone I thought I'd give this a try. While cooking a quick supper, Candy, scraped the fat off the pork rind and cut them into chunks. Now from what I've read you want to make sure the oil in the pan is good and hot and you want to lay them down fat side up. That was the goal. What happened was I put them in the pan and they started jumping, popping and flipping. I was dodging and ducking. My husband was yelling for me to be careful and was scared when a drop of hot grease came flying at my head.

Now don't you worry. My typing this is proof that I survived. In fact the only casualty was a spot on my arm that I've burned so much that I didn't notice the minor grease burn until an hour later when it was still hot and itchy. In cases like this I find those little reusable odd shaped ice cubes and a sock with the toes cut out makes a great ice pack. The cracklings were a little burnt. (Ok a lot) and parts of them were still not cooked right but they sure were yummy. That coworker was right. There is no comparison between homemade cracklings and commercial pork rinds.

Today: Lunch: Roast Beef and Cheddar Pasta with veggies

I'm not the only one in the house that plays What's in the Fridge. My mother-in-law Candy is excellent at it. Today while I was chopping up and prepping things for dinner she picked out the things we'd have for lunch. In the freezer she had a container of roast beef meat that had been slowcooked to within an inch of its life. She had been saving it to add to something as a meat extra. She also had a package of Green Valley Giant Vegetables with Cheddar Pasta. Her idea was to combine the two of them and have lunch. So that's what I did! But remember that mac and cheese I made?? Well there was only about 1.5 servings leftover so I threw those in the pot too. Boy was that yummy!

Later today see what I did with that Hambone!