COVID19: Meatloaf on a Sheet Pan

Jack and I have talked about how a meatloaf might work as a sheet pan dinner, and this week I fetched some homegrown beef from the freezer at Mom and Dad's and gave it a whirl. The result was exactly on target, and Jack says it's maybe the best meatloaf he's ever eaten. 

I think the difference is in what the sauce/glaze does at 450 degrees on a sheet pan. 

I stirred together well three tablespoons each of ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, and red wine vinegar with a couple of big grinds of black pepper and pour-smeared it over the top of the meatloaf. Roasting caramelized it into shiny, sweet-savory coating which was a delicious complement to the meatloaf, which was standard fare - hamburger, bread crumbs, handful of oats, squirt mustard, dry mustard, ketchup, dehydrated onions, garlic salt, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce, what am I forgetting? 

Anyway, just a regular meatloaf. On a sheet pan with vegetables. 

It looked like this:

A pound of hamburger yielded a meatloaf loaf big enough for dinner plus leftovers for a couple of  meatloaf sandwiches. 

Jack and I have lately been diligent about "eating a rainbow" of dark-colored vegetables daily when possible, and sheet pan dinner helps us make it happen. This pan looks like a whole bunch of food, which it kind of is, but it's not too much. and it's healthy stuff - one beet with the leaves and stems chopped and cooked underneath, a small white onion, four thin slices of purple cabbage, two carrots, four strips of red pepper, eight spears of asparagus, four mushrooms, eight pieces of broccoli, and fifteen and a half green beans. 

Count it yourself the pieces yourself if you don't believe me. It makes a nice bowl of food. 

Mom and Dad gave us a great set of "pasta bowls" for Christmas, but we've only used them for pasta twice, even though we use them every single day. They're also great for rice and sheet pan dinner. Also, pie. 

This is from a different night, but the effect is practically the same. Roasty and toasty. 

COVID19: We're All Glad Spring Is Here

Today is the official start of spring, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Winter wasn't awful weather-wise, but it wasn't great in the overall view. We know a lot of people who have lost loved ones to COVID in the past three months. Some of our friends and their family members continue to struggle with the long-term impact of having COVID themselves and don't know if they'll ever feel vital or even well again. I want so much for the coming season and summer months afterward to bring hope and health, a much-needed respite, to all of us.

Earlier this week, the US passed the 100 million vaccines mark, which beats the goal President Biden set when he took office on January 20th. Mass vaccination clinics were staged in cities all across the nation today, and the Nashville folks at Nissan Stadium (where the Titans play) vaccinated 10,000 people. 

Here in DeKalb County, the health department is moving its vaccine operation to Alexandria in hopes of expanding access to people who aren't close to anything but I-40 since there are three vaccine clinics here in Smithville. My fingers are crossed that three months from now at the beginning of summer, we'll have a considerable percentage of people across the state and nation vaccinated and safer practices implemented for all of us.

Springing forward last weekend gave Jack and myself a big boost. It always does once we've adjusted to the different boundaries of morning and night and where fall the needs of the daily routine.

Weird as it seems, the cats anticipated the return of Daylight Savings Time by getting hungry about 45 minutes early in the week-plus leading up to the change.

COVID19: In Memory of Wink Tramel

"Father & Son" painted in memory of Wink Tramel 1937 - 2021

COVID19: We're Vaccinated!! Also: More Tasty Grub, Storage Container Follow-Up,

Jack and I got our first dose of the Moderna vaccine earlier this week (Tuesday), and even though we'll need a booster in 4 weeks then 2 more weeks of waiting for immunity to develop, we feel such relief that our every conversation circles back around to how good we feel to be underway with the vaccine series.

When I called Mom and Dad to tell them we'd gotten our shots, Mom answered and yelled, "HOORAY!" as soon as she heard.

We're all feeling relief about lots of things these days. Jack generally wakes up a bit before I do. He checks the news and gets caught up while I'm doing my yoga-sprawl and cat calisthenics, and it's wonderful to ask, "What's happening today?" and hear mostly things that make sense from the national headlines. 

Whew. Sigh. 

We've been thinking and talking a lot about the one year anniversary of the last time we did all kinds of different things, because those dates are hitting the calendar like bugs against the windshield on a foggy July evening. 

The last time we went to WalMart in person is a year ago this coming Saturday. The great hunkering-down was about to start. 

The last time I hugged Lucia and Beatrice was a year ago this past weekend, and that's a long time. Our visit, though, sustains me until we can again hug and waller-around slumber party style. 

I got fancy with a batch of pizza dough last weekend. Not really fancy. I added a tablespoon of olive oil to my typically lean (i.e. no fat) ingredients just to mix things up a little bit. We used to make pizza dough that way all the time - like, every single batch, but I switched to a no oil variety back in the spring after a conversation with my buddy, Matt, about different ways to make pizza. He uses a lean dough, and I gave it a whirl, we loved it, and that's where we've been for the last ten or so months. 

My most-used cookbook's recipe for pizza dough is very much like our old recipe with olive oil, and when we were jonesing for pizza over the weekend, I made that dough. It was fine and the pizza was delicious, but neither Jack nor I prefer it to pizzas with lean dough crust.  It baked-up crispy and beautiful, but the back-crust lacked the chewiness we normally have even with a thinner pie. It was delicious, a little bland - I didn't get enough salt in the dough - and something to make again for some other purpose.

After the first pizza - the recipe makes two pies - and our clear preference for lean dough pizza, I decided to use the other crust for pigs in blankets. 

We had four hot dogs on the verge of loitering in the deli drawer, so I wrapped them in half of the remaining dough. I stretched it into a rectangle then used the rolling pin to create a 4" x 12" strip of dough. Using a metal ruler as a straight-edge, I cut the dough into 4 1"-wide strips. Each strip was wrapped "tennis grip style" around a hot dog with the edges barely overlapping/touching. 

Once they were wrapped, I gave them a roll on the board to smooth the edges before moving them to a parchment-lined sheet tray to bake for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. Before sticking them into the oven, I brushed the tops of the blankets with egg yolk (1) and water (1 T) and sprinkled them with Maldon salt.

They were super-delicious and looked really cool, like little tennis racquet handles:

They were without a doubt the best-looking pigs in blankets we've ever had, and like I said, super-delicious, but the dogs, which plump when you cook'em, also shrink as they cool, so by the time we got into our second dog, we had to position a finger over the bottom hole to keep the pig inside the blanket.

Next WalMart order, I added Johnsonville Beef Brats, the pre-cooked ones that look like hot dogs, and they were exactly what we needed for the best pigs in blankets we've ever had. We'll be buying these again. We rarely eat hot dogs, but when we do, we want a good one, and this is our new favorite.

This one.

Question for the foodie philosophers: Is a pig in a blanket a pig in a blanket if it's actually a beef thing? I say, "Yes," but that's just me.

When I got our repeat pigs wrapped and rolled and ready to go, there was still a little wad of dough left, so I scratched around in the fridge and found a few brave spears of asparagus who volunteered for snack duty. A brushing of egg wash on the pastry dough, a sprinkle of Maldon on the pigs, a sprinkle of sesame seeds on the 'gus, and 35 minutes later, we had the cutest, tastiest little snack for supper. 

An egg yolk mixed with a splash of water makes them shiny and gold.

In follow-up to my storage dilemma, these airtight storage containers from Amazon are great. Mom got some back in the summer and has had nothing but good things to say about them, so I broke down and actually bought something new. I'd been using a combination of glass jars, and while there's lots to love about jars, they break. They don't stack. They're not as easy to clean. You can't scoop out of a jar. I fell immediately in love with the first set and have picked up another with different sizes containers. Find them here:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LFWV8JW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

COVID19: Sheet Pan Dinner, Another Penzeys Recommendation, Avocado Oil Rocks

Jack and I are in love with sheet pan dinners.

Nearly every phone conversation I have with my mother includes some gushing about how very perfect and tasty and wonderful and nutritious our last dinner was, and Mom says, "mmmm hmmm" like it's no big deal.

This is a big deal. Look at that food. 

The vegetables. 

Some of y'all know my history with vegetables and challenging textures. I've been shamed my whole life and called a picky eater, when I'm really not a picky eater at all. I love all kinds of I didn't learn to appreciate until adulthood and am open to trying almost anything. 

I recently surprised a friend by saying that yes, I would eat pommes frites (fried potatoes - French) prepared in horse fat. People who travel to Europe and Canada, where horses may be legally raised as meat animals, say the French fries are absolutely wonderful. I'm not going to philosophically split that hair. I grew up on a beef farm, the family still raises cattle, and my personal ethics are informed by a lifetime of seeing my father and grandfather treat their cows with respect and care.

This sheet pan dinner was fantastic. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts from the freezer (thawed in cold water and soaked for 30 minutes in baking soda solution to tenderize - blog post on that forthcoming; watch for it), half a red pepper, a beet cut into quarters (tops and all), four quartered mushrooms under the beet greens, a dozen florets of broccoli, 4 slices of red cabbage, a stem of four tomatoes, 8 spears of asparagus, rice in the Instant Pot, a splash of soy sauce.

I do pretty much every sheet pan dinner at 450 degrees for 45 minutes with two good bloops of avocado oil on the pan and maybe a bit more rubbed on the meat. One night we wanted dinner to be ready more quickly, so I cut the meat and vegetables in smaller pieces, and dinner was ready in 25 minutes. We mostly do chicken and pork, because they're both easy and work well with the flavors and vegetables we love best. 

We've started using avocado oil for sheet pans and roasting vegetables for a few different reasons. In the first place, it's delicious with a milder, nuttier taste than olive oil. Secondly, it offers the same incredible health benefits as olive oil - lower bad cholesterol, lower blood pressure, micronutrients and antioxidants - with a higher smoke point, which brings us to reason number three: smoke point. 

Avocado oil has a smoke point of 482 degrees, which basically means food can be cooked "almost that hot" and not scorch or burn. Canola oil has a smoke point of 400 degrees. Olive oil is down around 370. Butter's smoke point is 300'ish and burns at the drop of a hat.

When we first started doing sheet pans, I used canola 

Penzeys spice blends are my workhorse for sheet pan dinners. They're delicious, consistent, and excellent quality for the price. 

Check out the website here. They occasionally - about quarterly - have a really outstanding sale, and I stock up on our regulars then. If you want more information, e-mail me at 2busyandersons@gmail.com. I don't work for them and gain nothing from recommending them so enthusiastically other than the satisfaction of knowing that I've maybe turned someone onto something fantastic, inspirational and delicious. 

COVID19: Storage Solution Needed

I need food storage solutions and have no idea how to even start looking for what I want until after this pandemic is over. God help me. I need to shop in a store. 

Only my mother knows how hard I've fought to stay ahead of weevil moths in our pantry, because only a mother has enough love to tolerate that shit. Weevil moths have been an always and forever problem in this house. When I moved here in 1993, the pantry and kitchen cabinets already had existing moth traps, and there's really no guessing how many I've gone through in the years since then. 

Last spring in my wide-open effort to tighten-up the kitchen, I moved a lot of things into Ball gallon jars, which (yes, I know they aren't airtight) seemed to offer more security and protection for dry things like rice, beans, flour, and sugar. We'd bought the jars a few years ago when learning to do kombucha was a spring/summer project, but after our interest fizzled (pun not intended), we had a dozen giant jars with nothing to do. 

They've been great for flour and sugar, which aren't as vulnerable to invasion, but I recently realized that the jar with long-grain rice was crawling with larvae. Luckily, that isn't our favorite rice and less than a dollar's worth went in the scrap bucket, but unluckily that means my search continues for a great solution.

We go through parboiled rice so quickly these days that there's little cause for concern, but we do want secure, dry storage for our pantry goods.

I've added a $5.47 set of square plastic storage containers to our next WalMart order and am hopeful that solutions are enclosed.