Grilled Meatloaf

Has it every occurred to you to GRILL your meatloaf??  I had never thought of it until recently, and now my life has changed forever.  It's the perfect summer dinner for many reasons: no hot oven warming up your house, you're able to spend time with Mother Nature, you can force a man on the grill, and then there's the flavor.  That smoky, charred, grill flavor.  Last night we used Carson's man toy, the Egg, to grill and essentially smoke the meatloaf.  He soaked hickory chips in water for an hour and used those along with charcoal.  He grilled the meatloaf at 350 for 45 minutes covered in tinfoil and another 15 minutes uncovered (at which point I smothered the top with ketchup).  It almost brought tears to his eyes, it was that good.  

You don't need a Big Green Egg to pull this off, there are many methods online like here and here.  

Some Siriously Delicious Meatloaf recipes:

BBQ Turkey Meatloaf
Meatball Meatloaf
Roasted Vegetable Meatloaf with Balsamic Glaze

ideas for the 4th...

I've been perusing for you.  You're welcome.  

fruit salad

strawberries

chocolate dipped pretzels

cake pops

flag cake

ice cubes

Cookies and Cream Ice Cream (sans machine)

If you like scrambled egg whites, like we do, SAVE YOUR EGG YOLKS.  I screamed at you, sorry.  But ever since I made homemade ice cream I see leftover yolks in a whole new light.  And ever since I discovered you don't need any fancy equipment to make the icy treat, I've been dying to try new flavors.  Cut to me staring at a bag of half-eaten mini Oreos yesterday and deciding, I'm going to make ice cream this instant.  So I did.  Creamy, rich, chunky, luscious, wonderful ice cream.

I'm getting the hang of this, you guys.  It is a really simple thing to do.  At one point, I was casually stirring egg yolks into milk, reading my Twitter feed on my iPhone AND whistling.  That's three things at once.  I can totally handle two kids.        

Homemade Cookies and Cream Ice Cream (sans machine)
(Makes approx. 5 cups)
Printable Recipe

1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 T vanilla
Pinch of salt
2 cups heavy cream
6 egg yolks
2 cups crushed Oreos

Heat milk, sugar, vanilla and salt in saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves.  Turn off heat.  Lightly beat egg yolks in a small bowl.  Slowly add just a little of the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks while constantly stirring with spoon or whisk.  Once incorporated, add all of the egg yolks into the saucepan of milk.  Return to stove and cook over low heat, constantly stirring, until mixture thickens slightly (enough to lightly coat a spoon or spatula).  Remove from heat.  Place a large plastic bowl in an even larger bowl full of ice water (essentially you're creating an ice bath).  Place a strainer over the smaller bowl.  Pour the heavy cream through the strainer into bowl.  Then pour the egg mixture through the strainer into bowl.  Stir to combine.  Remove large bowl from ice bath and place in freezer.  Leave in freezer until ice cream starts to thicken and freeze, stirring every 30 or 45 minutes.  Once thick enough (see consistency above), pour in crushed Oreos and stir.  Return to freezer and continue with 30-minute stirring rotation until you've reached your desired consistency.  Place plastic wrap directly on top of ice cream to store (this will eliminate freezer burn).      

Momofuku Milk Bar Birthday Layer Cake

It was Carson's birthday last week, and if you've been reading this blog for awhile you know I get pretty obsessive about birthday cakes.  I find it the perfect time to challenge myself to the point of mental breakdown.  It always begins and ends as an enjoyable experience but somewhere in the middle my character flaws emerge.  You know - crying, cursing, cradling myself into a fetal position on the kitchen floor.  This time was no exception.  But, this was also no "piece of cake" to pull off HEY THERE PUN!  Lots of steps and layers and required equipment.  However, once you order things from Amazon like cake collars and liquid glucose and citric acid, you're ready to go!  And if you remain calm, eat a lot of the crumbles as you go, MAKE EXTRA FROSTING (I ran out), you too can pull this off.  And it's worth it.  

            

Everyone is doing it so the recipe isn't hard to find (like here, here or here).  

pre-baked cake...

cake and crumbles...

more crumbles... ohmygod they are good... 

layering with cake ring and cake collars...

a big old mess...

ready for freezer...

happy birthday carson : )

I'll be back...

...but for now this is where I am.  Hovering, all day long, over the craft services table at The Voice blind audition tapings.  Do you know how often they change this food over?  Often.  Do you know that sometimes I lie under that table and just grab food with my hand, like a troll?  Now you know.  

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Trolls

If you're wondering if this is turning into a baking blog well, it's not.  But I'm 7 months pregnant and I want to eat pancakes at two in the morning and the thought of preparing a nice broccoli salad for you people is quite frankly a nonexistent thought in my brain.  We'll get back there someday.

For now, I'm finding inspiration to bake everywhere.  When a friend of mine posted these "troll" cookies on her Instagram, I instantly stalked her for the recipe.  It turned out they are another friend's famous recipe and a THIRD friend kindly posted the recipe on her blog.  Go to here and make them.  They might be the best peanut butter cookie I've ever had.  

That little hand belongs to a fan of my recent baking bonanza...  

p.s. I do not know why they are called "troll" cookies but if I find out, I will get back to you.  

Old Fashioned Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

 I had a revelation this weekend.  I own a cake stand, and what on Earth is the point of owning one if you don't always keep a cake in it??

New rule of life: Cake stands are for cake, at all times, period.

Like this Old Fashioned Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.  When I saw it on her blog, I knew it had to be good, but when I discovered it was Ina's recipe, that sealed the deal.  And it's superb, my friends.  Perfectly moist, full of banana flavor with a lovely hint of orange from the zest, smothered in the best kind of frosting ever.  All I did differently was use 8oz. of cream cheese and a full stick of butter in the frosting.  Oh and I practically had to restrain myself to keep from adding mini chocolate chips.  Just once, I told myself, make something without chocolate.  It doesn't need it, however, I wouldn't be mad if you added them and sent me a piece.    

 

Homemade Almond Roca

First, the winner of the Father's Day Giveaway is Tina Green!  Tina, email me so I can send you your gift card, asap.  Thank you to all those who participated!  

Speaking of Father's Day, I am always a fan of edible gifts.  Last year I made Chocolate Peanut Toffee.  This year, I didn't stray too far from that with Homemade Almond Roca (click for recipe).  Mmm, delicious!  If toffee isn't your thing, I also thought of making these Salted Whiskey Caramels.  I mean, those just scream DAD, don't they?  Or bum on the street.  

Have a great weekend everyone, Happy Dad's Day!      

Broccoli Parmesan Fritters

Do you have kids?  Do they eat broccoli?  Oh they do?  I am SO HAPPY for you.  

Ok that seemed dry and sarcastic and it was, I'm sorry.  But up until yesterday, I was very frustrated and bitter about the fact that my son seemed to have morphed into this picky eater.  As a baby and toddler he ate everything.  Now he's like, "MAMA!  THERE IS A MINUSCULE SPECK OF GREEN ON MY PASTA!"  It was getting old.  

And then I made these Broccoli Parmesan Fritters I saw on Smitten Kitchen.  I was nervous.  I didn't want to make a big deal about it because, as she wrote in her post, the more enthusiastic you are about what you're trying to get your kid to eat, the less likely they will be to eat it.  

So I ate mine with a bored expression on my face (which was hard because they are DAMN GOOD) and when he asked what it was I all, "Oh a crispy thing.  It's mine, you don't have to eat it."  

And he was like, "ok good."

NOOOOOOOOOO!  Cut to Plan B: making him eat it if he wanted dessert.  And he did.  And he LIKED IT!  There is nothing not to like about these.  The perfect crisp, a hint of garlic (I used 2 cloves instead of 1) and Parmesan for a wonderful, salty bite.  I served mine plain with a drizzle of lemon juice on top, which really helped balance the flavor.  And I pureed my broccoli just a bit, because again, these were for my son and the only green, chunky thing he likes is The Hulk.       

Check out the recipe here.  

Hamburger into Meatballs (and a giveaway!)

Confession: I don't know how to turn on a grill.  I should probably figure that out someday.  And also the difference between a Phillips and Flathead screwdriver.  Someday.  For now, I'm lucky to have Carson who rolls his eyes as he hands me the correct tool and absolutely knows how to turn on the grill.  In fact, his grilled salmon and hamburgers are two of my favorite things to eat, in this world.  We had hamburgers on Saturday night and leftover ground meat on Sunday, so he decided to turn them into grilled meatballs.  Genius.  Here are his tips on how to convert the two dishes...

I make my hamburgers relatively simple - worscestershire sauce, a teaspoon of liquid smoke, salt and pepper - so it's not complicated to turn that into something else.  For the meatballs, I added one large egg, panko, olive oil, italian seasoning, a hint of nutmeg and grated Parmesan and Romano cheese.  Jack and I rolled them into ping pong-sized balls, and I grilled them over very high heat on a cast iron skillet (with a little olive oil), constantly moving them to char on all sides (about 5 minutes total).    

So, to celebrate all the dads out there and their grilling and tool recognizing skills (is that sexist?) I'm giving away a $25 e-gift certificate at Williams-Sonoma, and if you win you can run out on Saturday to buy this or this or this for the papa in your life.  Just leave a comment below to win and good luck! 

Giveaway Rules:

1. You must be an official follower of this blog to win.

2. Follow me on Twitter for an extra entry (comment below twice if you do).

3. Only open to residents of U.S. and Canada.

4. Winner will be chosen at random on Friday, June 15th, at 8am PST.   

(first image is an etsy card, check it out!)

Rice Crispy Treat Pops

When you're stuck inside the house with a sick kid, you have to come up with fun projects you can do together.  Of course, most of my "fun project" ideas center around sugary foods.  I'm a great mom.  So the other day we made Rice Crispy Treats and I thought, why not turn them into pops?  WHY NOT?

We made a half batch, let it cool in a pan, stuck a few lollipop sticks in random places and then used a small cookie cutter to cut out the pops.  A perfect miniature sugary snack : )