Buffalo Turkey Meatloaf

I was just going to do 3 flavors when I ran across a picture of a chicken buffalo meatloaf muffin and knew I had to try it. I bought a bottle of buffalo sauce a while ago and have been finding more and more things to put it on, and I had an almost limp beyond relief bunch of celery. So this seemed perfect!

Ingredients:

8 oz turkey and chicken sausage mix
1 bag (about 1/3 cup) baked potato chips crushed in the bag
1/2 cup celery stems and leaves chopped fine
half a green bell pepper chopped fine
1 1/2 tbs blue cheese crumbled
1/2 cup mushrooms and onions
1/4 cup egg substitute
2 tbs frank's buffalo wing sauce
salt and pepper
roasted red pepper
roasted garlic

Since this one was last minute addition , I was trying to think of a different binder to use to bring it together. I'd bought these individual serving bags of chips, in a variety of flavors, and I ate all but the plain ones--they just aren't good without some flavor added or with a dip. So this is not a bad use, the bag was even thick enough to break the chips through without tearing the bag!

All of the ingredients went into the bowl and got smooshed together--it was really loose and seemed like there was too many add ins to meat. So I added another bit of meat. It got packed into cupcake tins and baked in the oven for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

The Verdict: Yum! The celery and buffalo flavors really come out very well in this--and topped with just a splash of extra buffalo sauce it is spicy and flavorful. The cheese doesn't really come out, and the texture is really loose so it is fairly crumbly. My naughty dogs really wanted some of this delicious celery filled yumminess, so while I was off hanging out with Alice, the two of them got into the garbage and dragged the remains of the celery out to gnaw on for a while. They were probably jealous that Huck got to eat a whole muffin!

Spinach Feta Meatloaf Muffins

For my third flavor profile, I went with what I think of as Greek flavors, though really it is more of just a lemony herby combo with some cheese, some spinach, and a little spice. I had bought some marked down spinach and forgotten it, so I cooked it down and threw it in.

Ingredients:

8 oz ground turkey/ground beef mix
1/3 cup oat bran
1/4 cup egg substitute
2/3 cup steamed drained spinach
1 1/2 tbs crumbled feta
1/2 cup mushrooms and onions
1 tbs roasted red pepper
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes
nutmeg

Lemon Caper Sauce:
greek yogurt
capers
dill
marjoram
lemon zest
roasted garlic








Recently I hit up the bulk bins at Winco--which I've recently come to love, and picked up not only oat bran, panko bread crumbs, but a wide variety of dried herbs and spices. It is amazing how much cheaper it is, but it is also nice to be able to try a little before you invest 5 dollars on a bottle. I got dill, marjoram, rosemary and lots more. I used the marjoram and dill to throw together this sauce--a couple spoonfuls of capers, lemon zest, roasted garlic, the herbs, some yogurt to bind it, and some spice and salt and pepper. Very flavorful and fresh.

That went in with all of the meat and other ingredients--I finished with a grate of nutmeg, and mashed it all together. The bran was much finer than all the other binders I used, so this formed a very nice tight mixture. It went in the muffin tin and baked at 350 for 25 minutes.

The Verdict: Lemony and delicious! I might go heavier with the herbs next time, and more feta as well. The oatbran was an excellent binder--this muffin held together very well, and stayed moist and didn't have a strong flavor. I'm thinking I'll serve the leftovers like a pita sandwich with some cucumber and yogurt sauce--yum! Alice said she might try some when she was a grown up lady, if she likes meat, but her parents don't know how to make it. Fortunately, she can enjoy her own invention--rice and feta!

Pizza Meatloaf Muffins

I've had a jar of pizza sauce sitting in the pantry for a while, and when I set out to make different kinds of meatloaf this one sounded like a sure winner. Pizza sauce, spicy sausage, garlic, extra Italian seasonings, and a surprising hint of Parmesan really reads pizza. I took these over to finish cooking while hanging out with Alice here--she liked the idea of pizza, but meat in muffins sounded terrible to her--it has veggies! I couldn't get her to try any. Though she also thought the idea of adding carrots to cake sounded terrible.

Ingredients: 

8 oz Spicy Chicken Sausage/Ground Turkey
2 tablespoons pizza sauce
2/3 cup zucchini shredded and blotted dry
1/3 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
1/8 cup roasted red pepper
1/3 cup mushrooms and onions
1 1/2 tbs Parmesan grated
Italian seasoning mix
salt and pepper

I did a mix of beef and chicken sausage, so it would have that nice pizza sausage taste. I measured the meat into a bowl, I added all of the rest of the ingredients and went to work mixing it up. It went into the muffin tin and baked for 25 minutes.

The Verdict: The sausage was extremely spicy, so while it had a nice pizza taste, it mostly read spicy sausage. It also had a really loose texture, more crumbly than I would have liked. I think this could work better with a different binder, with less sausage, and topped with the pizza sauce. But it wasn't bad--I like sausage, and I could still enjoy it in pieces. Before I bake the rest, I'll try adding some more binder and more pizza sauce. [Edit: What I really need to do is mix the sausage in more--the rest of the muffins had a much milder sausage flavor, and the extra pizza sauce helped enhance that flavor as well]

 

Soy Ginger Meatloaf Muffins

In part one of my mix and match meatloaf madness, I went with some Asian flavors, spicy and sweet with all the flavors of a good stir fry in one little meat and veggie muffin.

Ingredients:

8 oz mix of ground turkey and ground beef
1/3 cup panko bread crumbs
2/3 cup chopped broccoli slaw
1/2 cup mushrooms and onions sauteed
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 tbs chopped roasted red pepper
1 tbs roasted garlic
ground black pepper

Soy Ginger Sauce:

1 tbs soy sauce (plus more to thin)
2 tsp chopped fresh ginger
1 tsp oyster sauce
orange zest
1 roasted thai chili crumbled
1/2 tsp honey

This would go together quicker if you used a prepared sauce--because everything else is pretty much prepared in advance. But this sauce is easy to throw together, and is similar to ones I've used in stir frys before. I whisked together the fresh chopped pealed ginger, soy, oyster sauce, orange zest, and the crumbled pepper. I did taste it and found it pretty spicy--but not too much is going in, so it shouldn't overwhelm the dish.

I did chop down the slaw, so the pieces were shorter--no long thin strands poking up everywhere. It folds in much better if it is smaller.

So I selected the panko crumbs for this--seemed appropriately Asian inspired. I used beef and turkey, though one or the other could also be used. I just thought the sausage might be too overpowering with the other flavors.

So I weighed out the meat, and then dumped all of the other ingredients on top. I didn't add any salt to this, since the soy has so much salt--even the reduced sodium kind I used, but I did add a generous amount of cracked pepper. Once it was all in the bowl, I got my hands dirty and squoushed it all together. This is one of my biggest visceral memories of making meatloaf as a child--the oozy goozy meat through my fingers. This is a pretty tight mixture, not too dry or too wet.

This along with the three other flavors went into a muffin tin--about 1/3 of a cup per muffin, packed not too tight. It cooks for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees. I thought about adding some more soy as a glaze, but it is pretty moist and flavorful. If you made one large loaf you could use the sauce as a glaze.

My sister had asked me to come babysit when I'd gotten about half way into the epic prep for these 4 meatloaf muffins, so I packed one pan with the four flavors and schleped it over to her house for cooking and tasting. After I took these out of the oven I took them out of the pan to cool, and one of the household residents couldn't wait for a taste. Mr Huck grabbed one of these before I could stop him and gulped it down in one bite. He definitely approves!

The verdict: This was very successful both texturally and flavor wise. The panko did a nice job holding it together, and the ginger soy sauce really came through. I added some extra slaw before cooking the second half, and that was nice. I served this with stir fried mushrooms, onions, the rest of the broccoli slaw, and some broccoli, with a similar sauce of ginger, soy and oyster sauce. It made a very nice and healthy dish. Plus the slaw was pretty easy to prepare both for the meatloaf and for the side dish!

Meatloaf Muffin Mania

Meatloaf....drool!

My love of playing with food is well documented--it is fun to experiment with different flavors and combinations to see what works and what I should do again. I was reading a forum that nominated Meatloaf as recipe of the month, and I thought this seemed like a recipe I might enjoy playing around with. So many different flavor profiles possible--a range of veggies, binders, meat mixtures, sauces! Rather than make a bunch of giant loaves, I want to make them into muffins so I can try lots of flavors and see what works.

I found this basic technique on the Food Network's website, it offers the formula for determining the proportions of meat, binder, veggies, add ins, and egg. I scaled it down for each meatloaf recipe. So the basic formula is:


1/2 lbs meat
1/3 cup binder
1/3-2/3 cup veggies
 1/4 cup egg substitute

 I came up with an assortment of possible add ins and binders to use with four different flavor profiles. I have a post for each flavor profile, with my thoughts, and will do a wrap up with observations on which things worked on a whole. Here are the options:

 Meats:

Ground turkey (I didn't look closely enough when I bought itand ended up with 80% lean--I could have just go all beef at that)
Ground beef (93% lean)
Extra lean hot Italian chicken sausage

Binders:

Italian seasoned bread crumbs
Panko bread crumbs
Ground Oat bran
crushed baked potato chips

Veggies:

Shredded zucchini
broccoli slaw
celery/green pepper
spinach

Cheeses:

Feta
Blue cheese
Parmesan

Add ins:

Mushrooms
red onion
roasted red pepper
roasted garlic

I also added about 2-3 tablespoons of a sauce into each meatloaf muffin. Traditionally this would be ketchup and Worcestershire sauce but I am no ketchup fan and wanted to highlight different flavor combinations that might not be traditional. So I used some pre-made sauces, and threw together some others to make a variety of different seasonings. I think if I had stuck with all pre-made it would have been faster, but I enjoyed playing around.

So these are the choices! Stay tuned to see what fun I have mixing them all together in different ways!