Make Me a Meal

Freedom, thy taste is meatloaf. I’m generally not a fan of beef and I could care less for steak, but my mouth waters the moment my nose senses the sizzling of ground beef. There’s something about its ability to mould into shapes that amuses me. You’ve got meatballs, meat pies, and my personal favourite, meat loaf. Yet, there’s no such thing as no meat cake; though TIWYF gets brownie points for trying.

For the most part my posts have been fairly short, in order to keep with the spirit of university life where you have X things to do but always X-6 hours to complete them. But hey! Now that school’s out you can take it slow, have some fun, and cook up a meal.

Most people celebrate finishing a year of university with cake and the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. I like to take a different approach. I give you:

Home-style Meatloaf with Roasted Garlic-Mash & Cheddar Blanched Broccoli.
Adapted from the Guy can't Cook, by Cinda Chavich

Ingredients:

Home-style Meatloaf
-1 1/2 lb (750g) of lean ground beef
-1/2 lb (250g) of ground pork
-1 cup (250 mL) of onion, finely minced
-2 cloves of garlic, minced
-1 large egg, lightly beaten
-1 slice of day old bread or 1/2 (125 mL) a cup of breadcrumbs
-1/2 (125 mL)of honey garlic barbecue sauce, divided into two portions
-salt and pepper to taste.

Roasted Garlic-Mash
-6 medium sized potatoes
-4 Tbsp of butter
-2 Tbsp of salt
-1/2 a cup (125 mL) of milk
-1 head of roasted garlic
-1 Tbsp of olive oil
-Pepper to taste

Cheddar Blanched Broccoli
-1 head of broccoli, cut into bite sized peices
-4 cups (1 L) of water
-4 Tbsp of shredded cheddar

Serves four



1. Start by placing potatoes in a large pot and cover with cold water. Add salt and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium heat, cover, and simmer until potatoes are easily pierced with a fork.



2. Using a food processor, break the bread slices into crumbs, remove and set aside.



3. In a large bowl, mix thoroughly ground beef, pork, diced onions, garlic, BBQ sauce, bread crumbs, beaten egg, salt and pepper.



4. Gently press the meat mixture into a loaf pan and spread the remaining barbecue sauce on top. Pre-heat the oven to 350°F (180°C).



5. While the oven is pre heating, take a 6 inch by 6 inch sheet of tin foil and wrap around a head of garlic with the top removed. Drizzle 1 Tbsp of olive oil and cover fully. Bake for 40 minutes along side the meatloaf.



6. Bake meat loaf at 350°F (180°C) for 50 minutes. The meatloaf should be well-browned on top and reach an internal temp of 170°F (75°C)



7. Meanwhile the potatoes should be done. Remove from the stove top, drain and cool for 5 minutes. Using a oven mitt or a thick layer of kitchen towel, peel the potatoes and cube into quarters.



8. Remove the roasted garlic and let cool for 10 minutes. Squeeze the head into the potatoes to produce the garlic which should now be a nutty brown paste. Add butter, milk, and mash.



9. In another pot, add the four cups of water and bring to a boil. Using a soup ladle, lower the broccoli into the pot. When the water begins to boil again, that means they're cooked.



10.Repeat until all the broccoli is blanched. Place cooked broccoli on a plate and sprinkle with shredded cheddar.



11. Carve the meatloaf into 6 thick slices and arrange next to the garlic-mash and blanched broccoli. Savour!

I’ve got the munchies

There’s just something about chips and university that goes hand in hand. I've always thought of them as the universal party food. Need something that everyone can eat? Go with the Doritos/ Cheetos/ Fritos/ insert-brand-name-chip-X-here-and-add-“o’s”-to-the-end. The choice is pretty much limitless.

Maybe it's because it pairs so well with beer and weed. Granted, that's just the word on the street. Or perhaps you’re more the studious type and it’s easier to cram for an exam when you’ve got a bag of Smartfood next to your laptop.

Side note: I don’t think eating fistfuls of Smartfood counts as studying. My grade 12 chemistry exam is ample proof of that.

Regardless of why you chow down on chips, you probably never considered cooking with them. So if you've got any leftover Doritos and a chicken breast, then you’ve got yourself a start. Throw into a few potato wedges seasoned with rosemary and now you’ve got a meal.

Add in an avocado for a garlic-avocado dipping sauce and you can’t go wrong. Seriously, while cooking with Doritos is impressive on its own, I feel as if the dip accompanying this dish is the real star here. Deliciously simple and highly addictive, I just can’t get enough of it.



Tex-mex Chicken Tenders with Herbed Potato Wedges and Avocado Aioli
Adapted from the Guy can't Cook, by Cinda Chavich

Ingredients:

Herbed Potato Wedges
-1 (one) large white potato, cut into 1cm thick wedges
-5 (five) Tbsp of olive oil
-Salt and pepper to taste
-3 (three) Tbsp of rosemary leaves

Nacho-crusted Chicken Tenders
-2 (two) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
-1 (one) egg
-1 (one) Tbsp of honey mustard
-1/4 cup (75 mL) of milk
-2 (two) cups (500 mL) of Dorito crumbs

Avacado Aioli
-1 (one) Hass avocado, pitted and diced into cubes
-1/2 cup (125 mL) of mayonnaise
-1 (one) clove of garlic

Serves two

*** Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C)

1. In a shallow dish, whisk together egg, milk, and mustard. Next, slice each chicken breast halve into strips of four or five and add to egg mixture. Cover and refrigerate for half an hour.



2. Wash and clean potatoes thoroughly. How thorough? Until the left potato looks like the right potato. Yes, all that stuff was dirt and grime.



3. Slice potato into 1 cm thick wedges and toss with olive oil.



4. On a large foil-covered baking pan, (15 X 11 inches) sprinkle salt, pepper, rosemary until pan is evenly coated.



5. Coat the other side of the wedges with remaining salt, pepper, and rosemary. Tent the wedges with another sheet of foil and place in the oven. Bake for 40 minutes, turning over wedges once 20 minutes have passed.



6. As the wedges bake, crumble Doritos in a food processor until a fine consistency is reached. Evenly spread the crumbs onto a large dish and set aside.



7. Remove the chicken strips from the fridge and with a pair of tongs, bread the strips in the crumbs until evenly coated.



8. Place the strips on a foil-covered pan and let the chicken's coating set for 10 minutes. Once the coating has set, pop them in the oven alongside the wedges and bake for 15 minutes or until the coating starts to brown.



9. While the wedges and chicken strips are baking, add mayo, avocado, and garlic into your food processor and blend until smooth.



10. Remove the wedges and chicken strips and let cool for a few minutes. Arrange around a dish and savour with the avocado aioli to dip.

We're back... and we brought noodles

The B.L.T. Project is back ladies and gentlemen! After a hectic month of school and work, it feels fantastic to get behind the chopping board and cook again. By now you've probably noticed a few changes to the blog. Content-wise everything is still all here.

What's new is a visual update to welcome spring and the wonderful weather we've had the last few weeks. I'm still on the fence about the background, but I'll let the readers decide upon that. Another small change is with my writing: I'm using the word "I" now. That's a first-person pronoun for all you grammar Nazis out on the interweb.

I tend of avoid putting myself into my writing. It's a big no-no in your typical hard-news journalism. "The focus is on the story and not you," or so my profs say. And really, there's no "I" in a B.L.T. Trust me, I checked.

But lately I've found this blog --possibly the farthest thing from hard-news there is-- lacking in personality. So, what I'm doing now is a little pilot project. I'll going to try this "immersion of the writer" business for the rest of the month and take it from there. After all, how can you condemn what you've never tried?

Anyhow, you're probably wondering where this week's recipe is. I give you: Instant Noodles!


...

Instant noodles? Well, put it this way, if Kraft Dinner is the bread of the stereotypical university student diet, then instant noodles are the butter. It's dirt cheap, quick to make, and impossible to screw up. And God help you if you do mess it up.

I came across a whole box of these noodles the other day and after binging on sandwiches all week long I decided to switch things up. But I'm a growing boy and it takes much more than a package of noodle to satisfy me. When faced with hardship and in need of answers, I turn to my fridge. There I had some veggies in my crisper, half a rotisserie chicken, and some BBQ pork from my butcher. Noodles + veggies + chicken + BBQ Pork = satisfaction.

Chicken and Mushroom Noodle Soup

Ingredients

-One (1) package of instant noodles (Go for your favourite brand)
-One (1) cup of chicken broth
-One (1) cup of water
-One (1) head of baby bok choi(Chinese cabbage), cleaned and seperated into segments
-Half (1/2) cup of chopped rotisserie chicken
-Half (1/2) cup of BBQ pork
-Four (4) white mushrooms, sliced into quarters
-One (1) handful of enoki mushrooms (lower ends of the stem removed)
-Salt and pepper to taste

Makes one bowl



1. In a medium-sized pot, add water as well as chicken broth and bring to a boil. Add in bok choi pieces and cover. When water comes back to a boil, reduce heat to low and let simmer.



2. Add in mushrooms and simmer for 4 minutes. Then add noodles, cover, and continue to cook on low heat for 3 minutes.



3. Using a fork (I prefer chopsticks, but that's just me) layer the bok choi into your serving bowl followed by a layer of noodles. Top it off with remaining mushrooms, bok choi, chicken and pork.



4. Pour the leftover soup mixture over top, cover and let stand for 3 minutes.



5. Garnish with imitation crab stick and fried shallots. Savour!

Tips:

-I omitted the soup base (the seasoning packet) that comes with the noodles. It's too salty for my taste. There's enough flavouring from the chicken broth and the other ingredients that you can just ditch the packet.

-Like many of the recipes on the B.L.T Project, this one goes with pretty much anything you've got in your fridge. If you don't have chicken or BBQ pork, try throwing in some soya chicken or roasted duck. You can find either at your local oriental market.