Individual Meat Loaves - Barefoot Bloggers

Well it's that time again, time for another challenge from the Barefoot Bloggers. For our first March recipe, Ina Garten's Individual Meat Loaves was selected by community member Tonya, blogger of What's on My Plate. 

Meatloaf is one of those traditional recipes that people either seem to love or hate. I don't think I ever had meatloaf until just a few months ago. I can't remember my mom ever making the dish. By the time I was old enough to remember, our family had shrunken from having six people around the dinner table, including a teenage boy, to having only three since my older siblings were all off at college by the time I was three years old. My dad traveled for his career, so dinner was often just me and my mom. Not a big enough crowd to crank out a big loaf of meat for.

When I purchased my beloved Pioneer Woman cookbook, I finally decided to try meatloaf for the first time. The name of the dish kind of turned me off but I thought it would be an easy crowd pleaser. The Pioneer Woman's recipe was really delicious and everyone had multiple servings. I also found a true love for left over meatloaf sandwiches - holy yum! Putting some between two slices of garlic bread, amazing! Just sayin...

So anyway, back to the Barefoot Contessa's recipe.

The recipe was easy enough to make and was rather tasty. The texture of this recipe was really nice. Not too sticky or, on the flip side, dry and crumbly - it had a great moisture and texture balance. Ethan really got a kick out of the little, individual loaves.

*Gasp - I forgot to take any pictures of the final project. Blogger fail!! But who doesn't know what meatloaf looks like??

I will probably stick with my Pioneer Woman recipe but this was a fun one to give a try. I'll definitely make the individual loaf sizes again. It was such a convenience for wrapping up the leftovers and will make it easy to grab an individual portion to reheat for lunch. Leftover meatloaf sandwiches...here I come!!

Baked Shrimp Scampi - Barefoot Bloggers

For our second February cooking challenge, over at Barefoot Bloggers, Ina Garten's Baked Shrimp Scampi was the featured recipe.

The bread crumb, butter and lemon topping is what really makes this recipe. Can you see the flecks of lemon zest in the topping? For serving, we squeezed lemon wedges over the dish to bring out even more of the lemon essence.

Finding fresh shrimp in rural Kansas does not exist. I looked at our small selection of frozen shrimp and all that they had was precooked shrimp. The small package of precooked shrimp was about $12.00. I would have probably needed two bags to make this recipe. Since Jim doesn't even like seafood, I had no desire to splurge on an ingredient that wouldn't be enjoyed and savored by everyone and that would bust my grocery budget. I decided to make this dish with chicken instead. As a bonus, chicken breasts are on sale this week at Whites for under $2.00/lb. (I will only purchase chicken breasts when they are under $2 per pound and then stock up the freezer. I don't understand who is willing to pay over $4 per pound for chicken.) I also substituted standard bread crumbs in place of the panko bread crumbs. I could actually get the panko style crumbs in Phillipsburg, but they cost a lot more than traditional bread crumbs. Plus, I already had bread crumbs on hand.

The dish was easy to make and had strong notes of butter and lemon. You can't go wrong with that flavor combination. However, I think this dish is better suited for spring and summer. The strong lemony flavor just really says warm weather to me. I served the chicken and topping over a plate of egg noodles. I would typically use fettuccini noodles but I had these in the cupboard left over from a previous recipe and I try to use what I already have on hand.

Today, I'll use some of the leftovers as a topping to a salad for lunch. I think that sounds even better than my dinner serving over pasta.

Coconut Cupcakes - Barefoot Bloggers

I recently joined a group of bloggers that challenge each other to cook two new dishes each month. The recipes are all selected from Ina Garten - aka- The Barefoot Contessa. I thought that joining the group would help to push me out of my comfort zone in the kitchen and the incentive to try new dishes that I normally wouldn't pick myself.

I'm a big fan of the Food Network and one of my favorite shows on the channel is The Barefoot Contessa. Her Chicken Piccata is heaven on a plate. She lives in the Hamptons and her cooking style reflects her location. I so want to join her and Jeffery for a breakfast brunch on the beach.

So, back to the Barefoot Bloggers challenge. The first recipe chosen for February was Coconut Cupcakes. I'm not a big fan of coconut but I haven't given it an honest try in my adult years so I was looking forward to trying it again with an open mind.

The recipe for the cupcakes can be found here on the Food Network's website. The recipe has a five star rating, so I had high hopes for these cupcakes. However, seeing that the recipe calls for six sticks of butter made me a little disgusted at that thought of so much butter in just one batch of cupcakes. After all, this wasn't a Paula Deen recipe.

I ended up cutting the recipe in half and had enough batter to easily fill 16 cupcakes and way too much frosting.

I had a great helper in the kitchen that was using his toy mixer while I made the cupcake batter in my stand mixer. The recipe was easy to make and made less mess than the water that was spilled everywhere by the other cook in the kitchen.

The cupcakes themselves came out really well. They were springing, moist and light with a golden butter taste. I'm still not a big fan of coconut but it was a nice compliment to the cupcakes. I made half of the batch without the coconut and they came out just fine as well.

I wasn't a fan of the frosting. It was just much too sweet for my personal taste. My husband, however, was eating the leftover frosting by the spoonfuls.