Yeah, I'm impatient. I started it already. Please everybody chime in on it with your own skills that seem easy to you, but to somebody else might not be easy at all.
I'm going to start mine with something simple. A recipe for meatloaf. Bear in mind that this is my recipe and you may not like the peppers and onions or some of the spices. You can leave those out without it effecting the recipe. I am also in the USA and not familiar with measurements in other places. I also don't always use the things that most people use to measure things with and I will use things like "regular spoon" and by that I mean the smaller spoon that comes with a silverware set. Usually two sizes do here, and I have no idea what the bigger ones are for except I use them as serving spoons. I also cook on an electric stove, and yeah gas is better and you may have a shorter cooking time with gas.
The measurements do not have to be exact. None of mine are except in baking desserts.
You will need:
A package of hamburger meat, about 2 lbs. You can use ground beef, chuck or round. I usually use ground beef because it's cheaper. Anything that is above the weight of about 1.70 lbs and below 2.20 lbs will work.
One of the little small cans of tomatoe paste. It's maybe about 4 or 5 inches high. I'ts smaller than a can of soup, and skinny, but not as small as a can of tuna or potted meat.
One onion the size of a tennis ball or bigger - if you like onions
One bell pepper, any color - if you like bell pepper
Minced or chopped garlic - I buy a large mayonaise size jar or it, but it comes in smaller flatter jars of it. It's usually in the produce area.
One egg, any size
A container of bread crumbs. These can be bought in the baking aisle. I use the plain ones
Dried oregano from the spice aisle
Dried basil from the spice aisle
Drice chopped parsley from the spice aisle
(the oregano and basil are chopped too, but it usually doesn't specify that like the parsley sometimes does)
Crushed red pepper from the spice aisle. Most people are familiar with this as the stuff that pizza parlors have on the table in the small round jar that you can sprinkle on the pizza. I had no idea what that was until a recipe called for it. I was inordinantly pleased when I figured that out.
This is how to make it:
Take the meat out of the fridge and let it sit for maybe an hour until it's not so cold. Not only does really cold meat not stick as well to other things, I can't stand to have my hands in it. Don't heat it in the microwave on defroast because that will cook the outer part of it. I leave mine in the counter, in the package and in a plastic bag or on paper towels to come to room temperature.
Take the egg out of the fridge with the meat and let it warm up some too. Eggs should be room temperature to cook as ingredients, while they can come straight out of the fridge to cook as breakfast.
Run some warm water in the sink and put a squirt of dish soap in there to not only put dirty dishes in when you are done, but you can also stick your hand in there to wash it and dry it off without rinsing with a towel, because it's a very "handsy" dish to make.
Then get a big mixing bowl, or if you don't have it, get a big pot. Put the meat in it and put your hand in there and squish it all up so that it is seperated and not in the container shape. Break the egg and put it in. Pick out any of the shell that may be in there. I used to break my eggs in a seperate dish for that until I was able to do it without shell, although sometimes there will still be tiny bits of shell in there. It's the nature of eggs for that to happen.
Mix it up after you put the egg in. Use your hands for this. Put them in and grab handfulls of the meat and squish it and the egg up together. After about four or five squishes, use your dominant hand and reach under the meat in the bowl and fold it over. You will be reaching under at about 6 oclock on the meat and folding it upwards to where your hand is pushing it down at 12 oclock. Turn the bowl one quarter turn after you do that either counterclockwise or clockwise and fold it that way again. When I mix anything in, I do that particular thing 20 times. That gets it good and mixed in.
Next, open the tomato paste and scrape it out of the can with a spoon and mix that in, the way I mention above.
Get the regular spoon, and put one of them of the garlic in, but do not mix yet. Put a regular spoon of the oregano and basil and two of the parsley in. Open the crushed red pepper and put a dime sized amount in your hand and put that in. Then mix it as above, the 6 oclock to 12 oclock method, about 20 times. It should feel very soft and squishy.
Open the breadcrumbs and pour some into your hand. Pour enough to fill up your hand. Put that in. Mash 20 more times. Keep adding breadcrumbs, enough to halfway fill up your hand, until after mixing the 20 times, you can pinch off a big piece of it the size of a golf ball and roll it up. Put that back in and mix it back in with it.
Cut the onion and pepper up. To do this, cut the top of the onion off, and slice it down the side very lightly. Peel the skin off. Cut it in half and lay it with the root side toward your nondominant hand and hold it there on the cutting board. Make sure the sliced side is down. Your onion should be in two halves. Have the root at a 90 degree angle from you. Make slice holizontally, about four of them, but not all the way to the root. Then make slices vertically so that it's chopped. Throw the root part away. Chop the other half of the onion the same way. Add this to the meat, but do not mix yet.
Wash the bell pepper and dry it off. Sit it on the cutting board with the top up. Slide down the sides to cut it. Throw away the middle part with the stem and bottom and seed ball. Pick out any seeds on the cutting board. Slice the sides of it into strips then turn them horizontolly and slice them into little pieces.
Add this to your mixture. Mix this up with the same method, about 25 to 30 times. Somepieces of the onion or bell pepper will fall out.
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
You can cook this in several different pans, but you should not try to cook it on a cookie sheet. The grease will cook out from the meat and drip into the oven if you do. You can cook it in a bread loaf pan that is on a cookie sheet, you can cook it in a casserolle pan, or on a broiler pan with the slots on it with the other dripping pan underneath it. Find your pan and spray it with cooking nonstick spray. If it's a bread loaf pan, pack it into there firmly. If it is a casserolle dish or a broiler pan, shape the meat into a loaf shape on a dish, then slide it onto the pan.
Pour a few squirts of ketchup on top of it and lay two pieces of bacon, cut in half, on top. Cover the pan and meatloaf well with aluminum foil, tucking in the corners of it, and cook for 1 hour to 1 hour and a half on 425.
Cut it in the middle when checking on it to tell if it's done. It will be pink but have the consistancy of a cooked hamburger.
This is how the same recipe would look in a recipe book:
Ingredients:
2 lbs of ground beef, chuck or round
1 egg
1 small can tomato paste
1tbsp garlic or to taste
1tbst basil or to taste
1tbsp oregano or to taste
2tbsp dried parsley or to taste
dash of red pepper
bread crumbs to yield constistancy
1 onion chopped
1 bell pepper chopped
Mix meat and egg, add tomato paste. mix well. Add spices, mix well. Add bread crumbs until stiff. Add onion and pepper, mix and shape into a loaf. Top with bacon and ketchup. Cook on 425 for 1hr to 1 1/2 hr.
Bear in mind that I typed that as if I were typing it to someone who had never cooked before. Or cooked meatloaf. I also put the recipe at the bottom in case someone knows how, but doesn't have the recipe.
My daughters have some recipes written down like that for them from me, when they were learning how to cook. I may go overboard explaining everything, but it's better to explain it than not.
Frances
06 Dec 2011, 8:44 pm
