Monday, May 24

Meatloaf Muffins with BBQ Sauce

This Rachael Ray recipe always seems to be a hit and is so easy to make any night of the week! While I love following recipes, I usually always tweak them a bit. Below is the recipe for these balls of heaven (with little tweaks in parens).

Ingredients
1 2/3 to 1 3/4 pounds ground sirloin
1 medium onion, cut into chunks (I cut them up finely)
2 ribs celery from the heart of the stalk, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 green bell pepper (I personally like red bell peppers)
1 large egg plus a splash of milk, beaten
1 cup plain bread crumbs (I used italian seasoned bread crumbs)
2 tablespoons grill seasoning (recommended: Montreal Steak Seasoning by McCormick)
2 cups smoky barbecue sauce
1 cup tomato salsa
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil
Smashed potatoes and cream cheese, recipe follows

Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.


Put ground beef into a big bowl. Put onion and celery into a food processor. (Note - I just chopped everything because I didn't want to get the food processor out and dirty) Cut the bell pepper in half, rip out the seeds and throw them into your garbage. Cut the pepper into a few pieces and add to the food processor. Pulse the processor blades to finely chop the vegetables into very small pieces then add them to the meat bowl. Add egg, beaten with milk, bread crumbs and grill seasoning to the bowl. Next, mix together the smoky barbecue sauce, the salsa and the Worcestershire sauce. Pour half the sauce mixture into the bowl with the meatloaf mix. Mix the meatloaf together with your hands. Wash up. Brush a 12-muffin tin (1/2-cup each) with vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil (note I used pam spray). Use an ice cream scoop to help you fill meat into a each tin. Top each meat loaf with a spoonful of extra sauce (I doubled the recipe up top because I love the sauce on top). Bake about 20 minutes. Cut open 1 muffin to test that the middle is cooked through. Serve meatloaf with Smashed Potatoes and Cream Cheese on the side, too.


Smashed Potatoes and Cheese:
2 1/2 pounds small red potatoes or baby Yukon gold potatoes
1/2 cup half-and-half or whole milk (I used half-and-half and fat free milk)
8 ounces plain cream cheese or veggie cream cheese, cut into pieces (I used blue cheese crumbles)
Mrs. Dash seasoning (always throw a couple tablespoons in my mashers)
10 chives or 2 scallions, chopped or snipped with kitchen scissors
Salt and pepper
Boil potatoes until tender, 15 minutes. While the water boils and when the potatoes are cooking, you can be working on the meatloaf recipe.
When the potatoes are tender, drain them and return them to the hot pot to let them dry out a bit. Mash potatoes with half-and-half or milk using a potato masher. Add in the cream cheese and smash until the cheese melts into the potatoes. Then add chives and scallions and season with salt and pepper, and Mrs. Dash, to your taste.

2 comments: