Something Old: Sloppy Joes

Hello again!

This has been a pretty great weekend. Connor flew in to apartment hunt (congrats on the new job!), and it was strange but wonderful to see someone from Oklahoma again. We played plenty of cards and ate plenty of food, although we ate out instead of cooking (I'm slacking!)

And it's a shame I was slacking. I have plenty of recipes in the arsenal that are short and simple, and no less delicious. This week will be for those recipes. Today's recipe is a one-pan gig, and the two recipes that will go up together on Thursday have all of 3 ingredients apiece. Simple indeed.

Happy cooking!

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Sloppy Joes January 3, 2010

This is a recipe I grew up with. It was a staple in my mom’s dinner repertoire, and therefore one of my favorite comfort foods. Excepting the French Dip, I know of no simpler warm sandwich.

Feel free to play with the amounts of ketchup and mustard, according to your tastes. Mine’s usually ketchup heavy; it’s my favorite condiment! And Chase loves adding cheese to his sandwich. Moral of the story, this recipe is easy to make, easy to modify, and tasty to boot.

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef or turkey

1 can chicken gumbo soup

2-3 Tbsp ketchup

2-3 Tbsp yellow mustard

Shredded cheese (optional)

Hamburger buns or rolls

Directions

1. In a large skillet, brown the meat.

2. Add the soup, ketchup and mustard to the skillet and stir.

3. Cook over medium heat until thickened (5-8 minutes).

4. Serve on buns or rolls, with or without cheese sprinkled on top.

Recipe my mom wrote for me to take to college.

All the ingredients in the pan, waiting for a good stir.

Happy cooking!

Something New: Chase & Sarah's Meatloaf

While shopping for meatloaf ingredients a couple weekends ago, we fell victim to one of the classic blunders: grocery shopping while hungry. Almost as dangerous as involvement in Asian land wars, but I'm glad we did it. Our fridge was stuffed, and we have many ideas of things to cook in the next week or two. Plus we have kettle corn again.

Anyway, this meatloaf is entirely our own recipe. The only thing we really consulted the internet for was oven temp and cook time. And I suppose you could say we consulted our memories to recall what our mom's used to put in their loafs, but I don't have a hyperlink for memories.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy our meatloaf as much as we did! We made two loafs and froze one, but if you want you can half the recipe to just make one loaf. Or double and make four to feed a group!

Enough exclamations about meatloaf. On to the recipe.

Happy cooking!

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Dorn-Bollig Meatloaf

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef

1 lb ground pork

1 ½ cups plain breadcrumbs

1 packet dry onion soup mix

1 can plain tomato sauce (8 oz)

2 eggs, beaten

¼ cup ketchup

1 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce

½ tsp oregano

¼ tsp pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix all ingredients by hand in a large mixing bowl.

3. Form into two loafs, and place on a sprayed cookie sheet or into two sprayed loaf pans

4. Bake for 1 hour, until cooked through. Remove from oven and allow to set for 10-15 minutes before slicing.

5. Serve with lots of ketchup and enjoy.

Chase's hands mixing the ingredients.

Before making a loaf, Chase made a Stegosaurus.

Two loafs, ready for the oven.

Resting loaf.

Perfect for all ketchup fans. Happy cooking!

Something Old: Corn & Potato Chowder

Last night Chase and I hosted a dinner party for our friends (do people host dinner parties for strangers? Or enemies?). Anyway, it was a great success and great fun. You know the dinner part of the party went well when you get many requests for the night's recipe.

And this recipe was particularly well suited for last night because it's getting cool and autumny, and because it was very easy to turn into a vegetarian dish.

Plus, who doesn't love half a pound of cheddar cheese in a dish?

The last time I remember cooking this was last summer in Norman, when a couple friends joined me for a cool-weather dinner in summer. As you'll see from the original post, a cheap AC system made summers an interesting climate experience.

Happy fall cooking!

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Corn & Potato Chowder August 14, 2009

Soup in the summer? Yep.

It turns out our apartment doesn't regulate temperature very well. If I want the bedroom down to even 80 so I don't melt in the night, the living room ends up 60 degrees. Brrrr! So to accompany the sweaters and socks I've been wearing this summer, I decided to make a nice soup.

This is a recipe I've made before, and have had so long I don't quite remember where it came from. But it's delicious nonetheless.

Ingredients

2 ½ cups peeled and chopped potatoes (about 3 medium potatoes)

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup shredded carrots

2 cans of corn, drained

3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

3 cups milk

1 cup water

3 Tbsp flour

1 Tbsp veggie oil

1 tsp pepper

2 chicken bouillon cubes (sub ½ tsp salt for vegetarian option)

½ lb bacon, cooked and crumbled (or bacon substitute)

Directions

1. Place a large pot on the stove over medium heat. Add oil to bottom of pan and brown onions until translucent (4-5 minutes).

2. Add water, potatoes, carrots and bouillon/salt. Bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cover. Cook for 15-20 minutes, until potatoes are tender. (This is a good time to work on cooking the bacon.)

3. Add milk, corn, and pepper. Return to simmer, stirring occasionally.

4. Meanwhile, mix cheese and flour by hand in a separate mixing bowl. Add to soup and stir over low-medium heat until cheese melts.

5. Serve sprinkled with crumbled bacon.

Last summer's co-chefs, Chase and Osi, busy chopping potatoes.

Potatoes, carrots, water and bouillon added to the browned onions

and cooking gently.

Milk, corn and pepper in.

Cheese added and melted, ready for serving!

Happy cooking!