Meatloaf with Roasted Squash and Sweet Potatoes

5 squash (zucchini and/or summer squash)

olive oil 

salt and pepper

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 onion

1/2 red bell pepper

1 cup breadcrumbs

garlic powder

4 sweet potatoes

butter or margarine 

Catsup

Preheat the oven to 350. 

This is a dairy-free meal that could easily be made gluten free if the breadcrumbs were substituted with something else. It is also a diabetic friendly meal, especially if you switch out the catsup with tomato salsa. 

I made this meal in large quantities to have left overs later in the week. I ended up having last minute guests, and this fed 6 portions with some left over. 

Of course, you can make meatloaf with ground beef. But I find that the turkey tastes just as delicious and it better for you.

Slice the squash. 

Cover a pan with foil. 

Lay out squash in a single layer. Pour olive oil over the squash and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss it all together and then make sure that the squash is laid out in a single layer again. 

Bake for 20 minutes. 

Remove squash from the oven. Using tongs, turn the squash over. Put pan back into the oven. 

While the squash is cooking, start on the meat loaf. 

The first step is to chop the onion and pepper so that they will fit into a food processor. You could dice these by hand, but I think meatloaf tastes better when there aren't chunks of things - it's better if it's all one consistency. 

Finely chop the vegetables and then saute them in a little olive oil until they are just softened. 

Add salt, pepper and garlic powder. The seasonings will distribute better into the meatloaf if they are mixed with the veggies. You need to put enough seasonings to flavor the entire meatloaf, not just the veggies. 

Cover the counter with parchment paper. Add breadcrumbs to the paper. 

Add veggies on top of the breadcrumbs. 

Add the ground meat onto the pile. 

Take off your rings (if you are wearing any) and mix the meat, veggies and breadcrumbs until all of the mixture is combined. You don't want any parts that have too much meat and no veggies or breadcrumbs. 

Form the meat into a shape. The thicker the shape, the longer you will need to cook the meatloaf. 

I was in a hurry, so I formed a thin heart which I cooked for 45 minutes. 

Pour catsup onto the meatloaf. 

Bake for 45 minutes. 

"Bake" sweet potatoes in the microwave. For more info on how to do this, see here. 

Mash the sweet potatoes and add butter or margarine, salt and pepper. 

Take the meatloaf out of the oven. 

Take the squash out of the oven. If you like your squash to be less crispy, take them out sooner. 

Serve it all up on a plate. Not super fancy, but really really tasty!

Quiche

1 roll of Pillsbury pastry dough 

3 cups fresh spinach

2 tablespoons bacon, crumbled

1 cup ham, chopped

1 cup shredded cheese (swiss) 

1/4 red onion

6-8 eggs

salt

pepper

garlic powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Quiche is a great dish to make when you are cooking for guests. All the work is done in the beginning and then you have a half hour or more while it is cooking to do something else. After it comes out of the oven, you can leave it to cool on the counter and eat it at room temperature if you'd like. I prefer mine hot. 

This week when I went to the store, instead of buying all the ingredients for the quiche individually, I went by the salad bar and got everything that I needed. Not only was it more convenient, it also made it cheaper. I paid a little over $3.00 for all of the ingredients that go inside the egg mixture. Fantastic!

The first thing I did was to oil a pie pan and set the crust inside. I poked holes in the crust so that it wouldn't puff up when it baked. 

I put the crust into the oven for 10 minutes so it gets crunchy. 

While the crust was cooking, I took out the spinach and the cheese and set these aside. 

Then I sauted the red onion, the bacon and the ham together in a pan. 

While this was sizzling, I chopped the spinach. This way, no one will get a huge piece of spinach in their bite of quiche. 

In a large bowl, crack 6 - 8 eggs, depending on how "eggy" you want your quiche to be. I ended up using 8. Add salt, pepper and garlic powder. 

Scramble the eggs and add the spinach. 

Add the cheese and stir. 

Add the ingredients you were sauteing to the bowl. Stir. 

When the crust comes out of the oven, it will have a brown, delicious appearance. 

Pour all of the egg mixture into the crust. 

Bake for 30 minutes or until the center is firm. 

Be sure to bake it in the center of the oven. 

Slice into wedges. 

Enjoy!!

Italian Wedding Soup

1 lb ground chicken
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
1 large onion
1 bell pepper
1 carrot
3-5 zucchini and/or yellow squash
1 can Cannellini beans
2 boxes chicken broth
Star pasta

This is one of my favorite dishes in the world. I mean, look how good it looks:



It takes a bit longer to make than the typical weeknight meal that I make, but it is so good.

I normally make a big batch and then left overs all week. I even serve left overs of this if I have company.

The vegetables in this soup I vary with the seasons. In the winter, I add traditional dark greens to the soup (escarole or spinach) and in the summer, I like the squash.

First things first. The timing of this soup is important - that is there will be a step where you need to add the veggies quickly to the pot. So I do all my chopping of veggies up front.

Dice the onion and bell pepper and carrot rather small but leave the squash in large chunks.

Now for the meatballs. Two keys to making delicious chicken meatballs for this soup. First, make sure all the balls are about the same size. Second make sure the balls are all very very small. You want small meatballs for this soup.

Here's how I accomplish this:

First I cover my counter in parchment paper so I have a flat surface to work on that I don't have to worry about cleaning chicken goop off of later. Also, I take the rings off my fingers so they don't get chicken in them.

I pour out the breadcrumbs, cheese, garlic powder, salt and pepper into a little pile on the center of the paper.

Then I plop the ground chicken onto the pile of spices and with my clean hands, I mix the chicken into the dry ingredients. I use the wet chicken to pick up any stray dry ingredients. I mix until everything is one consistency - that is, until I have no clumps of chicken without any of the dry mixture.

Next, I form the meat into one giant ball. I divide the giant ball into four quadrants of equal size. Then I take each quadrant and subdivide it into smaller pieces until I have several balls of equal size.

They will be more like blobs of meat at this point - not super meatball shaped yet.

I repeat this with the other quadrants until I've used up all of the giant ball.

Then I divided each meatball into two because I realized I had made them too large.

You want one meatball to fit easily on a spoon with room for veggies and pasta.

After I got the meatballs to the right size, I rolled each ball in my palms - like with play dough - to make them more round and meatball-like.

The next step is to heat a wide pot with oil. You want as much real-estate on the bottom of the pot as possible so you won't have to make too many batches of meatballs. As it is, this recipe will make at least two batches. I find that if I try to squeeze them all into one batch, they stick together and some of them burn before I can get them all turned.

Using tongs, set about half of the meatballs in the hot oil.

Watch the meatballs. When the first ones you put into the pot start to turn white on the bottom, you are getting close. When the white reaches nearly the middle of the meatball, it's time to flip it over.

Using the tongs, flip each meatball to cook the other side. Because these have cheese in them, they might stick to the pot a little. Normally, meat will "tell you it's ready" by being easy to lift out of the pan when it is browned on one side. But these will probably stick a bit as the cheese is melting to the pan. Just be forceful and they will come up.

When they start to turn white on the other side, you can take them out. Don't worry if some of them haven't cooked all the way through - you will be boiling them in the soup and they can finish cooking then.

Using tongs, set the meatballs on a large plate covered in a paper towel to collect any access oil.

The pan will be empty and can get overheated very easily, so quickly add in the chopped "hard" veggies - that is the onion, the bell pepper and the carrot.

Add salt and pepper and stir.

The squash can be set aside for later - it needs less cooking time.

After a few minutes, add the squash. Season and stir.

Next, add the chicken meatballs and the beans. Be sure to drain the liquid off the beans before you add them to the pot.

Season and stir.

Cover the ingredients with chicken broth. This batch took 1 1/4 boxes of broth to cover up. If you run out of broth, just add water.

Cover the pot and bring it up to a boil. While it is heating up, grate 2-3 cloves of garlic. I use a microplane so that the garlic turns into almost a paste. This way it almost melts into the pot.

Add the garlic to the pot. Stir and then let it boil for at least 20 minutes. I had mine on for almost an hour before serving.

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Now for the star pasta. 

Star pasta can be hard to find in the store. My HEB keeps it in the Italian imported foods section and not with the other pastas. It's worth an extra look or two to find, as it makes for a delicious addition. 

I've found that if I make a large batch of this soup and then heat it up over the week, the pasta gets mushy. So I take a ladle and remove some of the soup from the main pot and fill up a smaller put which I cook the pasta in. 

I store the pasta separately in the fridge so it doesn't get mushy. 

I serve the soup with a little scoop of the pasta, two scoops of the soup and then sprinkled with parmesan cheese. 

Now doesn't that look delicious?? 

Enjoy!