Short and sweet (and savory)

Well, I had a whirlwind weekend in Nueva York with my Bestie and Hetero-life mate. Whew. I had a crazy-early flight on Friday following a company holiday party, so by the time I boarded the bus from Newark to Times Square...I was already beat like a high school drum.



ANYway, the weekend was awesome, more on that later, but it refreshed me for getting back into the kitchen. Tonight is meatloaf night. It's cold, it's winter, it seems like there's no end in sight, (Come on Global Warming!) so it's time to glob some ground beef and turkey together with spices and egg and crumbs and onion, throw it into a loaf pan and into the oven. Of course, it will be more nuanced than that, but the general idea is that it's comfort food and heavy and warm and delicious.



Sometimes I like to go through my cabinets and see what I can use and what the least amount of additional ingredients I need to buy is. Tonight I scored big, and would have been all set to go had I not thought the frozen red wine chicken sausage in my freezer was actually ground turkey. Boo to that. So I'll stop at the store on the way home, grab a pound of lean, and then get to mixing all my ingredients.



Detour Thought- which is sort of on the way with this post- I have started the habit of not letting my boyfriend see what goes into my recipes, the reason being that he'll see something HE thinks is weird, and then go, 'You're putting okra in that? Really?' etc., or something to that effect. He's never not liked something I've made -and I make him be honest with me- but he'll get squirmy or doubtfull about some of my ingedients when he really has no idea how they're going to add to the flavor.



SO, tonight's meatloaf is getting a shot of bacon from Paulina St Meat Market, a place I love to go, and some ginger, corn bread, worchesetershire sauce, brown sugar, and maybe even some rosemary. The bacon is something I purchased before my NYC excursion and then froze. The ginger root I bought randomly at Trader Joe's because I like to have things like that on hand...just in case. Corn meal is something else I have in the cupboard, along with everything else I mentioned. I might even have a leek hanging around I could chop in. I have sweet potatoes I'll slice thinly and bake in the oven with the meatloaf. I think I'll toss them in grapeseed oil, parmesan, salt, pepper, and this great smoked paprika I got from The Spice House on Wells before they go under the broiler. Pics will come once everything is made! YUM.