Turkey Meatloaf

What could be better on a cold icy day than some comfort food in the form of meatloaf? I love meatloaf and I usually use the meatloaf mix (beef, pork and veal) that is sold in stores but I'm trying to cook a little healthier for my family so this time when I went food shopping I bought ground turkey instead of beef. Someone on the message board that I frequent posted about a really good recipe for turkey meatloaf from Cooking Light that she loved. Thankfully she posted the recipe because I couldn't find it on the Cooking Light website.

I posted the original recipe below. The only changes that I made were in quantity because my package or turkey was 2 1/2 lbs so I adjusted all of the other ingredients as well and I used mozzarella cheese because that's what I had.

This was so good. In my experience turkey meatloaf tends to be bland and tasteless. This, however, was very tasty and I think will be my go to recipe for turkey meatloaf.




Turkey Meat Loaf

Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 43 minutes
Other Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 5 servings (serving size: 2 slices)
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup (1 ounce) reduced-fat shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
1 1/2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon ketchup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 1/4 pounds ground turkey
Cooking spray
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 teaspoon prepared mustard

Preheat oven to 350°.
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper, and garlic; sauté 3 minutes. Cool.

Combine onion mixture, cheese, and next 6 ingredients in a large bowl; tossing to moisten bread. Crumble turkey over onion mixture; stir just until blended.

Pack meat mixture into an 8 x 4-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 35 minutes. Combine 1/2 cup ketchup, brown sugar, and mustard in a small bowl; stir well.

Spread ketchup mixture over meat loaf and bake an additional 5 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes.

Remove meat loaf from pan. Cut into 10 slices.

Haven't posted in a while

I can't believe that I haven't posted in such a long time. I really meant to post something...anything...but I kept being sidetracked. Between my crazy kids, Thanksgiving and my addiction to reading FanFiction this lame-o-blog has suffered.

I did manage to do some cooking for Thanksgiving and bring it over to my dad's house.

First up is the bird. Isn't it pretty?? My recipe is loosely base on a few recipes that I found on allrecipes.com.




Roasted Turkey

1 whole turkey (mine was 20 lb)
8 tbsp of butter, softened (1 stick)
2 cups of warm water
2 packets of chicken bouilloun
1 tbsp poultry seasoning
salt & pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse and wash turkey. Discard the giblets, or add to pan if they are anyone's favorites.
2. Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast to make little pockets. Mix the poultry seasoning and S&P with the softened butter. Spread the butter all over the the outside of the bird and under the skin between the skin and breast meat. This makes for very juicy breast meat.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the water with the bouillon. Pour over the top of the turkey. You can add more seasoning over the bird at this point if you wish.
4. Cover with foil, and bake in the preheated oven 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C). Remove the foil so the turkey will brown nicely and continue cooking for remaining 45 minutes or so.

*I choose to not stuff my bird with stuffing. Instead I stuff mine with quartered onions, halved garlic cloves, halved lemons and fresh herbs.