Make Ahead Dinners #1: Mini Meatloaf

Here is my first ever installment in my newest venture: sharing my tips and tricks for make ahead dinners that are easy to prepare and are suitable for home freezing. From meatloaf to fish pie to falafel, I have a lot in store!

So, you looking for a make ahead dinner that's comforting and warming? How about some meatloaf, but in mini form for easy storage and reheating?

As we move closer to the winter months, we're all looking for that lovely, warming comfort food to get us through the darkening evenings. Sometimes, after a long day of work or studies, we don't really feel like cooking. But, instead of reaching for that pack of instant noodles or that TV dinner, you could spend an hour of two on a Sunday afternoon when you have some spare time prepping meals for the week. Meatloaf if a good one for minimum input and maximum output! Making mini loaves means you can freeze them, and then just take one at a time out of the freezer for whenever you want them.

I love meatloaf, despite the fact that in this country it's really not popular: it's definitely an American thing. Here in Ireland, mince normally finds itself in cottage pie, burgers, pasties, lasagne, or pasta sauce, but I've never seen an Irish family eat meatloaf. The only people I've seen eat meatloaf are the American people on the telly.

So, one day I decided to make it and it was utterly delicious! I used Chef John Mitzewich's recipe on his zombie meatloaf video at first, but after a few times I tweaked it to have a nice memorable formula: 1 pound of mince, 1 ounce of breadcrumbs, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of milk, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Now, I add in some aromatic vegetables for extra flavour, but that's the basic formula to make deliciously moist meatloaves every time. I really enjoy making meatloaf with lamb, but you can go with the more traditional beef and pork mince.

This recipe can be made into one big meatloaf in a 1 pound (455 gramme) loaf tin, or into mini ones using a muffin tin, which is what I did. Or, you could even make into balls by hand and braise in tomato sauce; I believe in America meatloaf is often braised in tomato sauce.

My husband, who was raised in the English Midlands, says that they look and taste like faggots (which is an English dish of little loaves of breadcrumbs, herbs, and pork mince and liver). So, if you want lamb faggots, this recipe could work for you!

INGREDIMENTS

1 ounce (30 grammes) unsalted butter or oil

1 small red onion, or a 5-inch (12 centimetres) piece of leek, chopped finely

1 medium carrot, chopped finely

1 ounce (30 grammes) breadcrumbs, or ground almonds for a a gluten free version

1 medium egg

1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) milk

1 pound (455 grammes) lamb mince (preferably 85/15 lean to fat)*

1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) salt

½ teaspoon (2 millilitres) black pepper

Optional: 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) mint sauce

* You can use any meat you want, but if you're not using lamb you can swap this out for another seasoning, like Worcestershire sauce or horseradish

METHOD

• In a frying pan, sweat the onion (or leek) and the carrot in the butter (or oil) until soft, and then let cool down to room temperature.
• Preheat the oven to 160C (320F).
• I a large, roomy mixing bowl, mix together the breadcrumbs, egg, and milk. Allow to sit for 20 minutes until the breadcrumbs are completely soaked.
• Add in the cooked vegetables and the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly with a gentle touch.
• Press the mixture into a loaf tin, or divide the mixture 5 or 6 holes on a muffin tin (depending on how big you want the mini loaves), then bake on the centre shelf of the preheated oven for about an hour for the whole loaf, for 25 to 30 minutes for the mini loaves. I use a meat thermometre so I cook the loaves to an internal temperature of 65C.
• If you're making mini loaves, remove the tin from the oven and raise the temperature to 200C (400F). Take the loaves out of the muffin tin and sit them on a flat tray, and bake for a further 5 minutes until nicely browned.
• Serve with mashed potato, steamed vegetables, and plenty of gravy.

Traditional Amish Whoopie Pies: The Secret Is Revealed.....

Today's offering is these deliciously soft and squishy chocolate whoopie pies with their traditional whipped buttercream filling! And these cakes really taught me a huge lesson.

Now, I now I've made whoopie pies before, but this time it's different. Sometimes an old dog can learn new tricks, and sometimes a metric person can be surprised by American cups. For my entire cooking career, I have measured baking ingredients in mass (weight) measurements: pounds, ounces, kilos and grammes have been part of my everyday kitchen practise. In my opinion, the accuracy of measuring things in weight makes the recipes easily repeatable with the same results every time.... in theory.

I've always been put off cups because the idea of having to dirty a cup when one could just measure all the ingredients in the same bowl on a scale makes no sense to me. Also, every cup of flour -- no matter how carefully you try to measure the cup exactly the same way every time -- weighs differently. An Australian cup is different to an American cup, and what do you do if you don't have a set of cups?

For all of these reasons, I have spent my entire baking career avoiding them. However, from personal experience, translating or converting cup measurements to weight measurements can fail absolutely miserably.

When I decided to make these whoopie pies, I found a traditional Amish recipe and, of course, it was measured in cups. I made the recipe using cups, and it worked perfectly! As I was scooping the cups of ingredients I was weighing them exactly. Having noted how much each cup of each ingredient weighed, I noted it for perfectly replicable results! Or, so I thought.

When I made them again using my painstakingly measured weights, they were an absolute failure. I was so confused: surely, it should have worked perfectly? I did it again with the cups, again measuring the weights of the cups, and even though this times most of the weights were completely different it still turned out perfectly like the first time.

So my main take away is: if the recipe is designed for cups, use cups. And if the recipe is designed for grammes, use grammes.

I believe now, after this wonderfully humbling experiment, that weights are not the be all and end all, and that recipes should be made using the measurements they were designed with. I'm just glad I had a set of measuring cups!

For those who are interested in making these beauties, I used Family Favourite's recipe Traditional Amish Chocolate Whoopie Pies to make these. They are moist, soft, sweet, and deeply chocolatey. The addition of egg white in the icing makes it super light and fluffy. I heartily recommend this recipe! If you want plain vanilla cakes, I have discovered that simply replacing the cocoa powder cup for cup with flour works a charm.

Let's Go To The Circus! A Cupcake Design

At 28 years old, I had never (as far as I could remember) been to a circus. So my husband took me to the one that was in town this week and I had a blast! All the performers were incredible acrobats, and the clown was very sweet.

I was inspired by my time at the circus to make these cute themed cupcakes! Chocolate cakes with a mildly peanutty buttercream, topped off with a mini candy floss!

I know that circuses don't have animals anymore, but I still associate elephants and camels and that old timey sense of wonder at amazing spectacles! And because of elephants, I thought of peanuts.... thus peanut butter. Also, while at the circus I had some candy floss; yumyum!

INGREDIENTS

12 chocolate cupcakes, in pink or blue cases

6 ounces (170 grammes) salted butter

3 fluid ounces (105 millilitres) condensed milk

3 ounces (85 grammes) smooth peanut butter

12 ounces (340 grammes) icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

A few drops of almond essence

6 paper straws with pink stripes

A tub of candy floss, pink and blue

Pink and blue sprinkles

METHOD

• Make a buttercream icing with the butter, condensed milk, peanut butter, icing sugar, vanilla and almond essences. 
• Use the icing to pipe swirls on top of the cakes, and sprinkle with the blue and pink sprinkles.
• Cut the straws in half and use each half as a stick for the candy flosses: wrap pieces of candy floss around the straws and gently squeeze to secure. Keep the candy flosses in an airtight container until serving.
• Decorate the cakes with the mini candy flosses immediately before serving, not in advance, otherwise the candy flosses will melt.