Meatloaf Cupcakes by JoJo

Sometimes you have an idea that is just so amazing that you can't wait to get it going. That's how I feel about this recipe. Now I'm not saying I'm the only one who has done thing, or the only one who has ever come up with this idea, but let's just say that where I'm from, you can't get a meat cupcake! And after doing this all I can say is, *insert caveman voice* meat cupcake gooood.

 Ingredients Set One (Meatloaf Mixture):
2.5 pounds ground meat of choice. You can even mix up some meats. We picked turkey.
One package of bacon. (Again, we did turkey bacon)
3 cups of panko or bread crumbs
Two eggs
One large onion, chopped
2 cups of milk
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of dijon mustard
1/3 cup ketchup
4 tablespoons of steak seasoning
4 garlic cloves, minced
6 ounces of cheese of choice (We did a local provolone)

Ingredients Set Two (Barbeque Sauce):
1 cup ketchup
1 cup water
1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup dijoin mustard
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon of chili powder
1/4 teaspoon of hot sauce
1 tablespoon of steak seasoning
*Don't be a freaky deek and feel ashamed if you go get yourself a bottle of Famous Dave's or the like in place of creating your own sauce.  Not everybody is up to this, or may have the time.  Sauce sometimes is something that needs to be worked up to in the kithcen skill area.  Do what you feel comfortable with.

Ingredients Set Three (Potato Topping):
3/4 5lb bag of potatoes (3.75 pounds)
1 stick of butter
1/4 cup of milk
Salt and Pepper to taste

First we are going to start by making a BBQ sauce. The ingredients you are going to use are set two of ingredients. Just put all ingredients into a bowl and mix well. You are going to find that this is very... watery? Not really a thick texture. We're going to fix this by placing the BBQ sauce in a pan and letting it simmer on the stove. Make sure to keep your eye on this while working with the other things we're going to do. This should finish up in around 20-30 minutes. DO not boil - we don't want this burning.

 Now peel and cut your potatoes into small pieces. Boil in some salt water. You want to start the potatoes before the meatloaf because we want them at a simi cool state before we start the meat loaf. You'll see why later. Now, one the potatoes can easily be pierced with a fork, drain. Plop down a stick of butter with 1/4 cup of milk in with the drained potatoes and mash well. This is one of those times where you really don't want chunky mashed potatoes. We used a ricer first on just the potatoes, and then a masher with the milk and butter. Smooth, smooth, smooth. Once you get them nice and smooth salt and pepper to taste.

 Once the potatoes are mashed you are going to mix all the ingredients from set one. Yep, that's right! Once again we are just throwing everything together. Make sure to put them all into a decently sized bowl other wise the next part is going to be messier than it already is. Now, stick your hands in and mix everything together! You can try to do it other ways, but this will seriously work the best. Make sure to have a helper around if possible because you may find that you need more bread/panko crumbs. It's way easier to have them dumped them in for you if possible rather than having to wash your hands and add more yourself. Once you have it decently mixed together you can use a wooden spoon to mix it more if you feel the need.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In two giant cupcake pans (6 cupcakes) take 12 strips of bacon and line the tins with it. You can choose to use two pieces of bacon if you want.

Once you have the bacon inserted, fill each hole up halfway with the meat loaf mixture. With your fingers burrow a little bowl into the meatloaf. Make sure you don't go too deep, we don't want to see the pan. Take 1/2 ounce of cheese (your choice) and put it in your little meat bowl. Cover with more meatloaf, making a decent sized cupcake. Once you have 12 healthy looking cupcakes made, put in your oven for 15 minutes.

Now, hopefully you have been watching your BBQ sauce during all of this - stirring often. It should be done around this time. We had ours cook down to about half it's size which gave it the consistency we wanted. Now you can just leave it in your pot if you want to use a spoon later to add to your cupcake, but we put it in a plastic condiment bottle.  You will have leftovers of the sauce.

After you take the BBQ sauce completely off the heat, you should still have some baking time left on your cupcakes o'meat. I spent this time putting my mashed potatoes in a piping bag for frosting cakes. You do NOT have to get this fancy by any means, but I honestly just thought it would be easier. I used one piping bag full per 6 cupcakes.  You can also use a Ziplock bag for this.  Fill the bag, squeeze excess air out, seal, and cut a corner off, voila!  Piping bag!

 

Now we should be close to our 15 minutes being up. Remove cupcakes from oven and frost them with your mashed potatoes. Once done put back into the oven for 15-20 minutes. I know that meatloaf normally takes an hour but remember, this isn't a big loaf. The cupcakes are smaller so they don't need to cook that long. If you are feeling skeptical, keep one cupcake unfrosted that you can cut into to see if the meat is done.

Once cupcakes are done put them onto a plate and drizzle the BBQ over them. Enough to fully cover the cupcake. And there you go! I found this to be easier than I thought it would be! Timing everything can get a little stressful, but the majority of it was just mixing a bunch of stuff together. We did have mashed potatoes left over and ended up eating them on the side. Enjoy carnivorously!

Dublin Coddle

Hey Everyone Alyssa JoJo here! I hope you all had a good St Patties day weekend. I know I did! Saturday we went to go visit some family for my Irish Great grandma’s birthday. We watched an old slide show of pictures from when my great grandma was younger all the way til when Mama Lanette was younger. (Nice perm Mom!) We also got to eat some very delicious mini four leaf clover cakes made by my cousin Claire Bare. These things were AMAZING! We had a cupcake that was very similar to what she made from a local cupcake shop which couldn’t even compare to these things.





Sunday we didn’t go out or anything, but instead BBB (Big Burley Bruce) and I stayed in and I made a traditional Irish meal out of a cook book that I got handed down to my by my Great Grandma. I have no idea how old this book is, but I had to do some Google research to covert the measurements and also to get a clearer look at how exactly to make it. Now I did make some small changes, which I will mention in the recipe. I don’t feel like I did anything that would change this from being a good ol’ traditional recipe, and let me tell you, this recipe doesn’t need much changing. It was DELICIOUS! Good enough where BBB went up for a big bowl of seconds. And if you really want to call out the Irish in you I suggest you sop up what’s left in your bowl with a nice piece of soda bread.


Ingredients:
8 pork sausages (We used hot Italian sausages for some heat)
1 pound of bacon (We used double smoked bacon that Mama Lanette brought us)
2-4 pounds of potatoes
2 large onions
2 cups of beef broth or water
¼ cup of parsley
Salt and pepper to taste



 First what we are going to do is cup up the bacon and sausage into bite size pieces. I did 1 inch by one inch for the bacon and did the sausage in a little larger of chunks. You’re going to want to make sure that these are easy to eat – this meal shouldn’t need a knife!









 Now take the onions and cut them into chunky pieces. We aren’t going to finely dice these like we would in most recipes. What I did was I quartered the onions and then just cut some half inch wide strips.






 If you look up the old recipe online you’ll see that they will have you boil your meats as a start, but I went a different rout. In a pot I fried up the onions, bacon, and sausage together dry. Now your bacon will look different during this process with the way this recipe goes. Normally we get some what crispy bacon that becomes a brown/red. Don’t be worried if your bacon holds its pink color through out this process.




As your meat is cooking peel your potatoes and chop them into bigger chunks. Something bite sized. I did them a little bigger than what I cut the meat. Put the potatoes off to the side, we won’t be cooking these ahead of time. Make sure to check your meat often during this process. We don’t want anything to burn.







Take your parsley and finely chop it. I normally use my kitchen scissors when doing this because I find it to be easier and cleaner than using a knife.  Again, keep checking your meal and stirring it around.







Once the meat is cooked to your liking add in potatoes, parsley, two cups of beef broth, and salt and pepper to your tasting. You’re then going to cover the pot on the stove and let it simmer for about an hour. Make sure to check it through out the meal. We want to make sure that while the potatoes become soft you don’t want them to become mushy. To test see if you can easily push a fork through the potatoes with out breaking the potato apart.



 Now just put in a bowl and enjoy! Seriously, this meal is fantastic! So tasty. You might end up going for seconds… or even thirds.

A MN State Fair Adventure...

Welcome to Feeding the Freaks....a Family Fiasco!  What better way to kick off our mother-daughter food blog than a trip to the MN State Fair!  Ah yes, the land of 10,000 foods on a stick and butter head sculptures!  What do they do with those heads when the fair is over anyway?  Alyssa JoJo suggests a giant lobster fest.  Mama Lanette says a hefty profit is to be made by selling them to Paula Dean, y'all.  The MN State Fair is a grand land where bacon and chocolate can meet and become one, macaroni and cheese can be eaten on a stick, and pickles are fried to perfection.  Just when you think a food can’t POSSIBLY be made any unhealthier, lo and behold!  There it is….battered, deep fried, and oh so carefully perched upon a stick, and yet so delicious your taste buds would explode if they hadn’t already been burnt beyond recognition because you just couldn’t wait a few extra minutes for those fresh fried cheese curds to cool off a bit. 

After a quick pre-apology to our bodies for the complete disregard to diet and nutrition they were about to be subjected to, we departed the bus, stocked up on dollar bottles of water being sold outside the gate (they’re like 3 bucks inside!), and took off running like the Augustus kid in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory when he discovered the river was made out of chocolate.  Our fair food adventure started off this year with a trip to Axel’s where we indulged in macaroni and cheese on a stick, deep fried cheeseburger sliders, and a breakfast lollypop (breakfast sausage dipped in a corn meal batter, deep fried, and yes, placed on a stick).  Mama Lanette and her friend A.P. then ventured over to the Agriculture Building to visit their beloved honey ice cream stand. The honey ice cream with sunflower seeds is so delicious and simple, it transports one back to the days of childhood, laying in the grass, and staring at the clouds.   Alyssa JoJo and her friends E.H. and S.B. headed over to the Food Building, but much like Las Vegas, what happens in the Food Building STAYS in the Food Building.  The rest of our MN State Food….uh….I mean MN State Fair trip consisted of a dizzying pace of map checking, aimless wandering before we realized we were holding the map upside down, and eventual food booth finding.  The treats sampled consisted of fried green tomatoes, corn fritters with honey butter, deep fried Oreos, Big Fat Bacon drizzled with maple glaze, canoles, fried pickles, bacon ice cream, Pig Lickers (chocolate-dipped bacon), corn dogs, and cheese on a stick, which resembled a corn dog, but had cheese instead of a hotdog inside. 

Five hour later, as we sat upon a bench with our bellies full, our feet covered with dirt, and our faces smeared in grease, we decided it was time to cry uncle and head out.  The bench creaked in relief when we picked our now even bigger asses up off of it.  We headed over to the nearest sky ride, lied about our weight to the very skeptical carnies, got on our sky cab, and rode over to the other side of the fairgrounds where our exit was located.   Our carb-coma bodies trudged zombie-like to the Park & Ride bus, and we headed back to the Land of Reality…where carbs, calories and fat really DO matter.

Are there healthier choices to be had at the State Fair?  Yes, the Produce Exchange was selling fresh fruit and veggies, and there were several fruit kabob and salad stands, so it CAN be done.  And, of course, there are those people who suffer from physical ailments such as diabetes, in which case, munching on a bag of cotton candy and a deep fried Snickers bar may not be the smart choice; high blood pressure….stay away from those salty fries and pig lickers you people!; and the ever present child with ADHD…once again, AVOID the cotton candy!  All in all, however, for those of us who are fortunate enough to partake of whatever we want and not go into an insulin coma or suffer from a heart attack, part of the beauty of a once yearly trip to an event such as the MN State Fair is the throwing away of all morals and decency regarding food and nutrition and just having FUN.  Is eating a Big Fat Bacon a little disgusting?  Most definitely, but when eaten only once a year, it is a treat to look forward to and savor with every bite. 

And with this we start a new adventure in sharing the foods we love, dare to try, and change to make healthier with you. We hope that if anything through out these posts you at least find something to laugh about, love to eat, and share with others. 

- Alyssa JoJo and Mama Lanette