Jan. 10, 2013: Jelly-in-the-Middle Muffins with Cantaloupe; Meatloaf on a Bed of Potatoes, Green Beans and Lemon Squares



Jelly-in-the-Middle Muffins and Cantaloupe

Meatloaf on a Bed of Potatoes, Green Beans and Lemon Squares

THE PLAN:

With 5 kids that keep us busy, meal times are an important time of the day for our family to keep connected and have both silly & important conversations that help us learn more about each other and what is going on in all our lives. So enhancing that experience with a wide variety of textures, flavors and healthy elements is important to me. And I use the crockpot whenever I can (modifying recipes if I have to) because it is such a helpful tool to cook food all day long and have it ready to incorporate into delicious and healthy meals.

 

I prep dinner at the same time as I make breakfast - which saves me time at dinner and makes it more likely that I will cook dinner. The dinner hour is just so busy here - and it's when my energy sort of dips. So having everything ready to just be thrown together is huge for me. 

 

TODAY'S CHOICES

For breakfast, on Thursdays I usually make some kind of muffin. Today I want to make Jelly-in-the-Middle muffins with my homemade cinnamon red-hot apple jelly. (It's made with cinnamon red-hots instead of sugar). I will serve cantaloupe slices on the side.

 For dinner, I want to do something "homey" with beef so I'm going to make a classic Meatloaf. I have recipes for a lot of different variations on meatloaf but I'm in the mood for the classic variety. And I have a crock pot recipe that slow cooks it over cut up potatoes. It's really good. As the potatoes cook they soak up the flavors from the meat drippings. Meatloaf pairs really well with green beans for a vegetable .

 

For dessert, I want to make something that contrasts really well with a heavy meat and potatoes entrée. So, I will make buttery, flaky, custardy lemon squares. They are light, fruity, tart and sweet all at the same time.

 

 

 

JELLY IN THE MIDDLE MUFFINS

Here's the recipe:

2 c. flour

1/2 c. white sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. milk
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 egg
any flavor fruit jam or jelly

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 12 muffin cups generously with cooking spray or line with baking cups. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt; mix well. In a small bowl, combine milk, oil and egg; blend well. Add dry ingredients all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened (batter will be lumpy.) Fill cups 1/3 full – leaving about half the batter in the bowl. Place 1-2 teaspoons jam/jelly on each muffin before baking;  top each one with remaining batter. If desired, sprinkle with finely chopped nuts.  Bake for 16 to 20 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Cool 1 minute before removing from pan. Serve warm but be careful because jelly gets very hot.

MAKING BREAKFAST:

I have made these with lots of different flavors of jelly. Any flavor is really good but my absolute favorite to use is my home-made cinnamon red-hot apple. The trickiest part of making these is making the batter just the right consistency. The muffin needs to be tender enough that it doesn't feel more like a biscuit but firm enough so the jelly doesn't just fall right out of the bottom. This means the batter should be thick but not too thick. Roughly similar to a waffle batter thickness. So after I follow the recipe, I check the thickness by letting a spoonful fall from my mixing spoon. If it's so thin that it pours then I add flour. If it doesn't pour at all because it's too thick, I add more milk.

Once the batter is the right consistency, I use about 2/3 of the batter to fill the muffin tins. You want more batter on bottom than on top - to hold the jelly in.

 

Then it's time to put in the jelly. The original recipe called for a certain amount of jelly in each but I never measure the jelly. I like a lot of jelly in them. But too much jelly makes the muffin unstable. So I use roughly about a Tablespoon in each one. I drop that amount in the center of each batter-filled muffin tin- staying away from the sides or bottom of the tins. Then I take a spoon and drop the rest of the batter on top of the jelly part in each tin. I use the back of a spoon to carefully smooth the batter over all the jelly to seal it inside the batter. The goal is to make the jelly completely surrounded by batter so that it doesn't leak out while it's baking.

 

After they are baked you really have to let them cool for more than one minute - at least 5 minutes. Partly because the jelly gets lava hot and you can't bite into them right away anyway. But also because if you let them cool then they come out of the tins or baking cups better and look prettier.

MEATLOAF ON A BED OF POTATOES
(crockpot recipe)
Here's the recipe:

½ c. minced onion or 1 packet Dry Onion Soup Mix

2 lbs ground beef

2 eggs

¾ c. oats

1 c. ketchup

2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. salt

Pepper, to taste

MIX and form into loaf, then place on top of:

6 large russet potatoes, cut into slices or cubes

Then pour the following mixture on top:

¾ c. ketchup

1/3 c. brown sugar

1 tsp Dijon

Cook in crockpot on HIGH for 1 hour and then LOW for 6-7 hours.

THIS PART I DID IN THE MORNING AT THE SAME TIME AS I WAS MAKING BREAKFAST:

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I put the ground beef in the microwave to defrost before I started making the muffins. Once the muffins were made and were cooking in the oven, I turned the crockpot on LOW. I scrubbed the potatoes and chopped them into big pieces and put them in the bottom of the crockpot. I didn't peel them. I like them with the peel on in this recipe because the meat juices make the peeling really tender and flavorful. Then I mixed up the meat with the onion soup mix, eggs, oats, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and placed it on the potatoes in the crockpot.

I mixed up the ketchup, brown sugar and Dijon, poured it over the meat and put the lid on.

Meatloaf and potatoes in the crockpot - before cooking

THIS PART I DID AT DINNERTIME:

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The great thing about this recipe is that there really is nothing that has to be done later. It's just done and can be transferred to a platter for serving or served straight from the crockpot.

Meatloaf on Bed of Potatoes Cooked

 

 

 

Fresh green beans are quite different than canned or frozen. Unlike most vegetables, the frozen kind (in my opinion) is the worst. Freezing them just changes their texture in such a way that it makes them almost unpalatable for me. I like canned if they cut French style. But fresh is best.

When I cook fresh green beans, I snip off the ends with kitchen shears, put them in a colander and rinse them. Then I put them in a glass bowl with a little bit of water, cover it with plastic wrap and cook them in the microwave until they are tender. I start at 5 minutes, then check them and cook a minute or 2 more, check again and repeat that until they are done.

 

 

LEMON SQUARES

Here's the recipe:

Crust:
2 c. flour
¼ tsp. salt
1 c. powdered sugar
2 sticks butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing

Filling:
4 eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
2 c. granulated sugar
6 Tbsp. flour
3/4 c. fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch pan.

Make the crust by combining the flour, salt, and powdered sugar in a large bowl. Cut in the butter to make a crumbly mixture. Press the mixture into the prepared pan. Dip your fingers into a little flour or confectioners' sugar to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, if necessary. Bake for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make the filling, mix the eggs, baking powder, salt, granulated sugar, flour, and lemon juice. Pour this over the baked crust and bake for 25 minutes longer. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired, when the bars are done.  

 

 MAKING DESSERT:

I mixed up and baked the crust while I was getting dinner on the table. After pre-heating the oven, I just threw 2 cubes of butter into the Kitchen Aid and turned it on medium-low. I let the butter get creamy while I got out the table cloth, plates, cups and forks. Then I added the powdered sugar, salt and flour all at once and let it mix until it was crumbly.

Crumbly crust dough

I pressed the dough into a greased 9x13 inch pan and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. While it baked, I finished setting the table, cooked the green beans and mixed up the lemon filling for the Lemon Squares.

 

(Side note: When the crust is done - it doesn't look that much different than when it was put in the oven. It is just slightly puffed up and firmer. It shouldn't be browned because it's going to be in the oven longer and you don't want an overcooked crust.)

 

When the crust was done, I poured the mixed up lemon filling right over the hot crust, put it back in the oven and set the timer for 25 minutes. Then we ate dinner while they were baking.

 

When the timer rang, the lemon part was still too runny so I set the timer for 5 more minutes. I like lemon bars with a consistency between thick jelly and custard. (Some lemon bar recipes are more thick and cake-like.) But you never want the lemon part runny. They should be set and slightly browned on top when done. Like this:

Lemon Squares just out of the oven

After they were out, I let them cool while we cleared the table, cleaned up dinner and washed the dinner dishes. Then I sprinkled them with powdered sugar and cut them into squares for serving.

Lemon Squares after Slightly Cooling and Sprinkling with Powdered Sugar - ready to be cut into squares