I need some recommendations. I found a packet of meatloaf seasoning in my pantry a couple of weeks ago. Not long after while flipping through the channels, the Phineas and Ferb episode “Meatloaf Surprise” came on with its song “Meatloaf”, sung by guest stars Davy Jones and Peter Noone.
I thought, “Hey, I can do that. I’ve already got ground turkey. I don’t have bread crumbs but I’ve got sliced bread. The packet doesn’t say anything about onions. Onion powder should work.”
What came out of the oven breaks apart a little more easily than I remember meatloaf at one of those buffet restaurants had. The taste is fine. It’s just the consistency isn’t what it could be.
What can I do to thicken it up and make it bind together better without switching to beef? (Doctor says “you no like having gout, no red meat for you.”) More bread? Change from ground turkey that comes in the 1 pound “chubs” to what comes in a plastic-covered tray?
Yes. Here’s the recipe from the McCormick’s Meat Loaf seasoning packet.
2 pounds lean ground beef or turkey
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup dry read crumbs or 1 cup soft bread crumbs (2 slices of bread)
1/2 cup no salt added ketchup or tomato sauce
I used 93% lean for the turkey, tore the slices of bread into pieces and then broke them down to smaller pieces while mixing with the whisk. Maybe I over-beat the eggs. I went for even mixing of the milk and eggs before adding the bread and then the turkey.
Ketchup did go on top before putting it in the oven. Just standard Heinz ketchup, but more than a 1/2 cup so the top of the loaf was evenly-covered.
And the answer is the ground turkey. When it goes into the tube packages, it’s ground up very fine. I didn’t expect it to be that because when I use in place of hamburger for Hamburger Helper meals, it stays together in the skillet. I think that might be because it gets seared a little bit by cooking it that way and I break it back apart into small chunks.
A two or three pound tray of ground turkey is a little more coarse. It keeps its texture for this recipe and I got the consistency I was wanting.
I think I’ve just invented salad soup. It’s incredibly easy. Just take whatever kind of salad you like and apply salad dressing from a bottle that is missing a cap to limit how much is dispensed.
On the box for some brownies, it has baking times for 13"x9", 9"x9" and 11"x7" pans. Under the adjustments listed for the type of pan you’re using (dark, nonstick, insulated), is the following:
Brownies made in 8-inch square pan are not acceptable.
I had no idea that a pan 1 inch shorter on each side was such a big deal. Since I used an 8.5"x8.5" glass pan, are the brownies half-acceptable now?
(I’m guessing “acceptable” refers to the brownies cooking all the way through. I added the third egg to get cake-like brownies instead of fudge-like and let it cook about 7 minutes longer, but there’s a little bit of the batter towards the bottom that is somewhat liquid instead of dry cake.)
Well, you have to think about The thickness. The more surface area it has, the faster it will cook. An 8"x8" pan doesn’t have nearly as much surface area as 13"x9", 9"x9" or 11’x7". I bet the 13"x9" has the shortest cooking time.
