Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Sparing you visually unappealing edibles

I haven't mentioned what I've been making lately because I much more enjoy cooking and eating than taking food photos. Making food look appetizing is way farther out of my skill set than making food taste appetizing, I'm learning. Probably because I consider the latter to be far more important. Two of my most recent food favorites are also two of my least attractive looking. In fact, both resemble excrement so much that I'm dispensing with photos all together (although I will still include representative images so that the post isn't too text heavy). I still wanted to share these recipes though because they are delicious.

Bison Meatloaf

I started buying bison meat more frequently because it is the only type of pasture-raised meat available at the grocery store nearest my apartment. (Well, technically, it's the second nearest grocery store to my apartment but the one a few blocks closer inexplicably smells like cat litter and gave my friend food poisoning, though that's really neither here not there). The organic foods store doesn't sell meat of any kind (well unless you count fake meat, which I don't), and the grass-fed organic butcher is a 10-minute walk away. Such are the problems of living in a first world city. At any rate, in my search to find things to do with ground bison meat, I happened upon this delicious recipe for meatloaf. I used to hate meatloaf as a kid (again, it's not the most appetizing looking food), but I have since learned the error of my ways. Meatloaf works ideally for lunches and leftovers as it carries and reheats well. I don't know why I'm trying to sell the world on meatloaf, as I think I'm actually the only person who had to be talked into it.

Not the meatloaf I made.
1 large bulb roasted garlic (this is probably the real reason I like this recipe so much--wrap the garlic in foil with some olive oil and stick in a 375 degree oven for an hour to end up with roasted garlic and a delicious smelling kitchen)
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 T olive oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp ground thyme
1/4 c chopped fresh parsley
1 carrot, grated
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 lb ground bison
1 lb ground pork
1 c bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350. Saute the onions in the olive oil for about 5 minutes, until tender.

Squeeze the delicious garlic paste out of the bulb and into a bowl and add all the ingredients (including the onions) except the meat and bread crumbs.

Mix well and add the meat and slowly incorporate the bread crumbs. I always just mix with my hands.

Shape into a loaf that is more long and wide than tall (try to keep the height down to 3''). Don't use a loaf pan, but just shape it onto a roasting pan.

Put in the oven and cook for about an hour. Experience meat loaf heaven.

The second recipe I tried recently was for frozen yogurt. It's basically a play on the old frozen-banana-avocado=instant creamy soft serve non receipe. Only with actual yogurt in it. It also isn't especially beautiful, but it's tasty!

This doesn't resemble the frozen yogurt at all, but I wanted to keep with the cat theme.
2 avocados
2-3 bananas
1 c Greek yogurt
1-2 T honey
1/2 cup cocoa powder


Mix all ingredients in a food processor and then transfer to an ice cream maker. Simple and delicious. I wanted to add chocolate chips too, but someone in my household ate them all before I got the chance.

Any readers have any delicious recipes they care to share? Specifically ones with radishes in them would be most helpful as my farm share is inundating me with radishes.

2 comments:

  1. I have questions! As someone whose meatloaf you have spurned in the past, while other liked it...Wouldn't it be just as good with 2 lbs ground beef instead of bison and pork? I think I ate a bison burger once and was underwhelmed.

    I cannot imagine what that frozen yogurt tastes like. Does any flavor predominate? That's not a lot of honey to sweeten that much yogurt and cocoa...

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  2. Bison can be dry by itself because it's so lean (although I have had tasty bison burgers before--I'll take you to Bareburger when you're here if you want, they make a great one!). The pork helps with that. It would probably be as good with beef though because the predominant deliciousness comes from the roasted garlic.

    As for your other question, most of the sweetness comes from the bananas, so the honey is just a little extra. If you mix two frozen bananas with cocoa powder in a food processor, you'd be amazed at how the sweetness helps counteract the bitterness of the chocolate. It definitely helps to use super ripe bananas though.

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