catnip and coffee

All week I’ve been meaning to post my turkey meatloaf recipe, but I’ve been too busy, um, cooking. And cleaning. And every time I cook, I have to clean again. Sigh.

I finally got the kitchen in great shape yesterday but was then asked to make cookies for dh’s work. Not that I mind baking cookies, and dh certainly offered to buy some instead. But, dude, that would totally ruin my reputation at his office! I am known as the brownie queen. His coworkers were hoping for brownies on cookie day! Instead, I adapted my brownie recipe and made super chocolaty cookies. Secret ingredient: homemade vanilla. It makes any baked good taste amazing.

I also sent along my lemon cookies. It’s a basic sugar cookie but you replace the vanilla with lemon extract. These cookies also have white chocolate chips and coconut. Secret ingredient: replace some of the plain white sugar with dry lemonade mix. Extra lemony goodness.

I finished baking at 9:15 last night. You can guess what my kitchen looks like this morning! Yep, time to clean again.

Anyway, on to the turkey meatloaf!

I haven’t used any ground beef in almost 13 years. (Except for that huge vat of chili I had to make for a fundraiser, yuck.) It’s just too greasy for us and after all these years we’ve come to prefer the taste of ground turkey and ground chicken. However. If not cooked properly it can be very dry, hence it’s bad reputation.

There are a couple of tricks I’ve learned that make a huge difference and I use them whether I’m making meatloaf, turkey burgers, meatballs, etc. The most obvious is not to overcook but you all knew that one.

The next is GRATE your onions! Use the smallest cheese grater you own and grate the peeled onions directly into the uncooked turkey mixture. This works really well with garlic too - and I hate using a garlic press - they are too hard to clean. (A nice flat cheese grater cleans up super easy.) The reason for this is that all the juices come out of the onion and go directly into the turkey. When you chop onions all you have are chopped onions. When you grate them you have onion juice and mush and lovely onion flavor = moist and flavorful meatloaf.

The last is: use fresh herbs. Yes, ground turkey is slightly bland, but that just means it takes on whatever flavor you want it to. It needs lots of herbs and spices. But if you use too many dry herbs you are taking moisture out of the turkey in order to rehydrate them. Use some fresh herbs and you are adding moisture. Makes so much sense right? It took me way too long to figure it out though.

Yes, I do grow some of my own herbs in little pots all over the kitchen. I use enough now that it gets a little expensive to buy it all the time. The best for me are sage, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, and lavender. I have a tough time keeping basil alive or I would grow that too.

Before I give you the recipe, let me first say that unless I’m baking I don’t measure anything so I hope pinchs and palmfuls don’t frustrate you!

1 lb of ground turkey

two handfuls of bread crumbs, plain or any flavor

handful of dry quick cooking oatmeal

1 egg (or 2 if they’re small)

2 small or one medium onion

a couple cloves of garlic depending how strong you like it

lots of fresh herbs, chopped fine. I use whatever I have on hand but especially oregano, parsley, sage, thyme, cilantro (aka coriander), and rosemary. (I love, love me some fresh cut rosemary, it’s just not the same even “fresh” from the store. Rosemary should not be like a piece of wood!)

lots of spices, including but not limited to: cumin, coriander seed, black pepper, chili powder, savory, marjoram, paprika, and whatever you don’t have of the above fresh herbs - use the dried.

couple squirts of ketchup in the mix, and a little more on top at the end

couple drizzles of olive oil, a little more if you have a lot of dried herbs, or if you use 1% lean turkey.

a little finely chopped spinach if you want to make it even heathier, but my dh won’t let me!

mix it all up, throw it in a bread pan, spread a little of the ketchup on top, stick it the oven, on say 350, for a half hour or so - I just keep and eye on it so I don’t know for sure. I even will cook this in my toaster oven - bread pan fits perfectly and I don’t have to heat up the whole big oven for one item.

I hope this didn’t sound difficult or complicated! It’s really the easiest meal ever, and it’s also very adaptable to your own tastes. Try the same recipe with some parmesan mixed in as meatballs, bake them on a cookie sheet for fifteen minutes and throw them in tomato sauce, yum! Or leave out the oatmeal, add an extra egg and you will have the best burger ever, at least my boys think so