Spicy Meatloaf & Red Flannel Hash

And we're ready to go.

Okay, great. So welcome everyone to Around the Kitchen Table with Chef Dennis Littley and myself, Susan Sarah, and we're going to have another great show today. Hi Dennis.

Hi Susan, it's good to see you. How are things in New York?

Just great, just great. There, is that what—

I'm going to be a judge at the Taste of Inverness.

That's what I'm thinking of. I can't keep track.

You know, I did some filming. I think that was 2 weeks ago. They did the filming for me. I haven't seen those yet. But yeah, so today we're gonna make, you know, I don't make meatloaf often. We don't eat a lot of beef in the house, but I saw this recipe and I thought it was interesting. And actually there's a few magazines that I do buy. One of them is Healthy Living and the other was Louisiana Cooking. So those are 2 that I like because they have nice pictures in them. And I'm very, men are very visual. We know that.

Yeah.

And I don't always read the recipes, but I look at the pictures and decide. So this one, I actually did go into it a little deeper. And these are both inspired from recipes in one issue of Eating Healthy magazine. And it was a spicy meatloaf. But what really got me thinking about it was the fact that it had greens inside the meat.

Yeah, that is unusual.

And they were talking about how it helped with the structure and the texture and keeping it moist and flavorful. So I thought, well, let's give it a try. You know, again, anything you eat in moderation is okay. It's when you eat it every day or you get crazy with portion sizes that you really have to watch. This has got beef in it. And I know I didn't get real lean beef because, you know, fat helps beef have flavor. You know, fat equals flavor.

So what is it like, about 85%?

Yeah, it's a chuck, 85%. And I got some ground pork. So it's going to be a little fattier. But, you know, that fat, a lot of it is going to drain away. So the rest is— and if you get something that's too lean, and, and by all means, you could use extra lean beef, extra lean pork, and make it, but it's going to be a little drier, and it's going to—

yeah, no, dry— yeah, dry is not good.

Yeah, so I mean, if— and what you're saving for fat, you know, just be good with other things that you eat. So, and, and let— and enjoy that little bit of fat with it then.

So, well, that sounds great. Yeah.

So I peeled down my beets, and what I'm gonna do before we get to the meatloaf is we're gonna make a hash too today. And I was intrigued with this name as soon as I saw it. I'm beginning to really enjoy beets. Lisa's still on the border, even being Polish, she's not a big fan.

Oh, but they're like candy too, you know? Don't you think?

I do. And every time I say something sweet, she wants to slap me because she says, "No, it's not sweet." You know, this is chocolate is sweet, beets are carrots. I always say the carrots are sweet. And I'll ask other people in the room, "how are the carrots?" "Oh, they're sweet." And she just, she gets crazy when we say that because she doesn't think they are. But I've got a few beets here and I'm going to use my steamer today too. So let me get that.

Okay. And also let me know when I can cut in and talk about your kitchen.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Anyway, let's see. I have this double-tiered steamer, so I'm going to cut these beets up and actually I peeled them down and you could use any kind of beet you like. These were all that we had available at Publix. So I'm going to slice these. I was trying to think of how to do these without causing bodily harm.

Wait a minute. So all you did was you just simply peeled off the— Yeah. —and no exotic, put them in a pot of hard-boiling water. Okay.

Yeah, I'm just— and I'm going to steam them for about 5 minutes. Now, you could roast this entire dish if you wanted to, but the recipe that I got calls for steaming. So I figured I would go with it. So all I'm going to do now is cut them up into some uniform sizes so they steam well, and it's going to be a hash. So I want them to be kind of bite-sized. So these are about maybe half-inch pieces. I see you have a glove on today. I have a glove on simply because the color is insane. Oh, okay, that's true. And I'm going to pull this down just a little bit. There we go. I just— all right, yeah, the color is insane and it stains, beats stain like crazy. Um, so, and we just lost one. We had a soldier. There we go. Yeah, that'll stay on for days. Oh yeah, and even cleaning these, you know, this is when I bring out like the heavy-duty cleaners and stuff. And just again, some nice little bit-sized pieces. And like I said, I have really learned to enjoy beets, so I'm going to take these and put these into this steamer tray. And I've got two steamer trays, so I'm not going to put these together because although they are going to end up in the same dish, I don't want them to bleed together or have an opportunity to bleed together until I am ready for them to do that. The steaming is actually gonna take some of the color out. So this is gonna go on the bottom layer of my steamer. And then I'm gonna put the potatoes. All right, I'm gonna get rid of the glove.

Marcus, you have that tri-level steamer. One is for the water and two is for two other things.

And I have, yeah, the second one here. So that'll go. And I got that a couple weeks ago on Amazon. So let's cut these potatoes up. And I'm going to simply— I'm going to leave the skin on these. These were washed already. I did do that ahead of time. And they are organic potatoes. I know you don't have to buy organic. They're not one of those vegetables that is a must, which I never quite understood because they're in the ground. So I would have thought this is one thing that you would want to buy organic.

But so I do. These are organic. Does it matter what kind? Yukon Gold, Idaho? They had said russets.

You know, I think whatever you like. Yukon Gold, anything that you like to cook with that you have. I wouldn't go out and buy anything special for no reason at all, but whatever you have. And being organic, you're generally limited. And he's got some color on them already, but you aren't— you're limited into what they have. See that? You can see some purple on them. They picked up the beets. This is why I had to go up. So all right, let me pop the beets. I'm gonna put the lid on it. I have the water steaming. I'll listen for it.

And how long do you steam it for?

They said just to steam them for 5 minutes, just, just enough to, um— wow. Just, well, we're going to cook them some more in the pan.

Uh-huh. Oh, true.

Okay, so let me flip this over, and you'll see I have a little towel under there to keep it from slipping. And all right, so that's good. We're working there. All right, so let's— well, that's cooking. Let's put our meatloaf together. And the first thing I'm going to do with the meatloaf is I'm going to cook up some greens. And I've got some— actually, I'm going to add in the beet greens that I have too.

Oh yeah, we talked about that another time, about keeping those, keeping a lot of different types of greens. Can you keep carrot greens?

Uh, yeah, yeah, anything that's on the top of a plant. So we're going to throw a little oil in there. Then the greens for the meatloaf are pretty simple. We're going to do these first because we want to let them cool a little bit. We're going to sauté the greens in here with some olive oil, some garlic, some onions, and get everything together and cooked down. Let me real quick, while I'm doing this, I'll put these over here.

Now, collards, don't they take a very long time to cook?

You know, it's not really that long. People generally cook them a long time, but it's not like it's something that you need to cook a long time for. It's just how you like eating them, and a lot of it has to do with the stems on them. If there's a lot of stems in them, that's generally why people cook them.

Okay, because yeah, I remember recipes saying cook for an hour, you know, boil Boil for an hour, you know.

And I think with traditional Southern recipes on the collards— all right, so we got some— you're gonna— with that in mind, then you're going to want to cook them down a little bit more because they spice them up and they really do more to them as a side. But number one, this is also going to go in the meatloaf and it's going to bake. So that's going to help us somewhat with that. So we have onions in the pan now. Let me throw some garlic in there as well.

You know, it's really funny. I've made meatloaf for 100 years, and it's only in the last few years that I've been sautéing, you know, onions and garlic and some other things before I put it into the meatloaf. Meatloaf. I've always only put in raw onion.

Well, you know, you could. I think the flavor—

I don't know, I feel it's a little better when you sauté it.

It does add some layers of flavor. Yeah. It gives you a little opportunity to caramelize the vegetable a little bit. All right, and this has got a considerable amount of garlic in it because this is a spicy meatloaf. And again, nothing is a deal breaker if you don't want to put as much in. That's okay. All right, oh, this is smelling good already. Okay, let's put that over there. All right, we got nice garlic, onions. All right, let me get my greens. Check my recipe to make sure that I'm not forgetting something, because you know I will. Garlic, onions, collard greens. Okay, all of them. All right, so here I have my beet greens, and this looks like—

oh wow, that looks like so much!

Well, we're going to let it cook down. This was actually about 12 ounces of greens. So let's see what this cooks down to, and then we'll take it from there.

Now, I Am Joyful Renee says that she has caramelized onions in the fridge at all times. I would love to know why, what you do. I love the idea, but my mother used to make caramelized onions all the time, but what do you, what do you use them for? I'd love to know.

Renee was just on my show with us, so if you want to come in, you're welcome to pop in to say hi. All right, so let's let these cook. I'm going to turn them down just a little bit, and let's get another segment of this meatloaf together and ready, and that is going to be the bread. Now you can use regular breadcrumbs, but they're not going to quite be the same as they would. This is just an Italian roll that I had around that's old, so I'm going to use it with this. And I've got about a cup and a half of bread there. And then— oh, almost grabbed the olive oil. I'm going to put in a little bit, a half a cup of milk. And I'm going to let these soak for a while, about 5 to 10 minutes. So I just want to get these all coated. And Susan, while this is going on and this is cooking down, why don't you take it away?

Absolutely. Okay, everyone. So we're going to continue talking about Chef's own personal kitchen. And I would love to know your suggestions and we're going to talk a little bit about some very simple ideas here. And Chef, if you have a chance to take a look— Yes. —that would be great too. Okay, so I have 3 images. This first image is an overview. We're going to be talking mostly about this side of the kitchen, not so much the island this time, and it's a little further along than it was before. You know, Chef said, "I want storage," so I gave him storage. I said, "Okay, we're giving you storage." And what I did here is I divided up the storage to equal double door cabinets, just, you know, for symmetry. It's good to have symmetry. It's very good to have symmetry because then your eye is comfortable and, you know, it really looks like a composition, which is what you want. So these 3 cabinets are— have equal size doors. However, now I'm wondering if the bottoms should actually open separately from the top. And the reason is we don't use our top cabinets much at all. I mean, it's usually for overflow storage. It's a big door to open. It's, you know, it's a pain in the neck. And I thought if maybe if we divide it into two separate cabinets, each one, you know, that's a thought, and you tell me what you think about that. One big door?

No, little doors, I like that.

All right, okay, that's good. No, I agree, I totally agree with that. I think that's a great idea. And then when we go to the next one, now on the bottom you can see I have three wide sets of drawers. They're There are advantages to drawers. One is that the most obvious one, it's a single motion. With a cabinet, you have to open the cabinet and then pull out a rollout shelf, for example. The drawer is one motion. If you're lazy like I am, you know, it's really nice to just open the drawer and there you go. Also, you have a beautiful, a really nice look. Visually it makes the wall look wider when you have these horizontal drawers, one right after the other. So it's a lovely look. It's a little bit more of a furniture look when you have drawers over typical base tall cabinet doors with a drawer at the top. So it's a little bit more of an elegant look. It's horizontal. It makes the wall look wider, but also believe it or not, these drawers can hold a 12-quart pot. Wow. It can hold a 12-quart pot. At the time we order your cabinets, I will measure your— you'll measure your pot and you'll tell me what it is, and then we'll take, you know, we'll make sure, you know, that also it now in the inserts, which are always fun, the— let me see, here we go. The inserts of the drawers, you can have, you have nice wide top drawers, you have 3, and then another one in the corner. You can have a knife insert, you can put spices, you can even have spices arranged alphabetically in the drawer insert. You can have removable dividers, of course utensils. Now cutting boards, we have to talk about where to put your cutting boards, but I have a couple of ideas on that. How many cutting boards do you have?

I just have two ones that I use all the time. I have wooden ones that I use for decorating or for serving, but for cutting, I pretty much use the same Lexan or whatever the heck these are cutting boards all the time. And they're just a couple different sizes. Yep.

Okay, so we need those accessible. And of course, there's the good old bread box. I don't know if you use a bread box. How do you store your bread?

It's on top of the refrigerator.

Okay, so we need to get— okay, good to know. Good to know we need to find a place for the bread. And you know, a lot of people actually store dishes in a drawer, and which is, you know, nice so you don't have to reach up, and they store very, very well in drawers. So in the corner here, we have a typical base cabinet with a tall door and a drawer, and that would be good for taller items. So if, when, if you do have a few taller items, they can go there. And the next image is, then again, we go back to the top layer above the refrigerator, for example. Maybe that's where you have vertical storage and you pull out You pull out the baking sheets and you pull out the cutting board and things that are, you know, they're not good stacked, you know, top to bottom. They're good stacked vertically, side to side. So you just take out what you need. So maybe we have vertical storage up here, or maybe we have vertical storage down in this cabinet. Now the hood, this is just a generic hood that I have, but you You know, we're going to be talking about that, you know, making the hood a focal point. Tell me something, what's above the kitchen? Is it a roof or is it an upstairs? No, it's a roof. Oh, great.

We're just all on one floor.

Great, so can we break open through the roof and have you vent through the roof? Yes, absolutely.

There already is a small one, but yeah, we can do that.

Okay, perfect. Good. So yeah, that's something we have to talk about too, the type of ventilation, the CFMs, you know, how much cubic feet air movement that you need and things like that. So that's often coordinated with the cooking appliance. And then in the corner, you know, that could also be overflow storage with closed doors, or we could also do open shelves there, dare I say, but you know, I really know that you like, you know, more storage, more, more, more, more storage. So yeah, so that's where we are talking about the inserts. And next week we'll talk— I think we'll talk about the island, and then we'll talk about, you know, aesthetics and color and things like that. But, you know, this gives people an overview. And please give us your suggestions and ideas. And so what do you think? So far so good? So far so good.

It looks amazing. It's like I just want it now.

I know, I know, I know, I know.

Well, I've been working on the greens a little bit while you've been talking, and all I did was I put in some Worcestershire sauce, uh-huh, and I put in a little bit of hot sauce. And the hot sauce is optional, and if you really like spicy, this is some Florida— Flora Bean Red Hot Sauce that I had gotten. So I don't use a lot of hot sauce unless I'm making wings or something that really needs it, but, uh, in this case I used it. So I put that in there, I turned it down, I added a little more oil and a little water And now I'm going to hit it with some spices. And I have smoked paprika. I have cumin, salt, sea salt, black pepper. But yeah, I'm anxious to get this kitchen going. And it's going to be a showpiece when it's done. Oh, it is.

Oh, it is. The other thing we have to talk about—

have we talked about lighting at all?

No, we have to— that's a— no, we have to talk about lighting, test lighting. Yup, you know, oh my gosh, there's so much news in task lighting, you know, LEDs, and they can be warm light, they can be very bright. So, you know, it's, and you can even do LED recessed lighting too. So that looks great.

Yeah, it's gonna be, it's got some—

It really cooked down, I can't believe how much it cooked down.

It'll actually cook down a little bit more. I turned it down 'cause I didn't want it to burn. And see, this is what we're talking about. Cooking it for longer. These little stems, okay, they're actually not too bad, but they need to be, um, they need to be a little softer. But you're— again, it's going to bake, and I may not use all of this. We're going to see when I start putting it together how it comes up, since this is my first time making this with everyone. So this is, this is an experimentation. And although I am a trained chef, so I have a little bit more idea how it's going to go on the first time, a lot of the things that I do make here, I'm making for the first time with you guys. So I know what to correct, what needs to be changed. And I'm also showing you that it is that simple. It's not rocket science. So you just give something a try. Worst thing could happen is it would turn into chili. Okay? That's— you know, it's a funny story. We made these meatloaves when I was working at this place and we had a lot of meatloaf left over. It was a good meatloaf, but we repurposed it and we made chili and it was the best chili. Oh my gosh, you're kidding. It was one of those things that the people are going, oh, you got to make this again. And we're going, yeah, we got to make meatloaf first. Wow. It's not, it's not that simple, but it made, and it kept thickening up and it kept thickening up. It was just wonderful. Wow. People loved it. So like I said, you know, there's always something. If it doesn't might turn out the way you think it's going to turn out, there's always something to do. Open-faced sandwich. And you know, Renee was saying that her— she's Polish, and her heritage, they eat a lot of open-faced sandwiches. She didn't know that you use two slices of bread until later in life. And I was saying, that's the same thing with you and your—

That's right. Yeah, no, open-faced sandwiches are really wonderful. They're great. I don't make them enough.

Yeah, you know, it is, and it makes the vehicle more of a star than the bread.

Yeah, it does. In fact, you know, I have to confess, my husband has been going to Panera. You know Panera? Yeah. Yeah, like, we have one nearby, like almost every day for lunch, and they're so fresh, and they're so good and everything, but it gets costly. So I made a meatloaf last night, a turkey meatloaf, really just for lunch. And I think I'm going to— in fact, I'd like to explore that with you. You know, lunch, you know, what can we make for lunch that we can have for a few days? And, you know, if you're home and if you don't want to default to cold cuts. Yeah. You know, what can we do for lunch?

You think about your dinners, and my dinners are generally my lunch the next day. For the next— whether I incorporate it in a salad or a sandwich. So just by making some adjustments to it, like this meatloaf, like Renee said, will make a lovely sandwich. And it can be a stacker, it can be an open-face. So, you know, get a nice piece of bread, toast it, put it on top of it. And then something as simple as just, you know, cutting some onions very fine and either sautéing or caramelizing them, or if you have the time, breading them and just getting them nice and crispy a little bit, frying them up. Oh, what a good idea. You know, and then you can pile them up on top of it so it looks visually appealing and you're not having leftovers, you know, just leftovers for lunch.

Yeah. Now, in Scandinavia, they would do a red cabbage. You could do red cabbage from the can and just put that on top of an open-faced sandwich with meatloaf. And it's You know, looks great and gives them another flavor. Sliced cucumbers too.

I am transferring this over and I'm going to let this cool for a little while. So I've got it in a bowl and then we're going to start on our hash. Put this back on the stove. Okay, so this is, this is a little bit about timing today for me.

Oh yeah, quick question, how many pounds of meat do you have to that to the greens you just made? I have 2 pounds.

Okay. So I may pull— well, after these cool a bit, I may pull some of them out and see how it mixes together. Yeah. Overwhelm the meat. But for now, this is what the recipe had called for. And of course, wouldn't hurt to have all this in it, but it's a matter of personal preference. So I want to see how it kind of blends in. So I'm probably going to take about half of this out before and add it in after I get the mix together. So let me move this aside, let it cool. And while we're doing that, all right, now let's start on our getting ready for our hash. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to cut up this fennel bulb, and we cut it in half simply by that. It's beautiful, nice little fennel. And I'm going to take out, just like Renee did earlier, she had Brussels sprouts, and I never seen anybody take the core out, but it makes sense when she said it to do that. She said a lot of times in Brussels sprouts, that's what's bitter. And that's the truth with most things, is the core is the bitter part because that's the root coming up. So here are my Brussels sprouts, or my fennel. I'm just going to trim off—

I would love to do a show on fennel. I have no idea what to do with fennel.

Well, the best thing you can do with fennel if you never use it for anything else is roast it. Roasted fennel is lovely. Really? Mix it in with your other vegetables. If you're gonna roast potatoes, put some fennel and some onions in with it. If you're gonna roast Brussels sprouts, put some fennel in there. I mean, this is great just to add in any other roasted vegetables like carrots and fennel, or just fennel by itself is wonderful.

And what do you roast it for, like a half an hour, 45 minutes?

Yeah, about 45 minutes is a good time. You know, and I'll go even up to an hour sometimes on roasted vegetables because you want them to really get time to caramelize and to sweeten. So here I'm just going to cut and I'm not cutting tiny pieces. Again, this is going in the hash, so I want them to be kind of about the same size. So that's— I'm going to cut a little bit of this in here, slice these down. So I actually am going to work with about maybe a cup or depending upon how much you wanted to make, a cup and a half of each of the vegetables. So this is going to start. Let me turn this on. Let's get some olive oil in here. And then I'm also going to cut up some shallot, some garlic.

Shallots and garlic? Yeah, shallots and garlic. Nice. Very nice.

It's going to be really flavorful. And I like to make the garlic just a little bit smaller because, you know, you don't want to eat— unless it's like roasted garlic. And roasted garlic with your fowl is also a good option. Anytime you're doing— put some whole cloves in there and they get nice and— Lisa would hate it— but sweet. Mmm. And, you know, it's great. Push that to the side. Let's cut up this stuff. And if you've never had a shallot, you know, it's kind of like an onion.

Oh, I love shallots. I love them. Yeah, it's right in between, isn't it?

Yeah, um, it just adds another type of flavor. Uh, you see them in a lot of French cooking.

It's kind of like a snobby onion.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, a highfalutin onion. We're just gonna— and you know, it's a little bit milder than an onion too, so if you're not a big fan of onions, this is a way to get some of that deliciousness in there without all that onion. We're going to use 2 whole shallots because again, this is a side side dish, you want it to be flavorful, you want it to have some character, and you know, this does add some nice flavor to it.

So all the ingredients in that is the potatoes, the beets, the fennel, the garlic and shallots, and what, am I missing anything? Nope, that's it. That's all we got. Okay.

So it's this, and again, this could be all roasted too. If you don't want to do this, uh, in a sauté pan, you know, you can roast these together. I would leave a little bit bigger pieces of the shallot and garlic if I did, but okay, so that is it. The only thing I'm doing is I'm going to save some of these because I'm going to decorate with them. Ah, right. So here is— this is going to sauté a little bit. Let's put a little sea salt, a little black pepper. Okay, turn this down just a little bit. And doing this with your pan is not real difficult. When you flip stuff, you want to get things down to this end of the pan and then you just pull.

Oh, I can't believe you're doing that. I've been, I've been experimenting with flipping last week.

Well, that's the secret. It comes down to this end and then you pull it back to you. Pull it back. Okay. Okay, so that's all there is. And just be patient. It takes time and keep— either do something the dog will like to eat or clean up the floor right after you. My boss used to stand back all the time. And the real tricky part is when there's a lot of liquid in there, that's when it gets—

Oh yeah, because I had to flip things and I thought, okay, let me, let me, let me try.

We're gonna let this cook just a little bit. Let's see how my greens are doing. Yeah, because I don't want to add super hot greens to the meat.

Yeah, I know, I know.

Like spreading it up the sides of the Well, you can always put them in a bowl of ice water too.

I mean, inside a bigger bowl.

Or you could do this ahead of time and put it in the refrigerator. And again, the whole meatloaf is something that you can do ahead of time. That's the beauty of meatloaf. And then cook it when you're ready. And I'm also going to show you a technique for cooking meatloaf. I'm not going to do it with this one because I want to coat it really well while it's baking so it has some beautiful color. All right, so here now I'm going to add in my potatoes and my beets here. All right.

That looks great. That looks interesting, really different.

Well, you know, that's again out of your comfort zone, something that's going to give you some flavors. And you know, everything's going to get red now, but it's going to be like a pink and a red. So you know, you could have steamed them together. It's not like you're stopping it, but And, you know, and I, I do like to mix them together before I toss them because now I can toss them a little bit, but there's a lot in the pan and it is a little trickier to do that much in the pan. So even I'll use a spoon. I see Carolyn just joined us. How you doing? Welcome. There you go. So anyway, if you have any questions, now's a good time to ask too. So we're doing the red flannel hash.

Yep. Renee's asking if you've used red potatoes for your mashed potato recipes.

Yes, I use whatever I can buy. And it's just like she said, whatever looks best when you're in the stores, that's what I buy. Or if something's on sale, you know, let's be honest, I might opt for the Red Bliss rather than the Yukon Gold. Yukon Gold is kind of like my favorite potato because it almost almost looks like it has butter in before you put butter in.

Yeah, it really does. And you know, Renee also said mashed potatoes with celeriac— celeriac? Celeriac. Celeriac and fennel, so yummy. What is celeriac? Celeriac is another root.

So you would take the root and cut it down and cook it. Just like people are making mashed cauliflower too. There's always things you can add. To give it more flavor and just to get more vegetables in there. Celeriac is a nice root. I don't use it hardly at all. I really need to. And again, it's one of those things Lisa's going to look at it and go, "What the hell is that?" Yeah.

Today's the last day I can order from my CSA, my weekly fruits and vegetables and meat, you know, CSA thing. I'm gonna just order beets and fennel and a bunch of stuff. I need to, you know, spam.

Okay, so I've got that cooking. We're just going to let it cook for a little while. I did turn it down a bit because I don't want it to burn, but I wanted to get some color to it. So that's going to cook while I'm doing that. And let's get back to our meatloaf. All right, so here real quickly I'm going to take some of this out just in case it's too much. I think we'll leave a little more than half of it in. And now I'm going to add in some ground pork. And again, you know, feel free to use whatever meats you like to make it healthier. But, you know, also, like I said before, this is a time maybe just to enjoy it. We're not going to have meatloaf that often. All right, and this is ground beef. If you have buffalo, bison, you know, that's always a good alternative to beef too. Or if you want to cut it back a little and use some ground chicken, you know, that's fine. Mm-hmm. That would work well. I, you know, I like ground chicken more than turkey because it generally has a little more fat in it, so that Oh, better, you know, keeps it, keeps it from turning into cardboard. So, all right, so what else we got? So we got that, oh, bread, and we have our bread here that was soaked in milk. Oh nice, that's right, over there. All right, what else do we have? We have 2 eggs, it's a binder. We have a half a cup of ketchup.

Gotta have ketchup. I know. You know what I do sometimes? I add chili sauce. Chili sauce? Yeah, it's, it's, you know, a little fresh taste.

Okay, and I can see— I think I can put this in. We're gonna add all that back in. So the recipe was right.

Oh, that looks delicious. That looks great.

Now one thing, you want to mix this all, and let's see, make sure I didn't leave something out.

One thing I always put in my meatloaf is Worcestershire sauce.

We have Worcestershire sauce in the greens.

Oh, did I miss that?

Yeah, I put some Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce right in there. This is going to be pretty. It's like almost fluorescent, fluorescent orange.

It is.

All right, let's see if I missed anything. I'm gonna not be too proud to read the recipe. All right, breadcrumbs, ketchup, eggs, a little salt. All right, which I did put some in the greens, but we're going to put a little bit more in there. All right, and that's it. Okay, again, you know, like with a lot of things, I tell you not to overmix things because what happens when you overmix is that it gets tough. So you want to mix this enough. This is a little bit of a wet mixture. So it should— and that's the egg— so it should bake up with a little bit more moisture is what I'm thinking. I think the greens are really what's going to give it that little more moisture. All right, so we're just going to let this sit for a little while and let everything absorb a bit, because what happens when things are wet is that, um, after you give it a few minutes to sit, it kind of settles itself down.

Oh geez, I wish I thought of that last night. I made I made a turkey meatloaf. It was very moist. Yeah. And, you know, and I immediately put it in the pan and it was just not making a bigger pile. You know what I mean? The volume, it was just like, yeah, it wasn't doing it.

Okay, these are— and our hash is browning up nicely. Let's see how this beet is. Mmm. Wow.

Wonderful. Now, do you want to get that brown? Do you want to brown that?

You know, it's not— I don't know if it's going to really brown the way I want it to, but we're going to give it a whack and let it cook a little bit more. So we're going to let that cook. Now let me show you how we would do this in, um, in mass production for me. I'm going to take a piece of parchment. This is— and I would put this here, and you can see this is wet. Yeah. Okay, but it's still forming pretty well. This being wet, it's going to cook up very nicely and moist. And for this purpose, I'm only gonna use this much of it because this is what we would do like when we were making meatloaves.

Oh, you're kidding me! I can't believe— I, I can't believe that. I'm blown away.

Okay, so now, wow, what's going to happen is the fat's going to kind of drain out of it. And there's your meatloaf.

I, I get it. That's life-changing.

Yeah, so this is how we would do, like, we were doing, and we use, we have the big sheets of paper at work, so it, um, it's easier to roll up and you get a little bit more overhang. I could have made this a little bit bigger, but this is all you really need to do.

Wow. What, what about, um, browning? Well, that's the thing.

They're not going to brown quite as much. But if I was making this like, this is going to be a mass-produced meatloaf, you could always open it up, coat it with something, put it under the broiler. Yeah. But if we were making these like, and we're making 40 or 50 meatloaves, we would do these this size because they're easier to handle. Put them on a sheet pan so I could fit maybe 5 of these on a sheet pan, and they would basically be as long as a sheet pan. And then I would Bake them, come out, let them cool, and then they cut really nicely. They're uniform. The big thing about this is they're nice and uniform.

I can't believe that. That's life-changing for me. Let me, let me ask you a question. Is there any oven that is too hot to use parchment paper?

No, not, not that we're going to be using. At worst case scenario, like a pizza oven, it'll turn brown and ugly. Okay, but with the moisture involved in this, it won't— that won't happen. The pressure is going to keep it from turning colors. So no, and you're going to bake meatloaf with it around 350 anyway, right? So you're not going to run into those problems. It'll, it'll be fine in there. So I mean, if you want to do it, like I said, I am going to bake it open because I want to let it get some color. And actually, because this is a little wet, I think it might be better off baking open. So, and I might actually take the rest of that meat and make a smaller loaf and freeze it. Because this is— I may make 2 small ones because this is a lot of meatloaf for us to eat. So I may save one and cook it and then freeze it, or I may just save it, let it freeze raw.

So are you afraid that it's a little too moist, that it may fall apart later?

No, not at all. Oh no, this isn't going anywhere. This— that egg in this is going to let it bake up very nicely. No, it's not. If it was going to fall apart, it would be sliding right now. Yeah, it's holding its shape fine. Any more bread in this? Because I'm thinking, wow, when I took it out, this is a little wet. And I would— my first inclination was to add more bread to it. But what that's going to do is that's going to toughen it up more and it's not really going to, going to have it be that lovely, nice piece of meat. So this is fine as long as it holds its shape and it's holding it perfectly. It's got a nice lovely little crown to it. So I think it'll be fine like this. How did yours hold up? Did yours hold its shape?

I don't know because my husband— I made it last night and then took it— yeah, I think it did actually. I think it did. And then my husband took it out, put it away.

If you're afraid— I think it was okay. You can always put it in a loaf pan.

I was wondering about that too.

Yeah, you could always do it in a loaf pan. I mean, there's, there's no harm in that as well. So, you know, there's always a way around it because it'll— the egg and the moisture will cook out of it and it will bake up. So if you want to get more brownness out of it, you know, and then you want to transfer it from that loaf pan after it's set up.

There you go. What about a loaf pan with holes drilled into it for the fat to drain out. What about that?

You could do that. I've never done it, but that sounds like a good idea. You know, they have those bread, those baguette things that you bake bread into. I mean, that'll help it keep its shape.

And I like that. Easy. That looks fantastic.

Karen just stopped by. Karen, we made a meatloaf today. All right, so let's, let's just a little quick review of what we did. We made a spicy meatloaf, and it could be healthier than it is if you use lower fat meats, but the fat is an important part of meat because it makes it tasty and it makes it tender and it gives it some more structure. All right, so I've got beef, pork, I cooked down some collard greens with— all right, what did I put in there? Onions. I had some seasonings, I had cumin, smoked paprika, paprika, salt and pepper. I used a little Worcestershire sauce and some hot sauce. So that made up— and some garlic. So that made up the basis for this loaf. And I'm just showing people how you can roll it. But I want this to get some nice color because honestly, you know, you want to see some visuals of this. So I'm going to let this bake for about half an hour and I'm going to brush it with some more ketchup. Or you could use any kind of sauce, chili sauce. I'm in love with sweet chili sauce now.

Yeah, I know.

Oh, I know, I use it. And then you could change the spices in this too. Say you wanna make it something more Mediterranean or Moroccan or something, you can adjust your spices in this to make it and use whatever kind of sauce you want to. So then we're gonna bake it, brush it, and let it cook for probably about another half an hour. The best thing you can do with meatloaf is get yourself, or with anything you cook, a little digital thermometer. Because we want to make sure, especially with ground meat, the problem we have with ground meat is there's so many edges because it's double ground. When it gets— goes through once, it's ground up, and then they feed it through again. So it's double ground. So that's making so many edges where bacteria can cling to and get us sick. And that's why we have so many problems with ground beef. That's because of how it's prepared. So you want to make sure you cook it to 165 degrees. Okay. So that's where this comes in nice and handy. And just remember not to have it set on centigrade because you'll make yourself crazy wondering why it's not warm or hot.

That happened to me 2 weeks ago. What? It's 89 degrees? Oh my God, I have to serve it. What's wrong with my oven? After an hour. That's the point.

So, you know, insert it in when it's cooked, get a reading. Meat temperature will rise about 10 degrees after it comes out.. But you really want to make sure if it's, if it's ground, that it's at 165 before you take it out. All right. And again, the longer you leave it in, then it's going to get drier. So it's that sweet spot that you find. So that's my tip on that. And then over here we have our red flannel hash, which is going to cook down a little bit more, but it's looking pretty good.

That looks fantastic. That looks like dessert. And I bet it's sweet too, between the fennel and the Beets.

This is very nice. I would like it to crisp up a little bit. So I'm thinking I might put it in a very high oven to let it finish. We'll see. This is going to be for dinner tonight, so I don't want to finish it all the way either way, or possibly just a bigger, clean frying pan with oil in it, hot.

Yeah, I like things a little crispy.

I think that'll be— and I'll probably do that instead. I'll just get— I have a bigger skillet. This was a lot for this skillet, and that could have probably been the problem. It had been wider, it would have— and or made a smaller amount, it would have crisped up better. So I'm thinking that's probably the problem with this. Let's see, do you recommend sea or kosher salt in the early stages instead of fine salt? Michael, you know, I don't almost ever have kosher salt in the house, but I do always have sea salt in the house. I know there are certain applications you want to use, like brining and stuff. You want to use kosher salt. The fine salt is going to have— you're going to end up using a lot more fine salt if you try to use the same amount. So that's one of the reasons to use kosher salt, because it measures differently. You always have to cut back when a recipe calls for coarse salt and you use fine. You have to cut back the amounts. I mean, I know you know that. But that would be one of the things. Like I said, I almost never have kosher salt in the house, but I have coarse, all different kinds of sea salt, so they're fine. But my all-purpose salt is just like a Mediterranean fine sea salt. And be consistent with what you use because you know how to salt things at home. So if you're using a coarse salt, you know how much coarse salt goes in there because your taste buds will tell you. Using a fine salt, you know how much sea salt, how much salt to use because your taste buds will tell you. So it's all a matter of using what you're used to. Okay. So in here we have fennel, shallots, garlic, beets, and potatoes. And I steamed them all. And what I did mention was that, you know, you could just roast them all if you didn't want to do it in a pan. So this is something you could get ready ahead of time, put it in your refrigerator, and the next morning come on and the next day when you come home, put it in the oven and let it cook. So you have dinner, nice dinner waiting for you.

That looks great. I mean, who wouldn't? I mean, you know, think of kids. You show that to kids, they're going to gobble it up.

Absolutely. And this is a great way to get them to eat beets because it looks colorful. That's right. It almost looks like, like maraschino cherries.

Exactly. Yeah. Now you had some— you were beautiful. Yeah, yeah. That's what— there's so much good stuff in there. You know, good for, good for kids and fun to eat and so on. So now you had that, the fennel greens.

Oh, yep. And what I was going to do with the fennel greens is simply Just chop them up a little bit. And when you go to serve— Oh, beautiful. You know, again, visual. It's just a matter of visually pleasing. You can't see it as much, but just to add a little bit on, make it a little more appealing. And that's it. So that's our kitchen table. It was a little ambitious, but it shows you what you can accomplish in an hour. What time is it? Yeah, we've been on an hour. So again, this is stuff you can do ahead of time. Like I said, with the meatloaf, I've made enough for the two of us. I'm going to— I'm going to break it down into two and I may wrap one. I think I will wrap one in the parchment paper and freeze it. That way. Okay, that way. And then take it out for lunch or whatever. We'll take it out when I want to have another one. We want to have another meatloaf because that'll be plenty for us to eat. And you could make them up ahead of time, or, you know, make a few while you're doing it. You know, it's always best to cook once and eat twice or three times. So, you know, that's a good way to do some extra work. And then, you know, once it's frozen, put it in a Ziploc bag, Close it up. Good. Date it. Write what it is on it. Leave it in the parchment. And then when you're ready to cook, take it out the day before, let it thaw out and bake it.

And you can also put it on an open-faced sandwich.

Absolutely. Yeah, I think we may do that to get some nice sourdough bread. Yeah. What kind of cheese? What do you think? Cheese? Yeah. Oh, come on. We're going to have some cheese.

I don't think so. No, you're not going to do cheese.

Oh, okay. I was thinking some kind of cheese on it just to make it again, more interesting. But definitely some fried onions. I think I will French fry some onions.

You need like a remoulade kind of thing. You know, that's, that's what they do over there so much, almost like a tartar sauce, but, but different. Yeah, with different flavors.

Basically a tartar sauce, swapping out and putting some chili sauce in or putting some mustard in and just make some different, different sauces for your sandwich. Excellent. Gouda. Gouda. There you go, Michael.

Well, this is beautiful. This is visually beautiful. Love the colors. Fun for the winter. Nice. And who knew anyone would put collards in meatloaf? Great. It did come out well.

I mean, I like it.

Yeah. I like, you know, I like things when they have visual interest. Mm-hmm. You know, that's, that's part of it. Like, just like your kitchen. Yeah, same thing. You know, it can function, but it's gotta look good too.

And if you come, if you're— enjoyment, your partner comes home, you say we're having meatloaf for dinner, and they go, and then you bring this out. That's right. That's a whole different game. Beautiful. All right. So well, thank you. Next week we are doing well, and just about 10 minutes, I'm coming on with Christine Thomas. To make our vegan chocolate silk pie. So that'll be coming up next.

That's not guilty. That's a not guilty dessert.

No. And then next week we're going to do some lo mein. I think it's shrimp lo mein and some fried rice. So show you how easy it is to mix those up for a nice little change of pace for dinner. So that's what we're trying to bring you now, some change of pace for dinner to liven up your kitchen. With some easy food to make and change up your menu a bit.

Sounds great. Good job. Sounds great. I'm hungry. Nice seeing you today.

I know I am too. So thanks for coming around our kitchen table and we'll see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye.