Spring Bunny

Happy Easter!

When I was shopping for the stuff for this meatloaf, I couldn't resist picking up an Easter lily and other pretty spring flowers. I figured I'd use them in the presentation and then bring them to my grandmother. It was worth it to see my daughter, 22 months, walk down the Park Slope street in a spring dress, carrying flowers. But I digress.

The bunny is covered in lots of ricotta cheese to give him rabbit-like fluffiness. (And come on, that cheese makes anything taste good.) For the pink in his ears and nose, I repurposed last week's pink mashed potatoes. And his eye is a simple bean.

Before baking, I used a knife to carve out lines on the basket. I hollowed out the basket using 3 raw eggs while baking. After it cooked I removed those eggs and replaced them with eggs my kids had colored and decorated. The two eggs on the right say Melody and Theo. Also in the basket is some curly parsley.

The "grass" is created from chives...I didn't trim them because I liked the look of the wild grass.

My intent was for the bunny to be peering in the basket, but my husband says it looks like he's pushing the basket. What do you think?

Layer Cake? April Fools!

Of course I didn't make this "cake" with the intention of actually fooling anyone. So imagine my delight when Melody walked in, saw it, and happily chirped, "Cake!" I asked my 21-month-old if she wanted some. "Yeah."

I fed her a bite and she made a face. Uhhh, mom, why isn't this sugary?

Wanna know how I made the pink "frosting?" I'm dying to tell you! When I started this blog I promised myself I wouldn't use food coloring. Dear readers, I kept my promise. I dyed my mashed potatoes using beet water--the water in which I steamed beets. My original thought was to puree the beets and mashed potatoes together, but once I realized that just the water would do the trick, I didn't need to take that extra step.

My husband showed me this awesome George Carlin bit...check it out, starting at :50 seconds. He does a bit where he can't identify leftovers in the fridge. "Is it meat or is it cake?" 

George Carlin - Food (Clean)

Glenn

MySpace Video

Legend of Zelda Meatloaf

Happy Birthday to My Brother--We Were LINKed By Blood, and Now Meatloaf.

Back in 1989, I used to watch my big brother play The Legend of Zelda on our Nintendo. We watched the cartoon they made out of it, and still quote it in 2010...more frequently than we should admit. Now we're playing the original game together, but on the Wii. We have played Zelda on various gaming systems; we're currently on the latest Nintendo DS version, Spirit Tracks.

Some of my happiest childhood memories involve gaming with my bro. And even though we're now grown with families of our own, when we pick up our controllers (which are wireless--wow), we're kids again.

I have to admit, this may be my favorite meatloaf so far--maybe because I couldn't wait to surprise Elliot with it and thought of his reaction with each element I added to it. This was the first meatloaf I've given away as a gift (I was glad to have a week off from eating it, despite how tasty it is!).

I love you, Ell. Pretty soon our kids will be gaming together.

P.S.Check it out, I'm not the only one to have made Link out of food.

P.P.S. You don't like the meatloaf? Well excuuuuuuuuuse me, princess!

http://www.zeldalegends.net/: Great site for hardcore fans!

Meat: The New Dough

This one's for you, mom. Mom asked me to do the Olympic rings and torch.

Shaping the rings: I started by rolling my meat, piece by piece. It rolled just like dough--in fact, the five rings looked like doughnuts.

As I worked, I couldn't help but wonder if I was a meat-rolling pioneer. Other than shaping meatballs, this seemed to be unexplored territory. What would an Iron Chef do if he knew about the possibilities offered by ground meat? The nature of the competition would be changed. Forever.

It's not just a matter of taking a chunk of meat in your hands and swishing it back and forth with your palms to create a cylindrical shape. To create smooth, elongated rolled strips, place the meat on your board and gently place your palms on the ends and roll forward in a swift motion. Bring your hands back to starting position and repeat this process. You should feel the meat stretching as it rolls--as you would dough. Man, this is exciting stuff.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I was talking about putting the rings together. My original plan was to interlock them using the raw meat, but that was surprisingly difficult. I eventually gave up and realized I could handle the meat better when it was cooked. Besides, I knew I'd be covering any mishaps with other food toppings.

When I thought about the colors, I wasn't into the idea of making purees. I decided to play with texture. For the flame of the torch I wanted two shades of orange, so I layered cheese with shaved cooked carrot (which gives off a richer orange hue than raw). I experimented with more textures for the rings: yellow melted cheese, red chopped peppers, lovely fresh green spinach, ye olde black bean paste that keeps popping up on my meatloaf...and purple cabbage. I like that this blog has me trying new foods--don't think I ever would have bought purple cabbage otherwise. It's good for my kids to see me modeling this, especially when I've always been a picky eater.

Steaming the spinach and cabbage very slightly allowed me to wrap the leaves onto the meat. The deeper colors were a plus as well.

I didn't think to look up the origins of the Olympics emblem until after I made the meatloaf. Turns out there are lots of rules on how you may or may not use the symbol. Well, after today, they're going to have to amend the rules to read "The interlocking version may be produced in any of the aforementioned colours, or in full colour. Or in meatloaf."

And the Cheesy Grammy Goes To...

I made this because the Grammy Awards are on tonight, but I don't know 90% of the nominated songs. Clearly I need to get my out of the meatloaf.

OK, tell me it looks like a trumpet after it was used to bash someone in the head--I can take it.

The Grammy posed a few head-scratchers:
1. How the heck do you make gold? (I have a no food coloring rule.)
Answer: You don't. Yellow is close, and cheese is yummy. And the Grammys are friggin' cheesy.

2. How do I make the hollowed out part of the phonograph?
Answer: I admit I'm stupidly proud of this soda can-mold idea.

See the lovely rim I formed from the meat? Sadly, that did not hold up in the baking process. But, good meatloaf lesson learned! Doncha know I'm making all this up as I go along.
3. How do I preserve decent meat sculpting once I pour the cheese sauce on?

Answer: I don't have a good answer, because I wasn't successful here. I had more difficulty controlling the cheese than I expected. Sounds like a good lesson for a culinary institute. "Today's lesson is: Controlling Your Cheese."
I played around with using more breadcrumbs than usual. I wanted dry meat for sculpting and I thought the shape would hold better. I was so excited when my meat easily rolled, like dough! The downside was, I ended up with cracks after it baked. I had to "glue" parts back together with cheese.
Food:
For the cheese sauce I made a simple roux and added milk, cream, cheese and salt. I chose a cheese sauce over melting shredded cheese directly on to the meat because I hoped to capture the glimmer of gold. That didn't quite work--maybe if the sauce had been thinner, but then I'd run the risk of it running everywhere.
For the base, I recycled last week's idea of making a paste out of black beans. It's a great "tool" for meatloaf art and I'm sure it will reappear in many of these creations.
If you've read this far, congratulations. Your reward is getting to see what a real Grammy award looks like.

Meet Bob: Meatbob

Ohhh, who lived in an oven in apartment 1G?
Spongebob Squarepants!
Edible and scrumptious and moist was he
Spongebob Squarepants!
If dining on Spongebob be something you wish
Then get your meatloaf creation onto a dish!