Corn Muffins That Don't Suck

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My son had a feast at school today and instead of being lazy and volunteering to send in popcorn I decided to make corn muffins. The only corn muffins I have ever made were the Jiffy ones that you buy the mix for- they were dry and gross. Boxed mixes suck- homemade is always way better.

Now, I am no Martha Stewart- so when I need a recipe I consult cook books and the good old Internet. I found this recipe that had good ratings on All Recipes (my favorite recipe site- the only one other than Cook's Illustrated that I ever use).

These muffins came out delicious and I will most definitely be keeping the recipe in my arsenal to use in the future. One issue with the recipe is that it calls for buttermilk; if you are like me your local grocery store may not carry this ingredient but that issue is easily solved. To make one cup of buttermilk pour one tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice (I squeezed a fresh lemon because I couldn't find lemon juice in the totally crowded store) and then fill the measuring cup with enough milk to equal one cup. Let it sit for five minutes and you have your very own homemade (and frugal) buttermilk to make these muffins or anything else your heart desires.

Corn muffins- yum!

The Best Bread Ever

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I wanted to make bread to go along with our dinner last night and wanted to try something new so I headed to my most favorite recipe spot- All Recipes.

I found this recipe for Italian Bread that could be made in the bread machine (I don't make bread unless I can use my bread machine) and let me tell you- it is the best bread I have ever made! It honestly tastes just as good as the Italian bread you get from the supermarket bakery and is way cheaper.

Now granted, the recipe is not 100% done in the bread machine. The machine makes the dough for you, which in my opinion is the most time consuming and pain in the butt part about making bread, but you have to shape the dough into a loaf, let it rise one more time and them bake it. But I promise you, the minimal work that you put into this bread will turn out in pure perfection.

My mouth is watering right now but I would suppose it is too late to make a loaf of bread :  (

Yummy Pancakes...

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I just made these pancakes for the kids and they loved them! To make them a smidge healthier I did half unbleached all purposed flour and half whole wheat flour.

I really wished that I made a double or triple batch because there are non leftover to freeze- It figures though. Whenever I made a huge batch of something the kids hate it and whenever I make a small batch they love it.

Meatloaf That Actually Tastes Good!

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When I did my freezer cooking I knew that I wanted to make meatloaf. I absolutely love meatloaf and especially love it when it is cold out with some homemade mashed potatoes on the side.

Usually when I make meatloaf I just throw a bunch of stuff together and cross my fingers that it will come out somewhat decent but this time, since I was making three pans of meatloaf, I wanted to use a real recipe. I found this one on All Recipes (I love All Recipes for easy to make recipes and Cook's Illustrated for more labor intensive special recipes).

I followed all of the directions exactly except for a few minor changes. First, I decided to soak the bread cubes in the milk before mixing them into the other ingredients. Why soak the bread, you may ask? Well, soaking the bread makes the meatloaf more moist- especially helpful when you are using lean meat in your recipe (I used 90% ground beef). This also holds true for hamburgers, meatballs, etc. The next thing I did a bit differently was that I sauteed the chopped onions in butter until they were softened. I did this because my family likes the taste of onions but not actual onions. By softening them I was able to make sure that by the time the meatloaf was done cooking that the onions would be fully cooked through and not at all crunchy therefore giving us the taste and not the texture of onions. Lastly, instead of the glaze that the recipe called for (I am just not into ketchup on top of meatloaf) I used brown gravy (not made from scratch- I used one of those seasoning packets because I am lazy and because it was cheaper than the canned gravy).

When I mixed up the ingredients I got a little (okay, a lot) worried about the amount of mustard that was called for because my husband is not a mustard person (I on the other hand could drink mustard out of the bottle I love it so much). But don't worry, once the meatloaf is cooked you can barely taste any mustard- the ingredients just seem to meld together into something very tasty.

I'm not sure how everyone else makes meatloaf to freeze, but I did not cook mine before freezing- I just mixed up all of the ingredients, put into loaf pans and froze. The only thing that my picky self will eat that has been cooked and then frozen are meatballs. Anything else would cause me to throw up. Picky? Yes, yes I am.

Both my husband and I really liked this recipe, which is good because I have two more in the freezer and I would have literally started crying if tasted like crap. The meatloaf came out moist and had a wonderful flavor. My kids did not touch it but that is because at the moment they are adverse to anything with ground beef- I wonder where they get their pickiness from?

I guess what I am saying after all of this senseless babbling is that this recipe is a keeper. No more dry, tasteless meatloaf for me!