Last night’s community dinner was fun, and inspired by my mama. I used her recipes and the new kitchen tools she gave me for Christmas. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t really in need of any new kitchen tools but I think she got the thought from the fact that I had mentioned about possibly giving it a full room makeover at some point in the future (so the thought was there). Don’t get me wrong, I love how it looks, but I think it could do with a bit of an update. If I were to do this, I would probably use somewhere like this kitchen renovation melbourne company that my friend recently used for her remodel because it looks fantastic. I’m not even going over the top when I say that it’s probably one of the nicest kitchens I’ve ever seen in my life and I would love for mine to look like that too. But this was just an idea that I had; I’m not sure if this is something that I definitely want to do. In the meantime, I’m just going to make do with all of the new kitchen toys that I can play with.
We had my mom’s Mexican Meatloaf (which I doubled, and oops — only used 1/2 the amount of breadcrumbs I should have. It was more like Mexican Soupy Meatloaf.), fresh baked bread, salad and crispy oatmeal cookies. The cookies and the bread recipes are in the January/February issue of Cooks Illustrated. Both great recipes, although I will cook the bread a bit longer and add cinnamon and raisins to the cookies next time.
Mexican Meatloaf is yummy. The trick is to add a dash of cayenne. I also cooked the ground turkey (healthier) in beer beforehand to give it a bit of a kick. I think my spice register is off because everyone said this was a bit too hot.
I put my pretty turquoise Marty Dutch oven to use baking No Knead Bread 2.0.
This time I added sesame, poppy and flax seeds to the top to give it a bit more.
Next time, I want to try the walnut and cranberry version.
I had a chance to use another new kitchen toy last night too — this scoop. It really does make baking cookies much easier. They are all the same size, so voila — they cook equally. One thing I have been looking at getting, is a new oven to bake cookies in. A friend of mine sent me something similar to this article and it’s really made me want to buy one! You guys know how much I love cookies!
I’d love to have a photo of the finished product, but they were either eaten or packaged up for the road before I had a chance. Next time!
If I haven’t mentioned it this week, Cooks Illustrated is my new favorite reading material. I love this magazine. My friend John bought me a subscription to Bon Appetite for Christmas and I have two pretty new issues waiting to be read this weekend too. I am going to use these weekly community dinners to try new recipes and techniques. Worst case scenario, there is a great pizza place on the corner.
~K