Tuesday night I made my Twangy Meatloaf for dinner. It is one of the family’s favorite meals, and it’s not all that expensive to prepare. I make my meatloaf a little different than most people do, as you can tell in the picture. I cook my meatloaf in muffin tins. This helps with portion control and it also cooks faster than a whole loaf does. I always make more meatloaf than we need for one meal, because we all love the leftovers. I call it twangy because the worcestershire sauce mixed with the ketchup has a twang to it. I could have made half of this recipe and had enough for one meal for our family of 7. I also made the family favorite sides mashed potatoes, and honey glazed carrots.

Twangy Meatloaf
2 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup of oatmeal
1 Tablespoon onion flakes
2 eggs, beaten
3 cups of ketchup
8 teaspoons worcestershire sauce

Combine turkey, oatmeal, onion flakes, and eggs in a bowl. In a separate bowl combine ketchup and worcestershire sauce. Add half of the ketchup mixture to the meat mixture, and combine. Spray muffing tins with non-stick spray of your choice. Fill each cup leaving a little room at the top, with my tins i got 18 meatloaf muffins. Put 1 Tablespoon of ketchup on each meatloaf and spread over the top. Bake at 375. I cooked mine for about 15 minutes, but cooking times will vary based on the size of your tins. If you wanted to be really creative you could put the meat in a mini-muffin tin and make bite size meatloaf, which little ones might really like. You will have between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup of the ketchup mixture left. I use this mixed with 2 cups of water when I make my gravy.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

10 medium sized potatoes, peeled & diced
1 8oz package of cream cheese, diced
1 stick of butter
1/4 cup of half and half
salt & pepper to taste

After your potatoes are peeled and diced, place them in a pot, add 1/2 tablespoon of salt, and cover with water. Boil until fork tender. While they are cooking dice your cream cheese and slice your butter; placing them in the bottom of your bowl. After potatoes are cooked, drain and place in bowl on cream cheese and butter. Add half and half, salt & pepper. I always start out with a little salt & pepper, tasting as I mix ; adding more as needed. Beat with a hand mixer until potatoes are creamed.

Honey Glazed Carrots

1 lb carrots, peeled & sliced
1/4 cup honey
1 stick of butter

Steam carrots, and drain. While carrots are draining melt butter in bottom of pan. Add carrots to butter, stirring lightly to coat. Add honey and heat until warm. This is a very quick and easy side dish.

This is one of our family favorite casseroles, but for some unknown reason I don’t make it that often. I’m trying to look at cooking as frugally as possible, and this is a dish that falls into that category. Tonight I’m serving this with garlic cheddar biscuits, and a salad. The use of chicken noodle soup may seem rather unconventional, but it’s mighty tasty. I hope you will try it with your family, and if you do, I’d love to hear what they thought of it.

Creamy Sausage Casserole

1 pound bulk turkey breakfast sausage

2 cans (10.5oz) chicken noodle soup

2 cans (10.5oz) cream of chicken soup

2 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, grated

8 cups cooked rice

Brown sausage in skillet. Mix rice, soups, & 1 cup of cheese together. When sausage is cooked, combine with rice/soup mixture, and spread in 9 x 13 baking dish. Heat at 325 until cheese melts and contents are bubbly.

Cheddar Garlic Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour

3 teaspoons garlic powder, divided

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup margarine

3/4 cup cheddar cheese

1 cup buttermilk

3 Tablespoons butter, melted

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, & 2 teaspoons of garlic powder. Cut in margarine then add cheese and buttermilk, and stir in until moistened. Drop by heaping tablespoons about 1 in apart on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Melt butter and mix in remaining teaspoon of garlic powder. After removing biscuits from oven, brush butter mixture over biscuits. You can bake biscuits for 3 or 4 additional minutes, or you can serve. Makes about 1 dozen biscuits.

I love baking soda! I buy boxes and boxes of the stuff. I have found tons of uses for it, and it makes my life so much easier. At times I wonder what I ever did before I found it. One of my favorite uses for it is when cleaning the stove. If you have greasy stubborn spots on the top, just dampen, add a little baking soda and wait about 5 minutes. The baking soda will absorb the grease, and the grittiness of it will help scrub the stain away. The best part is when dealing with those gross drip pans. You know the ones that get food permanently adhered to them? Well, if you just fill your sink with hot soapy water and add about 3 tablespoons of baking soda and the drip pans. Then you wait for about 10 minutes. Amazingly when you pick up the drip pans, almost all of the dirt will be removed, and what isn’t easily comes off. You almost feel like you are cheating when you do this because its so easy.

If you want some other great ideas, just drop by Rocks in My Dryer

Every Tuesday Tammy hosts Kitchen Tip Tuesday. This week she is talking about her pantry and food storage. Since I don’t have Photoshop re-installed on my computer yet I am going to use photos I’ve already uploaded before. Today Tammy linked to a post she did in the past about using jars for storage, which I also do. We live in a mobile home, so my kitchen is rather small. I wanted to be able to store food, but do so in an attractive way, since it is out in the open. I hope that what I have done, will spark some ideas about how to organize your kitchen. In January I did a post on my small kitchen, if you would like the full tour, feel free to stop by that post.

This is the top of my refrigerator. The beans are actually stored in juice decanters that I found at Wal-Mart. Lindsay and I were looking for unusual jars, and saw these. They are great for the beans and have an airtight seal.

This is the pantry that Gene built me. In the jars on the top shelf I have egg noodles, oatmeal, instant potatoes, brown sugar, & pancake mix all stored in cracker jars. I also have a few items stored behind the jars such as extra boxes of powdered milk. On the lower shelves you will see jars with powdered sugar, & cornmeal.

These jars hold my unbleached flour, prairie gold flour, sugar, and two of them hold cereal. I love these jars because of the wide mouths and the ease of use when baking. I was forever spilling sugar, and flour all over the place when trying to get it out of jars with smaller openings. The small openings also caused me to have to use a very small cup to scoop, which made it take much longer to measure out the big batches I make.

This is a shot of the whole pantry. A lot of people wouldn’t like it because it’s open, but I have found it helps me to keep things more organized. I considered hanging curtains on it, but felt they would be always getting in the way. I don’t mind the kitchen looking like a work center, because that’s what it is. I have come to realize that my kitchen is many things. It is the heart of our home, a place we work together, play together, laugh, joke and sometimes cry. It is a place where memories are made. While I want it to be practical and functional, I also want it to look welcoming and cozy.

Well, I’m off to organize my kitchen cabinets. I am going to be doing some de-cluttering and re-organizing of my cabinets this week.

I am getting my menu posted a little late, but hey, I have a good excuse. We had company for dinner tonight and on top of that some of the girls have been sick with a stomach bug and allergies.  That caused my day to be quite busy, with no time for the computer.

I will try to come back during the week and add links to recipes that I have planned for the week. I can’t wait to see what’s everyone’s planned and if you want to get in on the fun, drop by Laura’s blog.

Monday:
Brisket, Gold mashed potatoes, gravy, corn off the cob, honey glazed carrots & yeast rolls

Tuesday:
Meatloaf, leftover vegetables, macaroni & cheese

Wednesday:
Red beans & rice, cornbread & salad

Thursday:
Cajun injected chicken, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, butter beans

Friday:
Lentil soup with leftovers, & homemade bread

Saturday:
Sausage rice & cheese casserole, salad & homemade bread

Sunday:
Pasta casserole with pepperoni