Recipe: Meatloaf

First day of October! Autumn's definitely here, yay! Comfort food season...

It's been a very long while since I posted a recipe on here! But I recently remembered about, and then made, a childhood favourite of mine - my mum's meatloaf.

She doesn't use a recipe, and it's super simple and quick to prepare, it literally just takes a few minutes. I got six portions out of the following:

Ingredients:

• 500g lean minced beef
• Half a packet sage and onion stuffing mix
• One tin chopped tomatoes
• Two beef Oxo cubes or rough equivalent

Method:

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees C
• Put the minced beef in a bowl and break it up with a spoon or fork
• Add the other ingredients, crumbling the stock cubes in
• Mix well, adding about half a tin of water as well, until thoroughly combined
• Transfer mixture from bowl to a prepared tin, either a loaf tin or a square cake tin
• Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, till cooked through

I don't have a loaf tin (well I do but it's in storage) so used my loose-bottomed square cake tin, and lined it with baking/parchment/greaseproof paper/whatever that stuff is (I don't know the difference between them, if there is one). I had to let the meatloaf cool a bit before lifting it out of the tin to cool completely, otherwise it probably would have collapsed, but once cool it was solid and could be cut. Although obviously if you're just going to be eating it hot straightaway for dinner, it doesn't really matter too much if it collapses!

As I said, it's not exact. You'll probably need to adjust the amounts of things, even the baking time and temperature, till you get a taste and consistency you're happy with. But it's super quick and easy to make and very yummy! Growing up we used to have it for dinner with chips and peas and sweetcorn, but it's equally good cold for lunch with some salad. Let me know what you think if you give it a go!

Cold meatloaf with salad

Recipe: Banana oat energy balls

These are something I make quite often, whenever I have overripe bananas lying around. Banana bread is yummy, but it also has quite a bit of sugar in. With just two ingredients, these snack balls are really quick and easy to make, and make a good healthy snack, or even a decent sort of breakfast if you only have time to grab something to-go on your way out the door.

I have measuring cups and a rounded tablespoon measure, but if you don't have those just estimate with a regular-sized mug and a dessert spoon or large serving spoon.

Banana-oat mixture, baking tray, tablespoon measure, and teaspoon

Ingredients:
 - Over-ripe banana/s
 - Rolled oats, half a cup per banana

Method:
 - Set the oven to about 180 degrees Celsius (no need to be exact).
 - Prepare a baking tray by greasing it or lining it with some baking paper.
 - In a bowl, mash the banana well with a fork until it's pretty smooth with only very small lumps left.
 - Add the oats and mix together until well combined.
 - Scoop out a tablespoon of the mixture and shape into a small ball, and place on the baking tray, repeating until it's all gone. (I scoop the mixture out of the bowl using a rounded tablespoon measure, smooth the top, then scoop the mixture out of that onto the tray using a teaspoon, so it's really easy to make into a rough ball shape. Using two bananas I usually get between 10 and 12 balls.)
 - Bake for between 15 and 25 minutes - you may need to try it a few times to find out how well-done you like them.
 - Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool.

Using a tablespoon measure to scoop and shape

You could add other things to these. I like to mix in dark chocolate chips when I have them, and I've added crunchy sugar-free peanut butter before too. Other options are finely chopped nuts, raisins/sultanas or other dried fruit, or a little vanilla extract or honey. You could also use an ice-cream scoop to scoop and shape the balls, but they're larger so you'd need to bake them for a little longer.

Enjoy! :)

Recipe: Crispy peanut butter baked tofu

For dinner the other night I made crispy baked peanut butter tofu to go with a stir fry. So I thought I'd post the recipe! I got the quantities from one I found on the Minimalist Baker website.

For four portions, you'll need:

• 1 block of firm tofu, cut into small cubes
• 2.5 tbsp (40g) peanut butter (crunchy or smooth, your preference)
• 1.5 tbsp oil (sesame oil if you have it, but I just used sunflower oil because that's what I have; olive oil probably wouldn't taste quite right)
• 4 tbsp soy sauce or tamari (gluten-free soy sauce)
• 4 tbsp light brown sugar or honey

If you're familiar with cooking with tofu and know that you'd like more than a quarter-block as part of your meal, feel free to scale up. The above could equally serve as two larger portions.

Basically you can make this two ways. I've done both, but it was a couple of months between making each one so I can't remember which I prefer, haha. You can either marinade the uncooked tofu in the peanut butter mixture, then bake it; or you can bake the plain tofu then saute it in the sticky sauce. Try it both ways and see which you prefer!

Preheat oven to 200C, and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Option 1 - Bake first:

• Pour the cubes of tofu onto the lined baking tray, and bake in the pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes, or until it looks firm and crispy.
• Mix together the peanut butter, oil, soy sauce and sugar/honey.
• Pour the baked tofu and the sauce into a wok or other pan over a low-medium heat, and mix together for a few minutes (like, 3-5) until the sauce is warmed through.
• Serve with stir fry stuff! Veg, noodles or rice, etc.

Option 2 - Marinade first:

• Mix together the peanut butter, oil, soy sauce and sugar/honey, in a bowl.
• Add the tofu cubes and mix well till it's all coated. Leave to marinade for as long as you can (anything from 10 minutes to an hour to several hours, entirely up to you).
• Pour onto a lined baking tray and spread out a little so the cubes aren't clumped together.
• Bake for 25 minutes, or until at a level of crispiness you're happy with!
• Serve with stir fry stuff =]

I've just thought of an Option 3, which is a mixture of both: you could marinade the tofu cubes in soy sauce (or a mix of soy sauce and peanut butter) overnight (well, during the day), then bake, then saute them in the peanut butter sauce. I'll have to try doing that...

There isn't a picture, I'm afraid, as I thought of doing this post after I'd made it. Anyway, if you give this a go, hope you enjoy, and maybe let me know how you get on! :)