Microwave Meatloaf

Okay, so I know you read the title and are thinking "you can't make good meatloaf in the microwave!" Aaaah but you can and here it is.

1 lb ground chuck or ground round
1 onion finely diced
1 tsp Paul Prudhomme's Poultry Seasoning
pinch salt
pinch of black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp minced fresh parsley (or dried if need be, but use 1/2 tsp if dried)
1/8 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 c Italian bread crumbs or crushed saltine crackers
1/2 cup spaghetti sauce (I use Meir Glen Garden Vegetable)
1 egg

Mix all the ingredients together well in a microwave safe - oven safe pyrex dish. Shape mixture into a ring, forming around the outside edge of the bowl. Microwave 7 minutes. Remove and squirt ketchup over the top. Microwave another 7-8 minutes. To finish you can place in the oven or under a low broiler for a crunchier top. When finished cooking, the fat from the beef will pool in the center hole of the ring and you can use a turkey baster to remove it or simply mop it up with paper towels.

What I love is that this is so fast and the shape allows you to remove the fat, which otherwise would absorb back into your meatloaf and make it all greasy. bleck!

So yummy with mashed potatoes and green beans or your veggie of choice. This also makes great meatloaf sandwiches the next day cold and freezes really well. You can make this gluten free by simply using Gluten Free Crackers for your bread crumbs. Doubles or triples really well too. But you will have to increase your cooking time if you do.

New Recipe Page

So cooking is once again on my mind, now that we are on our summer break. And because of that I thought I would add a recipe page on this blog and give everyone a heads up that it was there.
I've added a new recipe page here, since more people seem to read this blog than my other one. Just click on the side bar where it says Recipes to view the newest page. There are some yummy recipes on it and even more at my other blog. I intend on adding more that are not related to food allergies here at this blog to keep down the confusion.

Happy Cooking!

CTG Week 7

Squirt wrote a summary sheet about crystal growing and her observations. We learned about hieroglyphs, papyrus making, the 2nd Commandment, and Abraham- Sarah- and Isaac. Squirt drew her own cartouche using info from pg 41 of the Ancient Egypt book. She wrote a summary about what she learned about Egyptian reading and writing. And of course the 3 Rs are always completed each day.

I have not been really crazy about the Genesis for Kids science book. We have been skipping that for now. I have a science book I will be using down the road instead of the Genesis for Kids.

Squirt listened to Summer from Vivaldi's Four Seasons and drew two pictures.

We put Abraham, Sarah and Isaac on our timeline.

And we prepared for VBS and the start of the rest of the month off for our summer break. Can't wait for some beach time!

CTG more from Week 6

So here's a picture of our cube made out of paper pyramids. We finally managed the project after a template was created by our friend's science genius hubby. They emailed it to us and I simply printed it out. Squirt cut it out, folded and taped, and put it together. Worked great! The math in the book to calculate the slope of the sides of the pyramid was not clear and the math was way more than I could handle. So thankful I have such smart friends!

Squirt also managed to see the pyramid crystals we grew last week using water and super washing soda. It took about a day and a half before we started to see our first crystals develop. The started growing on the sides of the glass first and then a small thin layer developed around the surface of the water attached to the string. Here is our final project after about four days of growing. There was a larger layer of crystals on the string but they broke off when we pulled the string up out of the water. They looked the most like pyramids after about 48 hours or so. But we took off for Memorial Day, so I didn't get take pictures until four days into the project. Two days of growing would have given a sufficient product to see pyramid shaped crystals.