Granted, meatloaf is hardly a gourmet concept to start with, and certainly Rachael Ray will not be the one to take it to that next level. Nevertheless, meatloaf is a comfort food standby for many people, my husband included. Every Christmas Eve, when RJ’s mom whips up a stylish Lobster Newburg for the family, she also makes a meatloaf for her two sons. Her version (RJ’s favorite) involves dry mustard, celery salt, and Worcestershire for flavoring, as well as a topping of barbecue sauce and bacon. It is very yummy and definitely satisfies the requirements of comfort food.

My mini meatloaves, however, are finished in far less time (haha – hence the “30 Minute Meals” origin), and I have jazzed them up a bit – a riff on Rachael Ray’s version, which you can find here (if you must – but don’t trust the disgusting picture – I promise they’re good!) .

Mini Meatloaves with Blue Cheese and Mushroom Gravy, adapted from Rachael Ray

Meatloaves:

1 ½ lbs. ground meatloaf mix (beef, veal, and pork – if your grocery doesn’t sell this or the makings of this, just use ground beef chuck)

1 large egg, beaten

¼ c. milk

½ c. bread crumbs (I used the Italian-flavored ones, but whatever you have is fine – use a bit more if you are using panko)

½ c. grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano

4 to 6 big leaves of fresh sage, thinly sliced

Black pepper

2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil

4 thin slices prosciutto di Parma, pancetta or bacon

Sauce:

8 or so cremini (baby portobello) mushrooms, sliced

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 Tbs. butter

1 Tbs. all-purpose flour

1 c. whole milk (plus more if needed)

pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Scant ¼ c. crumbled Gorgonzola (or more, by preference)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground meat, beaten egg, milk, breadcrumbs, cheese, sage and pepper to taste. Try not to over mix, as this makes the loaves really dense and not as good. Form the mixture into four equally-sized loaves (like ovoid hamburgers) about 1 ½ inches thick.

Preheat a non-stick skillet over medium heat and add the oil. Cook the loaves in the skillet just long enough to brown the outside – 2 to 3 minutes per side. Place them on an oiled or parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Top the loaves with prosciutto (or pancetta or bacon) to cover in one layer. Bake for about 8 minutes.

While you’re waiting for the meatloaves to finish cooking, make the sauce. In the same skillet used to brown the meatloaves, add the mushrooms and the garlic (and a bit more olive oil if the pan is dry) and sauté over medium heat.

When mushrooms are browned to your liking (about 5 minutes for me), add a tablespoon of butter to the pan to melt. Once melted, add the tablespoon of flour and stir to combine. Let cook one minute, then add milk to the pan slowly, stirring constantly. Keep adding milk until you reach the desired consistency for gravy, or even a slight bit thinner. Add in the pinch of nutmeg and the blue cheese, stir to combine.

Serve the meatloaves topped with the gravy. The gravy is also great on top of mashed potatoes, baked potatoes or plain rice.

The slow cooker is truly an excellent invention.  If it is not possible, in this time of your life, to sit around the stove all day long, stirring a bubbling pot until dinnertime, the slow cooker can do the work for you.  I find it particularly helpful during the week, when a bit of chopping in the morning or the night before is all you need to ensure a hot meal when you return home from work.  In the case of this weekend, I was in New York, and had no intention to sit around my friend’s apartment all day.  We told several friends to show up at 7 for dinner, then left the house and did the same.

In my experience, there are two different kinds of slow cooker recipes.  The first is emblematic of the cooking of the 1970s, when the machine first arrived on the scene.  These recipes usually call for only 3 to 5 ingredients, and often involve a canned Campbell’s soup of some kind.  Though these are for the slow cooker, they are not Slow Food.  The gummy glop of salty paste that slurps out of the soup may be very easy when faced with the alternative of slowly caramelizing vegetables, reducing fresh cream infused with herbs, and pureeing the aromatic mixture into a soup, but which option would you prefer to eat?  The recipes in some slow cooker cookbooks are simple and fast, but the results they impart have given the appliance a bad reputation for bland, mushy food with an ‘off’ aftertaste.

Not to worry – there is also a library of cookbooks featuring slow cooker recipes that do not compromise flavor to save a few minutes in the kitchen.  And I do mean a few minutes – the slow cooker is nothing if not a time-saver.  Some of my favorite reference manuals are: Not your Mother’s Slow Cooker Recipes, the Williams-Sonoma slow cooker cookbook, and 150 Slow Cooker Favorites.  I also just picked up The Gourmet Slow Cooker, and will let you know how it tests out.  These books are characterized by the use of fresh ingredients and a bit more thought about the importance of seasoning and taste.  By taking the time to brown meat on the stove before you put it in the slow cooker or stirring in some fresh herbs at the end of the process, you can boost the flavor of the dish ten-fold!

Now for the stew.  This recipe is adapted from two different recipes in the Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker: Recipes for Entertaining book.  Jerry and I mixed and mingled our favorite parts of each, and encourage you to swap in your favorite veggies for ours.

Ingredients:
6 slices of thick-cut bacon
1/3 c. whole wheat flour
3 lbs. lean beef stew meat, cut into 1 to 1 1/2 inch cubes
2 cups chopped and cleaned leeks
3-4 large carrots, cut in rounds (or 1 small bag of baby carrots)
1/2 lb. new potatoes (if large, clean skin and chop into large dice; if small, halve them)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
16 oz. can of chestnuts packed in water
2 cups beef broth
2 cups dry red wine
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper

Chop the bacon into 1/2 inch pieces.  Put bacon into a large skillet preheated over medium heat and cook, stirring, until the fat renders and the bacon begins to brown.  Remove bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat in the pan.  Put the bacon into the slow cooker insert.

Beef browning & just floured

Put the flour into a large sealable plastic bag or a bowl with deep sides.  Season the flour liberally with salt and pepper; stir to distribute.  Add the beef and toss to coat.  Return the bacon fat to medium-high heat and add the floured beef in batches, taking care not to crowd the pan.  The beef pieces should not be crammed together or they will not brown properly.  Turn the pieces of beef to brown all over, then remove the beef to the slow cooker insert.  If you want to save time here, you can distribute the bacon fat between two pans and do the meat batches simultaneously, or skip the browning altogether (though I find that it is worth it, flavor wise, to take the time to brown).

When the meat is done, take a look at the pan.  If you have fat left in the pan, great, otherwise add a tablespoon of oil and let it get to temperature.  Add the carrots and leeks to the pan, stirring to grab up the browned bits of meat and bacon on the bottom of the pan.  Depending on how thick you cut your carrot slices, cook these veggies for 7-12 minutes, until the leeks are softened and the carrots are just beginning to get tender but still snap in the middle when you bite into them.  Add veggies to the cooker along with the cut potatoes.

Stir the tomato paste, beef broth, wine and chestnuts into the stew until they are evenly distributed.  Tuck the bay leaf into the liquid and place the lid on the slow cooker, and set the dial to low for 8 hours, or high for 4 hours. We used a 6 1/2-quart Cuisinart oval Slow Cooker for this recipe and it was probably at the limits of capacity (if the slow cooker is filled more than 3/4 full, the dish will cook unevenly).  If you have a round slow cooker or a smaller-capacity one, simply use a bit less meat.

When we returned from our city-trekking, the entire floor of the apartment building smelled divine.  Our guests arrived momentarily and the feast was ready to go, with the kitchen already clean, no less!  We served the stew with a delicious whole wheat sourdough boule that nicely sopped up the leftover liquid.  A perfect fall meal!

This weekend we hosted two of our close friends for dinner, both of whom are foodies in their own right.  The pressure, of course, to maintain my reputation as a great cook (I talk a big game!) was on.  Visions of Osso Buco, bacon and pear soda bread (!), and flourless chocolate cake danced through my brain.  Thankfully, experience has taught me that if I try to outdo myself with some elaborate three course spread, the result is usually one of two unfavorable situations: either I end up spending 90% of the time in the kitchen rather than with my friends, or one or more dishes flops, overcooks or reaches the table cold.   These are not the outcomes upon which a good reputation is made!  Inevitably, too, the end of the night finds my husband and me faced with heaps of dirty dishes and flour-soaked counter tops.

As a consequence, I am slowly developing a repertoire of recipes that are my “old faithfuls” – they often have steps that can be completed well ahead of guest arrival, the cooking time is minimal or at least unattended, and I have made them all so often that I know that I can pull them off within a set time frame and to great effect.

Saturday night I turned to an old, old faithful – my dad’s fantastic steak marinade.   This is one of those concoctions whose composition can actually vary slightly depending on what the pantry holds, but the driving concept is a mélange of sweet, salty and savory flavors which transform an inexpensive cut of meat into a delectable and simple main course for a crowd.

Ingredients:
3 lbs. London broil steak, preferably thick cut
1 cup red wine, preferably some that has been sitting out for several days
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 tbsp. teriyaki sauce
3 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
6-10 shakes Outerbridges Sherry Pepper sauce (what would a secret family recipe be without at least one obscure ingredient!?)
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 small onion, peeled and thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 inch of ginger root, peeled and sliced

As with most marinade recipes, the instructions are fairly straightforward – mix together in a bag, insert steak, wait 3 hours, grill and eat.   Nevertheless, I’m going to walk you through it – the process is easy, the ingredients each deserve a little more elaboration.

First, the steak.  This, in particular, requires further discussion.  It must be said that London broil is not an actual cut of meat – it is a form of preparation, and not the preparation I’m about to describe.

My steak was actually chuck shoulder steak.  Sometimes flank steak or top round is labeled “London broil.”  My thought?  It doesn’t matter.  This marinade performs miracles with beef.  That’s all I’m sayin…

So, take your ill-defined piece of meat and a sharp knife and make cross-hatch marks in the steak.  These should be VERY shallow cuts in the surface of the steak, on both sides.  Why do I do that?  I assume it has something to do with the penetration of the marinade flavor into the meat, but the real reason is that my dad does it that way.  Put the steak(s) into a gallon-size sealable plastic bag.

Now, for the marinade: when it comes to the wine, my dad insists that you use leftover red wine.  This has something to do with the vinegary-ness (new technical term) of wine that has been sitting in contact with oxygen over a couple of days.

Vinegar has the effect of tenderizing meat.  Hence, my dad is convinced that vinegary-tasting wine will have same effect.  Hey, the proof is in the pudding – make this recipe and try and tell me it isn’t true.

To the red wine, add the soy and the Teriyaki, as well as the Worcestershire and a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.

Sidebar: the next ingredient is a secret weapon.  Not to be used lightly – it has a very strong flavor – it adds that extra something to sauces, dips and, of course, steak marinades.  It is called Outerbridges Sherry Pepper Sauce, and It…Is…Awesome.  Spicy, vinegary goodness.  It hails from Bermuda originally, and can be purchased there or, if you prefer…, online.  Go forth and purchase at will.  Don’t forget some of their Swashbuckling Steak Sauce – you’ll thank me later.  Right now, though, add some shakes of the Sherry Pepper Sauce into the marinade.

Drop into the bag your sliced onions, garlic and ginger.  Mmm…

Now, your marinade is assembled.  Seal the bag and shake it to distribute the solids throughout the liquid and make sure the steak gets a good coating.  Stick it in the fridge and let it rest for 3-10 hours.  This weekend, 6 was perfect.  If you remember, flip the steak a couple times during that span.

Preheat your grill and cook the steak to your liking, 4-5 minutes per side for medium rare.  As a warning: if your liking is more cooked than medium, this is not your cut of meat.  An over-cooked London broil is rather tough, chewy and gross.  VERY IMPORTANT: when your meat is cooked, and laid out across the cutting board, you must slice the steak properly to get the most out of this meat.  Angle a carving knife at about a 60 degree angle to the cutting board.

Slice down on an angle, against the grain of the meat (perpendicular to the long side of the steak).  Make thin slices, about 1/4 inch thick.  Fan out meat on the plate and serve!

The inevitable leftovers are great for steak sandwiches or a great salad for tomorrow – far more economical than a “5 dollar foot-long” sub sandwich.  Happy eating.