Meatloaf Ramekins on Vacation
2002-04-22 @ 1:55 p.m.
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Today is the first day of my vacation. Well, I guess technically yesterday was, but since I never have to work on Sundays anyway (blessed be blue laws), yesterday didn't seem to count. The first half of the week I'm staying home to catch up on everything from yard work to reading. Then on Thursday evening Jake and I are embarking on our Spring fling.
It's become almost a tradition that Jake and I take a Spring trip. It started with the trip to California two years ago. Then last year was the bicycling trip to Tallahassee and St. Marks. This year we are taking the bicycles again. Maybe I shouldn't tell you where we're going in case Badsnake wants to do another "where in the world are Jake and Deb." The reality is much less interesting than the mystery anyway. Though I will say that a Bed and Breakfast is involved and that whatever Badsnake and Sara are doing while we're gone, we'll be partaking in our own variety of the same. I'm looking forward to the bicycling and exploring. I'm also looking forward to what happens at the B&B (not necessarily breakfast).
Last night I made meatloaf in little individual serving ramekins. Jake says that ramekin sounds like small people that inhabit the woods, like elves and fairies. There was much more conversation to be had around that subject, but I can't remember any of it now. Jake and Sara can start a joke and carry places you would never guess. They can make each other laugh so hard you think one of them is going to leave a puddle under the chair. As a consequence they make us laugh. We like that.
I like to mix sausage in with ground meat when I make meatloaf. Last night I squeezed the meat out of the casings of a couple of Italian sausages (turkey sausage) and added it to about a pound of ground turkey. I also added a couple of eggs, chopped fresh parsley and oregano, about a half cup of pesto, a small can of tomato paste, bread crumbs, minced onion, celery chopped very small, salt and pepper. It takes a while to mix that all in, making sure the sausage gets thoroughly blended with the ground turkey. Then spray non-stickum on the inside of the ramekins and dip the meat mixture into them. (Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.) This made 6 ramekins. Put the ramekins on a cookie sheet (I line the cookie sheet with aluminum foil to keep it from getting the meat juices baked on) and cook in the oven. It took about 45 minutes.
The ramekins actually made a little larger serving than most of us wanted to finish. But meatloaf makes good leftovers. My grandmother used to make meatloaf sandwiches for my grandfather to take to his job in the zinc mines in east Tennessee. I still like to make meatloaf sandwiches with lots of mayonaise with the leftovers.
We had a Bourgogne with dinner. The meatloaf (and macaroni and cheese) was spicy enough that a Syrah or Zinfindel would also have matched up nicely, possibly even better.
After dinner Ricky and Lucy joined us, and we all went out to the new deck (on Jake and Sara's house) for cocktails and dessert. Sara made some great chocolate chip cookies. It was a beautiful, breezy evening, and we stayed up a little too late and had a little too much fun for those who had to get up early this morning for work. Bad was planning to wake up Jake and Sara to walk this morning but six o'clock came way too early. Or was it five? All I know when Bad gets up that early is that I get the bed to myself for a while. This morning she came back to bed after letting Angel out to pee and snuggled up to me. When I woke up again at nine, Angel was curled up next to me with her head on my tummy. It was a nice way to start my vacation.
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