Mexican Meatloaf and Brown Rice with Veggies and Green Chilies. And Cashew Cookies!

Mexican Meatloaf

Fresh out of my recent self-imposed Vegetarian Week, I am making MEATLOAF. I have never made meatloaf before. In fact, I have rarely eaten meatloaf. I saw this recipe for Mexican Meatloaf in my most recent issue of Healthy Cooking magazine and well, maybe it was my slightly guilty subconscious wanting to make amends to the meat-loving hubby, or maybe it was just a beef-craving day, but I decided to buy all the ingredients and make it.  (But do not fret – I am planning some meatless meals this week too!). On Sunday I chopped all my veggies and prepared a container of all my pre-measured dry ingredients, so this was utterly simple to toss together tonight after work. I made half of the original recipe using one pound of lean ground sirloin.

Ready for the oven:

This meatloaf had a very tasty flavor, but my primary issue was with the texture. Mine did not seem to stiffen up well, and the texture was a tad on the soggy side. Perhaps more egg or bread crumbs may have have helped. With that said, this was a tasty main dish!

 

Rice with Veggies and Green Chilies

On the side, I made Rice with Veggies and Green Chilies, inspired by THIS recipe. I basically simmered various chopped veggies (zukes, red bell pepper, carrot, onion, corn, garlic) in a few splashes of leftover beef broth with a bay leaf until soft, drained the excess liquid and stirred in a package of Steamfresh Brown Rice (I adore this product!), a spoonful of margarine and a can of diced green chilies.

Considering that today was Monday, I was in quite a good mood when I got home from work tonight. I couldn’t really tell ya why… I was starving from only having eaten half my lunch (and not until 2pm) today, peeved by the negative wind chills, annoyed that I couldn’t pull my car up our snowy, icy driveway and had to park in the street temporarily and trudge through the snow in my dress shoes, eternally pissed at Comcast for our broken internet, but despite all this, I was having an impromptu solo karaoke/dance session in my kitchen tonight whilst drumming up the energy to bake cookies after working all day and then cooking dinner.

Cashew Cookies

I’ve had this idea in my head for the past several days that I wanted to make a recipe using some of the nuts I received for Christmas from my Aunt Anne (remember these?). I figured the cashews or the pistachios were my best bets in the baking world, and not the Smokehouse Almonds. I found a very easy recipe for Cashew Cookies from THIS website using minimal ingredients (I halved the recipe to make 15 cookies):

• rolled oats, ground in food processor/blender for 15-30 seconds
• sugar
• salt
• baking powder
• egg
• cashews
• butter
• vanilla extract

Before baking, I sprinkled with sea salt; however, I would recommend waiting until after baking if you like the texture and taste of the chunky sea salt crystals on your cookies (like I do!).

Check out that sea salt:

These flattened out a bit during baking (possibly because my butter was not softened and/or because I did not allow my butter and sugar mixture to cream long enough). Despite that fact, these were MUY DELICIOSO! No, these are not remotely Spanish, but MMM MMM! Sweet and salty. Soft and chewy yet crunchy. Love love love! I had three for dessert tonight.

 

Ratings & Recipes

Mexican Meatloaf

• Link to recipe
• Rating: 7.5/10

 

 

 

Rice with Veggies and Green Chilies

• Inspired by this recipe (but I changed it up quite a bit!)
• Rating: 7.5/10

 

 

Cashew Cookies

• Link to recipe
• Rating: 9/10 (would be 10/10 if they baked properly!)

 

Currently listening to: The xx – Teardrops.