Turkey and Herb Meatloaf

For Valentine's Day I invited some of my single friends over for dinner.  I wanted to make something healthy and decided on a meatloaf.  I made up this recipe and it was a huge hit!! I am definitely going to make this one of my staples!  It feeds 4 people perfectly. I stole 2 slices to put in my lunch for the next day, but if I hadn't done that we would have eaten the whole loaf!! Whoops!  It was moist and full of flavor! I hope you enjoy it as much as my friends and I did!!

Turkey and Herb Meatloaf

1 pound ground turkey

1 tablespoon chopped chives

1 tablesoon chopped parsley

1 tablespoon chopped thyme
2 zucchinis, chopped very small (see note below)

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

4 garlic cloves, minced
2 eggs

1 onion chopped and sauteed, cooled

1 1/3 cup panko crumbs or breadcrumbs (plain or seasoned)

pepper to taste

**NOTE: I used a mini food processor to chop the herbs, the garlic, the onion, and the zucchinis.  I would do the zucchini separately, and make sure to squeeze out as much liquid as possible from it before mixing it into the meat mixture. Use a sieve or double layer of cheese cloth to do so!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and using clean hands to mix until all ingredients are incorporated throughout.  Place in a loaf pan that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.  Bake for about an hour and 10 minutes, uncovered, and let rest for about 5 minutes.  Serve with your favorite jar of marinara sauce, warmed up of course. Enjoy!

To make meatloaf muffins, divide into muffin pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Standing Chicken

Standing chicken is what I call this.  It's something my family loves!!  All you need to have to make this recipe is a vertical chicken roaster.  I bought mine over the weekend at Sur La Table.  It's not expensive and it will make cooking chicken super easy and not scary!!  This is the first time I ever handled a full chicken.  It was super easy.  You don't have to mess with it at all, just stick it on the roaster and that's it!

Place your vertical chicken roaster in a deep pan.  Pour kosher salt all around the vertical roaster, as shown, about 1/4 inch deep.  Spray the vertical raoster with non-stick cooking spray.

Place the chicken, legs down, onto the vertical roaster. Place in the oven at 400 degrees, cook for about  1 hour and 15 minutes.

This is what it looks like when it's in the oven.  I had to place my rack all the way to the bottom and remove all the other ones.

When you take it out of the over, let it sit for about 15 minutes, tent the chick with aluminum foil to keep warm.  You see all the gross chicken fat that dripped into the bottom??  YUCK!

 Now start carving.  It's not easy if you don't have a good pair of kitchen sheers or a good carving knife!  

The chicken comes out juicy, tender, and delicious.  And it's full of flavor from the salt that it was standing on. Not sure how it all works, but trust me it's amazing!  I made two chickens and ate one and saved the other for making chicken pot pie!!  Yummy!!

And the winning marinade is....

Well, there's no winner actually...the past two dinners I had Thursday and tonight, Korean steak and piri piri chicken, are both rated very highly on my yummy meter! I did learn a few things however.

First of all, when cooking with sugary marinades, such as the Korean Marinade My Way, I do not recommend using your grill pan, I'd stick to using a real BBQ. I basically ruined my grill pan, but I guess after having it for 7 years, it's probably time to buy a new one anyways, right??

Second, I'd make both marinades more spicy!! I like spice and once the proteins were cooked I didn't really taste the spice as much as I did when I tasted the marinades pre-cooking.

Thirdly, I highly recommend marinading for at least 1 day before cooking! Especially for the steak!

Fourth, I sliced up the shell steak that was cooked along with the spare ribs in the Korean marinade, and it made a great protein topper for a spinach arugula salad with grape tomatoes and leftover potatoes (recipe to come Monday).

Here's what the dinners looked like: Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the salad!