Turkey Meatloaf with Feta and Sun-dried Tomatoes

We had a real weeknight treat for dinner tonight: Giada de Laurentiis' Turkey Meatloaf with Feta and Sun-dried Tomatoes (Giada at Home, 2010, page 120). As I have mentioned before, I got this book for Christmas this year, and between a lot of cooking time over the holidays as well as some additional recipes made since then, this is probably the second-most used cookbook we own (ever!).

This recipe is a simple and standard meatloaf recipe (eggs, bread crumbs etc) that uses ground dark meat turkey, making it light and (somewhat) healthy. The big flavor ingredients are feta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. My first thought on hearing "turkey meatloaf" was that it was going to be dry and bland, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The dark meat turkey keeps it moist, the feta adds saltiness and richness, while the sun-dried tomatoes add depth and complexity.

Giada's Turkey Meatloaf

We all loved it, and it was a simple dish to make: about 10 minutes to prep and combine the ingredients and 45 minutes to bake. Best of all, the kids left the dinner table asking that Mom make it again.

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Last weekend we were looking for a new comfort food recipe to try out, and with all the snow and cold we have been having recently, a long slow-cooking braised dish of some sort would be perfect. The suggestion of short ribs came up, everybody liked the idea, and we went poking around for a recipe to try. The recipe we used was from one of the home websites that Amp frequents (www.chrislovesjulia.com), and the specific recipe is here. Since it is readily available for free, properly credited and linked I will repeat it here (ever so slightly tweaked of course...).

Braised Beef Short Ribs with Mushrooms and Polenta from the "Chris Loves Julia" website.

Ingredients:

• 8 beef short ribs, silver skin removed
• 2 TB canola or vegetable oil (for searing)
• 10-12 oz cremini or button mushrooms (we love mushrooms and probably went close to a pound)
• 1/2 yellow onion, sliced (we used an entire medium onion)

For the braising liquid:

• 4 cups beef stock
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1-2 tsp smoked Tabasco sauce (they make smoked Tabasco sauce?!? We used regular...)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 TB tomato paste
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice

The recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees (F).
2. Heat a large oven-safe pot over medium high heat.
3. Combine all braising liquid ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.
4. Add the canola oil to the pot and sear the ribs on all sides in batches. They need space or you will end up simmering them instead of searing them. You are just looking for a little crusty color on all sides.
5. Remove ribs from pot and saute onions in the pan juices for 2-3 minutes until becoming translucent (I let them go closer to 5 minutes).
6. Place the ribs back into the pot on top of the onions. Pour the braising liquid into the pot. The ribs should be almost covered, but not completely submerged.
7. Put the lid on the pot, put it in the oven (325 degrees F), and let it cook untouched for 2.5 hours.
8. After 2.5 hours, add the mushrooms to the pot, cover again, and cook for another hour.

When done, serve with polenta. We did a creamy polenta from Giada's Everyday Italian cookbook, which is our standard polenta recipe. We didn't do the fried polenta square that the recipe calls for. For a green side dish, a hearty leafy veg like garlic wilted kale or spinach (or green beans or asparagus) would be nice.

This is an incredibly easy and very tasty recipe that I would make again in a heartbeat.

Searing the ribs in batches

All you do is basically sear some meat, slice an onion, and stick a pot in the oven for a few hours. And it makes the house smell great...

Ribs with braising liquid

I found the list of ingredients for the braising liquid to contain some surprising ingredients (balsamic, cinnamon, allspice...), but the long cooking time took the edge off the balsamic, which was also diluted into a lot of beef stock. Everything came together to make a rich and complex sauce, which is exactly what you are going for in this kind of dish.

Everybody in the pool!

And mushrooms make everything better. So we added more than the recipe called for.

...adding mushrooms

The total oven time for this recipe is 3.5 hours, but honestly, we shorted that, and the result was none the worse for it. The initial cook was about 2 hours instead of 2.5, and after adding the mushrooms we cooked it another 45 minutes instead of an hour. So we braised it for a total of under three hours instead of 3.5, and the meat was still fall-off-the-bone-melt-in-your-mouth. We used very good quality grass-fed beef from Whole Foods, so that may have helped too.

Braised Beef Short Ribs with Mushrooms and Polenta

Taste - I'd give this an 8.5 out of 10. Very very good.
Work-to-Result rating - Another 8 or so out of 10. This is as "minimally fiddly" as a recipe can be (so 10 out of 10 in that regard), but it does take close to 4 hours of clock time to make (some searing and sauteing followed by a very long braise where you do nothing). So it's not a week night throw-together dinner.
Cost - Very good. Bone-in beef short ribs are not an expensive cut of meat, and the result is rich enough that you don't need a lot for a satisfying meal.
Overall - Fantastic...9 out of 10. Low-ish cost, very easy to make, we were planning on being home anyway, and the taste was absolutely terrific.