Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Asian Turkey Meat Loaf Muffins


It's been a  tiring week already and it's just Tuesday.  I hate it when the week starts out like this.  While I hear my nice comfy bed (and Pinterest) calling my name, I'm going to ignore them for a few moments and tell you about dinner tonight.  After the last two days which felt like a week, it was time to get in the kitchen and create something.

I got a chance to look at the latest Prevention Magazine  this past weekend and one of the meatloaf recipes caught my eye.  I have always been a meatloaf lover with my favorite having the tomato-ey, ketchup-ey sauce on top that gets all thickened up when you bake it.  My husband?  Not so much.   He's not a tomato-ey kind of guy at all.  Oh, he will eat it without complaint and compliment the meal because he's sweet like that; but, in my heart, I know it's not his favorite.  I digress.   This Asian meatloaf recipe appeared to be the perfect compromise.   It had the yummy Asian flavors that we both love so it promised to be full of flavor.  I would get my nice thick sauce on top while David would be spared the usual tomato-ey, ketchup-ey version.  The best of both worlds, right?   I thought so too.

Now this recipe looked delicious as it was written; but as things normally roll around here, I had to put my own twist to it if no other reason than to use what I had on hand.  The recipe called for  ground chicken; but, I happened to have some ground turkey breast so I grabbed a pound of that.  I didn't have my camera ready so you will have to suffer through my iPhone pics....


To that, I added some chopped garlic.  The recipe called for three cloves; however, when splitting the cloves apart, I actually pulled off five - three large ones and two smaller ones.  If 3 cloves of garlic is good, then 5 must be better.  Amen?


Next up: chopped scallions....


And grated fresh ginger.  It is smelling amazing up in here by this point. 


If it wasn't smelling delicious already, I started chopping the very fragrant cilantro.  I know there are those that just can't do cilantro; but, I am crazy about it.  Thankfully, my husband is too.


The recipe calls for Sesame Oil, Panko, Hoisin Sauce and Tamari.  I didn't have Tamari; but I did have a bottle of Ponzu that I wanted to use so I easily made that substitution.


Last but not least, no Asian recipe at my house would be complete without the addition of sriracha. I definitely could have added more if I had not been at the end of the bottle.  Note to self.....buy more sriracha.



A quick stir and into the muffin pan it goes.  I didn't want to heat the kitchen so I used a six cup muffin pan and baked them in the toaster oven.  The recipe says that it makes 6 servings.   At 1/4 cup (+/-) each, I got 10 muffins.  That's close enough for me.  

I didn't change this recipe up enough to completely  make it my own so I going to highly recommend that you add this to your menu plan (with my changes and substitutions, of course) and head over to Prevention Magazine and get the recipe.  You can find it here

The meatloaf was moist and flavorful and we absolutely loved it.  Meatloaf is comfort food for me and it seemed odd to not have potatoes with it.  I served it with grilled baby bok choy and steamed green beans and baby carrots.  Having the meatloaf in muffin form helped my portion control and the low carb sides went perfectly with this dish. 

After dinner we made a speedy one mile walk in the neighborhood and came back for dessert.  Homemade Lemon Sorbet (more about that in a future post) for David....



And fresh watermelon for me....



18 comments:

  1. Lemon sorbet and fresh watermelon! Not to mention the delicious meal you prepared.

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  2. What a great recipe with individual serving. :) This is definitely comfort food to me.

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  3. Just one of the things I love about you is that you always play with your food and put your own unique spin on things! This looks fabulous!!! And aren't those baby meatloaves just adorable ... :)

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  4. That's a great idea for portion control. Besides, having the meatloaf in muffin form means more crusty exterior so people don't have to fight for the end slice of a traditional loaf. :-)

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  5. Love the little loaves. Those flavors are right up my alley! Nice dinner along with the watermelon and sorbet.

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  6. I honestly was never really a fan of Italian meatloaf, but I'm sure I would have loved these asian flavors!

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  7. Gosh, that sounds soooo good! And the lemon sorbet would be nice right now since I still have a sore throat. Ugh!

    Hugs,
    Kat

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  8. What a great meal. I am a huge fan of sorbet so I will be waiting for the lemon sorbet receipe. Hope you have a great weekend.

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  9. I seriously could eat these for breakfast right now.

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  10. Pretty cool! I'm not normally one for meatloaf but that's probably because I've never had it before :) I could murder an Asian dish though so sign me up for sure.

    And you just can't go wrong with watermelon for dessert!

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  11. I love the idea of making these Asian! I make little vegetarian meatloaves (they're on my meal plan for this week, in fact!) and I'm wondering if I could make them like this too. Hmm.

    On a sidenote, I subscribe to your email feed and I haven't been getting it! I don't know what's wrong. :/

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  12. I've been looking for a good meatloaf recipe and I love this Asian twist! Thank you for sharing this. I am putting it on my "must-make" list this week.

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  13. That meatloaf sounds delicious! Definitely pinning it, and hope to be making it soon.

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  14. I am actually not much of a meat loaf lover, but that looks delicious (but I'll just look away from the scallions!)

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  15. oh i love love love that these are in the form of muffins! what a genius idea! I have to make these soon. My almost 9 month old could even start eating a few pieces of little meat from it! LOVE

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  16. LOVE this idea! And love the Asian flavors.. a nice twist on a classic!

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  17. What a great recipe with individual serving. :) This is definitely comfort food to me.

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