Cookie Cutters

For Valentine's Day this year we had Heart shaped meat loaves and mashed potato's for dinner. Very easy and very cute. I used a heart shaped cookie cutter to make the meat loaves, put them on Cookie sheets and baked them. A cookie cutter can be used for many different used not just for cookies. Your kids can use them while playing with play dough, shaping dough ornaments for any holiday, and any to shape any kind of ground meat or vegetable as kind of a fun way to get your kids to try new foods. It also transforms everyday food into something special without a lot of hard work! Happy Cooking everyone =)

Meatloaf

1 1/2 cups ground beef

1 cup of cracker crumbs (I used toll house crackers)

1 1/4 teaspoons of salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 large egg, beaten

1 medium onions, chopped

1/2 cup of tomato sauce

Topping

3/4 cup ketchup

2 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup water

2 table spoons mustard (I used just regular yellow mustard)

2 tablespoons white vinegar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, combine ground beef, crackers, salt, pepper, egg, onion and tomato sauce. Mix lightly

Shape into loaf (or any cookie or free hand shape you like) and place in a baking dish. (For the shapes i placed them on a cookie sheet) In a small mixing bowl, combine the ketchup, brown sugar, water, mustard and vinegar. Brush the meatloaf with this mixture. Place meatloaf in oven and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, basting occasionally with sauce.

The Low Budget Wonder

This weeks feature ingredient is Ramen Noodles. OK before you turn up your nose and think wait am I back in college? hear me out. We have had a little money crunch this month and have had to get creative with whats for dinner, I was running out of ideas and was looking at the box of Ramen from Sam's and was thinking Mike would kill me if I actually fixed that for dinner. So I did a little research on my favorite recipe site food.com and found a few recipes that Were tried and tested not only by me but by my husband who hates ramen and I was given a thumbs up! So try if you want to but if you find yourself in a crunch these were really good!



Ramen Noodle Casserole


1 pound of ground beef


1 medium onion, diced


1 (14 1/2 ounce) can of diced tomatoes


3 (3 oz) packages of beef flavored ramen- I actually used chicken flavored because that is what we had and it tasted wonderful so if you don't have beef I'm sure any flavor will do


3 cups of water


Shredded Cheese (one to two cups)





Brown hamburger and onion, then add flavoring packets from ramen noodles and simmer for about 4 minutes.


Add the water and the tomatoes and bring to a boil


Then add ramen noodles and cook for about 4 minutes more


Pour into a casserole dish, sprayed or greased first, and cover with shredded cheese


Bake for about 15 minute3s or until cheese melts

Creamy Ramen Noodles

1 (3oz) package of ramen noodles, any flavor with seasoning packet

2 cups of water

2 tablespoons of butter

1/4 cup of milk

Bring water to a boil, add dried noodles and cook for 3 minutes or until noodles are tender, Stir occasionally. Drain water away, Return noodles to pan. Add butter and contents of seasoning packet. Add as much of the seasoning packet that you want ( I used the whole thing). Heat on low heat and stir until butter is melted and noodles are coated with creamy sauce.