Stud Muffins

Why hello there!

Happy freak to the deak to the FRIDAY.

I am super excited about Friday today, because I don't have a Barbri lecture tomorrow, and I have WINE CLUB!!

There are very few things that I get more excited about than wine club.

Good food? Check. Good wine? Check. Good friends? Check. Good times? A heck of a check.

I woke up in a great mood this morning and headed to the gym to knock out another rise & shine workout.  After about 20 minutes with an old friend (StairMaster), I completed this workout from the Barre Bee Fit YouTube Channel.



{Look who finally learned how to embed a video in a post! So techy.}

It felt so great to do some of these moves again.

I miss Barre Bee Fit more than I miss new episodes of Friends.

I think I may drive all the way back to the city on Sunday to go to Barre Burn if studying goes well (*fingers crossed*).

Lets move on to some more fun stuff...FOOD!! :)

I will be bringing along a couple of goodies to wine club tomorrow (baked brie & lemon bars).  I will post some pics + the recipes for those treats sometime this weekend, but for now, it's time for another great weekend night-in recipe!

Today I have an "outside the box" recipe for anyone who is in the mood to get a little creative with a classic.

After spending way too much time trying to figure out what to make for dinner the other night, I pulled out my recipe toolbox and discovered that you can actually make meatloaf muffins.

Yes, seriously.

This seemed like a recipe made in leftover heaven (although I was foiled by the Power Outage), so I put a spin on what I found, pulled together some ingredients, and got to cookin'!


Jessica's Meatloaf Stud Muffins

Here's what you'll need: 

12-cup muffin tin (not for those cute baby muffins, we're makin' beef cakes here, mmkay??)
1 tsp EVOO
1 cup chopped onion (I used the chopped onion from my spice cabinet to save the tears)
1 cup of chopped carrot (I used 1 can of no-salt-added sliced carrots, drained)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp grill seasoning (I used Montreal Steak seasoning -- it's McCormick's)
2 tbsp prepared mustard
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 egg
15 crushed crackers (I used whole wheat Ritz crackers)
1.5 pounds of lean ground beef (I always opt for ground sirloin, which has about a 97/3 ratio)
1/2 cup ketchup
1 can of diced tomatoes, drained
PAM (or other no-stick cooking spray)

Here's what you do: 


Step #1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Step #2: (Unless you are lazy like I was) Chop up your onion & carrots, and set aside.

Step #3: In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the ketchup & the drained diced tomatoes until combined.  Pour 1/2 of the mixture into a larger-sized bowl, and set the remaining sauce aside.

Step #4: In the large bowl with 1/2 of the tomato mixture, add all of the remaining ingredients listed above, except for the other 1/2 of the ketchup & tomatoes (and the PAM...), until combined.

Step #5: Spray the muffin tin with a good amount of PAM, so that the bottoms & the sides of the cups are coated.

Step #6: Spoon an equal amount of the meat mixture into each cup, so that the 12 cups end up relatively even (I had to go back and add and subtract from a few, no biggy!).

Step #7: Spoon about 2 spoonfuls of the remaining tomato mixture on top of each of the muffins (it's the icing on the cake!).

Step #8: Put the muffins in the oven for approximately 25 minutes, or until a meat thermometer reaches 160 degrees.

Step #9: Take the muffins out of the oven.  Remove the muffins from the pan, carefully, with your (ehhmm clean) fingers & a fork, and transfer each muffin to a cooling rack (or a plate), with some wax paper or paper towel to catch any unwanted grease.

Step #10: Serve 'em up with your favorite sides, like broccoli or green beans, and maybe even a piece of my easy garlic bread!

These stud muffins turned to delicious, and the recipe was just plain fun!

While my food baby last night might have suggested otherwise I do not have kids and do not plan to have any in the near future, I think this would be a super kid-friendly recipe for those of you that do have kiddos! :)

Those muffins are just so stinkin cute, aren't they?!

This recipe also makes great leftovers -- some of you might remember that I had one with my salad on Wednesday, and I also thew a couple in Justin's lunch that day! If it weren't for the 24 hours we were without power, we probably would have had these for days.

If you're looking for an adult beverage to have with your muffins (obvi leave the kids out of this part), I can suggest a new wine I tried at the recommendation of my friend Ashley....

Red Bicyclette's Pino Noir: 

source

You can find this wine at almost any grocery store.  I picked mine up @ Jewel for a cool $9.

Amazeballs.

I'm off to study away for a while so I can relax with my main squeeze tonight, then it's time to shake & bake & wine club it up tomorrow night.

Have a fantastic night and I will see you sometime this weekend for some more fun!

xoxo

Jess

P.S. I found one of those words that fails that "i before e, except after c" rule today...SEIZE...I really hope they stop teaching that rule in schools before I have kids, because this is just plain mean!!