Weeknight Meat Loaf with Herbed Potatoes

This month's issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine had a spread of all different kinds of meat loaf recipes.  The version I normally make is a really good one from Gourmet magazine, but I'm always game for trying out new recipes.  They even had a meatless "meat" loaf that I'm going to try out in the near future!

This version uses a lot of Mediterranean ingredients like feta, plain yogurt, lemon, and cucumber (on the side).  You press it into a square baking dish, so it cooks faster (thus the "weeknight" in the title) and comes out very dense.

The herbed potatoes that go with it were fabulous!  The rosemary smelled amazing.  It was also really easy because they cooked in the oven at the same time as the meat loaf.

It's not really a good time to buy tomatoes, and the Co-Op didn't have Romas, but they did have some slicing tomatoes from Mexico.  They were alright.

Here is the meal, before going into the oven.

I had fun being incredibly meticulous with the layering of the tomato and lemon slices.

Weeknight Meat Loaf
adapted from Better Homes and Gardens, March 2010
Serves 9

1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
2 teaspoons chopped fresh mint
2 teaspoons lemon zest
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 pounds ground beef or ground lamb (we used lamb)
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 lemon, cut into thin wedges
1/2 a medium cucumber, cut up
Feta cheese (optional, for garnish)
I recipe Herbed Potatoes, below

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.  Line the bottom of a 9x9 baking dish with parchment paper or foil.

In a large bowl, mix together the egg, yogurt, onion, bread crumbs, oregano, mint, lemon zest, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Add the beef and 1/3 cup feta cheese.  Mix gently to combine (take off your rings and dig in with your hands!).  Evenly spread the mixture into the prepared baking dish, pressing it into the corners and smoothing the top.  Arrange the lemon and tomato slices over the top however you like.

Bake 45-50 minutes, or until a thermometer inserted into the center reads 160 F.  Ours had to bake about 15 minutes longer than the time they recommended before it got to the proper temperature, not sure why.  It was still pink in the middle, (but we could tell that it was definitely cooked), Joe thinks it was just because all the juices pooled in the center, since there was really no way for the meat to drain while it cooked.

When it's done, you need to pour off the fat.  There was A LOT of liquid to pour off in ours (not just fat, but possibly the liquid from the yogurt and tomato?).  Anyway, it felt like we poured a lot of liquid.  Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

When ready to serve, cut into 9 squares.  If the serving size seems small, play a trick on your eyes like I did; cut each wedge in half again, so you have two shorter pieces of the same size, so it looks like more food on your plates. :-)  Serve chopped cucumber on the side and garnish with crumbled feta cheese.

As for the leftovers, we did meat loaf sandwiches one day, and then another day we chopped it up, mixed it with some rice, leftover cucumber and feta, and had it in a wrap (with Yumm Sauce, of course).

Herbed Potatoes

2 pounds small red-skinned potatoes, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a large bowl, toss together the sliced potatoes and the oil.  Spread them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake in the oven with the meatloaf for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are starting to crisp and turn brown.  Remove from oven and season with the rosemary, salt, and pepper.

Lamb Chops w/ Mint Yogurt Sauce and Soy Sesame Wax Beans

I've started making my own yogurt each week, so I wanted to make a dinner that included a yogurt sauce of some sort.  This one was really simple and yummy, and it allowed me to do a major harvest of the mint in my Aerogarden.  Does anyone have a favorite sauce they make out of yogurt, perhaps for Indian or Greek style meals?

I think this was my first time cooking lamb chops.  They were nice and tender, and I felt good about buying them because they were local, grass-fed, and free-range.  I heart my Co-op!  They even provided a brochure of the farm right by the meat case so I can verify for myself (dear Trader Joe's, as awesome as your prices are, you are lacking in that department!  I am more than willing to pay more for local meat and shop at a grocer who freely discloses where and how it was raised!)

The main recipe for the lamb chop yogurt sauce was from Epicurious, but the rub and cooking method I used for the chops came from a comment that someone posted for that recipe.  I liked how the cooling, tangy flavors of the yogurt mixed with the juices of the meat and the spices of the rub as I was eating it.

To go with the chops I made Robin Miller's Soy Sesame Green Beans with Ginger.  In her cookbook (and TV show, if it's still on the Food Network?  I don't have cable anymore) she focuses on prepping ingredients on the weekend when you might have more time, such as cooking all the pasta for the week or cooking enough pork tenderloin for several meals.  There are a lot of helpful time-saving tips like that throughout the book, and she is very health conscious.

Anyway, in this recipe you can use fresh or frozen green beans, and it just so happened that we had one bag left of the beans we froze from our summer CSA!  They were actually wax beans, which are yellow, but you treat them just like green beans and to me they taste the same.

We also made some super lazy and quick sourdough toast.  While you toast the slices in the toaster, peel a clove of garlic and cut it in half.  Rub the toasted bread with the garlic, then butter the toast as you normally would.  Sprinkle with some grated Parmesan, and it will melt while you finish getting dinner together.

Lamb Chops with Yogurt Mint Sauce
adapted from Epicurious
Serves 2 (just double the recipe if cooking for more people)

1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2-4 1-inch thick rib lamb chops (I say 2-4 in case they are small.  The package I bought looked like two reasonably sized chops until I opened it, and it was actually 4 small ones)  
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon each of Paprika, Cumin, Salt, and Pepper

Preheat oven to broil.

Combine the mint, yogurt, garlic, and lemon juice in a bowl.  Taste and season as needed with salt and pepper.  Set aside.

Combine the paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper in a bowl.  Press the rub onto both sides of the chops.  Drizzle a foil wrapped baking pan with the oil, and rub the chops with the oil on both sides.

Broil, about 3 minutes per side, until it's cooked to your liking.  For us, it was done when our probe thermometer measured 160 F in the center.  Just a touch of pink in the center and still nice and tender.  Not that I've ever had lamb chops any other way, because like I said earlier, this is my first time cooking with lamb.

Let the chops rest for about 5 minutes before serving.  Top with yogurt sauce, and pass the extra at the table.

Soy-Sesame Green Beans with Ginger
adapted from Robin Miller's Quick Fix Meals
Serves 4

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil (or substitute sesame oil, canola, or vegetable oil if that's what you have, but toasted sesame oil is a good investment; buy the smallest amount you can so it doesn't spoil before you use it all)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger
2 cups fresh or one 10-ounce package frozen green beans (no need to thaw)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/2 cup reduced sodium vegetable or chicken broth (I like to use bouillon cubes for making up small amounts of broth like this)
2 tablespoons soy sauce, reduced sodium if you like
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  (Note: If using jarred ginger like we did, seriously consider patting it dry between paper towels if it looks very liquidy.  We had a serious spatter problem when we added it to the pan)  Add the garlic and ginger and cook for about a minute.  Add the green beans and cook for about two minutes, stirring often.  She has you add the sesame seeds here too, wanting them to toast, but our pan had a lot of liquid in it from the frozen beans and/or the ginger, so they didn't really toast at all.  I think it would be better to toast the sesame seeds separately in a dry skillet and stir them in at the end.

Add the broth and soy sauce and cook for another couple of minutes, until the beans are crisp-tender.  Stir in the sesame seeds, if you toasted them separately.  Season with salt and pepper.