culinary experiments and explorations

Last week I was down with the seasonal death flu: four days of being bedridden, exhausted, fevered and dizzy. After the first two days of attempting to go for takeout and fast food (and let me tell you, you've not lived until you've spent half an hour trying to shovel your car out of a snowdrift while running a fever of 102), I deliriously inventoried my fridge to see what ingredients I could combine into something that was both tasty and easy to make.

The first things that came to mind were a pound and a quarter or so each of ground turkey and Italian sausage patties I'd bought the week before and not used -- thus, my quest for meatloaf. After Googling for a likely-looking recipe, I adapted it into a "throw in whatever ingredients and spices sound tasty", and the result was surprisingly good. Best of all, it only required about 10 minutes of prep, and then I could leave it to bake for an hour while I coughed and hacked away under the covers.

( Easy Sweet-and-Spicy Meatloaf )

This recipe absolutely hit the spot and gave me leftovers for a week of meals. Highly recommended and I'll definitely make it again.

Back in the latter part of last year, I found myself craving macaroni and cheese -- or at least, something kind of like macaroni and cheese. I tinkered around some with various recipes I'd found out on the web, took what I wanted from them, and ended up producing ( Four-Cheese Cheddarwurst Noodles. )

Now, last night I didn't quite have all the ingredients I needed, but I did have most of them. (My fridge gather strange and arcane ingredients, and often seems to lack in the basics. *grin* ) I ended up adding half a pound of diced-up breakfast sausage to the onion to saute, substituted 6 ounces of cream cheese for the cottage cheese, used jalapeno cheddar cheese instead of pepperjack, and so forth. Overall, though it ended up quite tasty all the same. Not quite the same flavor, but definitely worth trying out for variation.