Amber and I started our Betty Crocker’s BFF challenge this past Saturday night and to kick it off we prepared roasted garlic, easy grilled vegetables, and a Betty Crocker Heirloom Recipe, Meatloaf. We saw this as a nice comfort food fit, and a great way to kick off our adventure with a few familiar recipes that we were pretty sure we couldn’t screw up.
Now, I had heard of roasting garlic and using it as a spread on french bread, but have never attempted it. Seem easy enough though, cut off the top of the garlic bulb apply two teaspoons of olive oil, salt and pepper. Wrap in foil and voila! garlic spread in 1 hour. Except that I cut, oiled, and wrapped the first two bulbs before I remembered the salt and pepper! Oops!
The easy grilled vegetables were just that too, very easy. Chopped in large pieces red bell pepper, green bell pepper, onion, and the recipe calls for “pattypan” squash…never heard of it… so, we substituted with zucchini. For the record though I did make an effort to find the pattypan squash, even googled what it looked like so I had some clue, but no luck at my local grocer. Once chopped add Italian dressing and refrigerated for about an hour to marinate. Which worked out perfectly as the meatloaf and the roasted garlic both required about an hour to cook.
Amber prepared the meatloaf, and we learned that her chopping skills are pretty good, she speaks with an accent when she cooks lol, and when a recipe calls for you to tear the bread into “small pieces” that this is a very subjective description. We decided smaller was better.
As the meatloaf and roasted garlic were wrapping up in the oven we heated our grill, and got the veggies out of the fridge…
Now, I know what you’re thinking this should be the easiest step in the whole process right! Put the veggies in the grill basket and let them cook. But no… the recipe states to place the squash, and peppers in the basket first and then add the onion and reserved italian dressing after the other veggies have cooked for about ten minutes. Again not difficult or so you would think… the veggies were all mixed together, and so I had to pick them out with tongs and the italian dressing was making them slippery! I literally wrestled the peppers into the basket and finally off and grilling! Whew! Who knew that would be the challenge here.
Finally meal time and the family was starving. The boys (our husbands) liked the meatloaf and the garlic spread but decided to toast their french bread. All and all a great meal and reasonable caloric counts as well. A total meal for around 500 calories, very filling, and leftovers to boot!
Next weekend’s menu:
Tomato Basil Crostini
Chicken Piccata
Parmesan Rice and Peas with Bacon
and German Chocolate Cake (Yay Baking!)
Barnwood and Baked Goods 