Cooking, hmmm

I rarely cook dinner by following a recipe. But I'm also not as good a cook as I am baker, so really, I should follow recipes more often. I learnt to bake when I was a child. I remember my Granny teaching me to make french toast. I then remember teaching a friend's mother how to make it one morning after a sleep over, I was only about 7 or 8 at the time. I couldn't believe they had never made it before!
But cooking meals, dinners, well, I didn't want to learn. Because I didn't want to eat it. I grew up a very fussy eater (my Mum would say that's an understatement). I became a Mum myself when I was young (19), and I still hadn't learnt to cook. When I first met my husband, he cooked more often than me. Now he would have you believe that he can't cook - but that's only because he's out of practice! (He had a stint for a while that him and the kids cooked once a week, I enjoyed that break, I really need to get them back into that!!). ANYWAYS, I do go on. I taught myself to cook simply because I had mouths to feed. It was hard at first, because I was still quite fussy so I was cooking a lot of meals I had never tried before, nor would I try the meals I made.

Obviously, something had to change. I started making myself try the dinners I cooked for my family. I didn't enjoy them, but I forced some down. After a while though, I did start to enjoy the food! And now I really do quite enjoy cooking, and trying new things. But I now have so many old favourites that I keep forgetting to try new ones. Hopefully this whole trying a new recipe every week thing pushes me out of my comfort zone of trying baking recipes and actually try some new dinner recipes too.

But first, an old favourite. Out of a cookbook even. In fact, I have mentioned this cookbook before in this post here - such a good basic cookbook. The other night, I made Saucy Meatloaf. The whole family loves it. The curry powder in it just makes the dish. And the sauce. The sauce, the glorious sauce! You get the drift.

And it's easy. Even Mr7 has made it before, with very minimal help from me (mostly only to cut the onions as he doesn't like the crying effect haha).

Saucy Meatloaf, courtesy of the Watties Kiwi Favourites Cookbook

Takes 1hour 30mins to cook (allow a further 15mins to prepare) - I mention this as I normally only start thinking about dinner with about an hour to spare, this requires prior planning!

Meatloaf

500g beef mince
500g sausage meat
2 onions, diced
1/4 cup milk (I use zero lacto milk, or rice milk)
1 Tbsp curry powder
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 Tbsp chopped parsley
(then I also add grated carrot and courgette sometimes - like this time - as my 2 year old is fussy with his vegies, so it's an easy way to get some into him, but it's nicer without them, haha)

Sauce

1 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp butter (I use marg)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180*c
2. Mix together all the meatloaf ingredients. Season with salt and pepper. Place in a baking dish and shape into a loaf. Bake for 45mins.
3. Whisk the sauce ingredients together and pour over the loaf. Continue cooking for a further 45mins. Open the oven every 15mins and spoon some sauce over the top of the meatloaf to stop it drying out.
4. Serve sliced, with extra sauce poured over.

The white stuff is the marg all whisked in - you could probably just melt it but it doesn't say to and this works well

The finished product - unfortunately a slightly blurry pic! Nice yummy thick bbq-type sauce over it, mmmmmmMmmmm