Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes

Seriously, Activity Days is pure blogging fodder…

So this month’s theme is Service, and the girls have been begging me to do a service project for a lovely house-bound lady in the ward. You may know her from Kacy’s blogs; it is none other than our dear Sister C .

We decided to combine two skills: service with learning to cook. As the date drew near, I had to think hard about what 7-10 ten-year-olds could handle cooking, together, with heat, and knives, and other various sharp and hazardous objects… And what do old ladies like to eat?

Mo suggested meatloaf. A classic. A favorite of generations past. Easy for old teeth and dentures to chew. And Mo’s meatloaf is to die for…

So after the safety lectures and the rigmarole of thorough hand washing (everyone was made to say their ABC’s as they “scrubbed up”), chopping, crushing, & mixing ingredients…the girls were allowed to mix the 5 ½ lbs. of meatloaf mixture in a HUGE bowl with their hands.

Little K, or Mrs. Harry Potter, came up to me just as I was putting the pans in the oven and said rather casually, “All of this is irritating my ringworm (shows me eerie circular rash on her upper forearm…). It’s really acting up…”

What to do? Do I trash the whole batch? Or do I pray that any possible contamination gets “cooked out”? At the very suggestion that we “don’t have time to take the meatloaf over to Sister C’s house tonight…” 7 ten-year-olds tear up and start whining, “But we LOVE her! We HAVE to take it over!”

So I cooked it at like 500 degrees.

I have not heard anything bad as of yet. Sister C is still alive as far as I know, and ringworm free. I have learned a valuable lesson. Ten year old girls are ravenous beasts, they will eat potato peelings if you let them…they sometimes carry strange diseases…but I can’t imagine ANYTHING giving them as much pleasure as bringing a warm dinner in to a very touched and grateful Sister C did. Bring on the service projects! Just please don’t notify the Health Department…



Mo’s Meatloaf

Makes 10 small servings or 5 regular servings

1 ½ lbs ground beef
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1 egg
½ cup finely crushed saltine crackers
1 ½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
1 tsp dry mustard
¼ cup finely chopped onion
½ cup finely chopped green pepper

Topping

½ cup ketchup
½ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp dry mustard
4 Tbsp brown sugar

1. Mix meatloaf ingredients by hand (sans-ringworm is best) this mixes the ingredients super well and breaks the meat up better than a spoon…really squish it between your fingers good…
2. Mix topping ingredients together…this is best done with a spoon…no real reason to use your hands unless you really want to…and I don’t want you to…
3. Bake meatloaf for 1 hour at 350 degrees (or until it is no longer pink and cooked completely through). Topping may be put on top of the meatloaf before baking, or during the last few minutes of baking time. I like to put ½ on before cooking and then the last ½ for the last 15 minutes…

12 comments:

Christian F said...

This is the best post ever. First of all, what tops a story about a ringworm and cooking. And you top it off with Mo's meatloaf recipe. Genius.

Melissa said...

I will pray for Sista C.

I'm glad you wrote rigmarole. I wish more peeps would use these funny made up words in their blogs. I like to see how everyone spells them differently (or at least differently than me, who has no idea of the proper spelling), which in turn makes me ponder if we are pronouncing them differently too? What is their origin? I guess I am just a nerd sitting around thinking about a lot of unimportant things.

Suzie Petunia said...

Mo's meatloaf is THE BEST! We had a good friend/next door neighbor whose husband insisted he HATED meatloaf and would refuse to eat it if we offered it to them. Luckily we had a good relationship with this couple, so he could say things like that and not offend (usually:). So, I mixed up Mo's recipe and instead of forming it into the traditional "loaf", I made patties out of it and served it on hamburger buns...Most delicious hamburgers you'll ever have! My neighbor "ate" his words. HA HA HA!

So glad you included the recipe for everyone to enjoy! I always make at least twice as much topping/sauce than it calls for because it is so darn good. :)

Jess said...

It's stories like these that make it harder and harder for me to eat things that other people have prepared, like salads (tossed, macaroni, etc.). Anything uncooked that requires the touching of human hands, or human ring worm.
I think I must have OCD.

Carrie Ann said...

M'Arse...that was the way spell check in Word told me to write rigmarole...i tried to spell it rigamarole... I can do NOTHING without spehl chex

Jess...I hope I never have a baby or get really sick because I tend to feel the same way about food brought to my house. I don't mind going to EAT at someone else's house....it's just when the food it brought over...I'll take a pizza or Indian take out...

JP said...

I want CA to come over to my house and play. She's SO MUCH FUN!

Weird coincidence that my arm started to itch once the mention of ringworm...weird.

Jess said...

The food was so bad when we had our 1st baby that my husband wouldn't let me tell people in the ward when baby #2 came along.

Carly said...

Hahaha. Ringworm. Things were going fine in this post until I saw the word Ringworm. I think the people down the hall can hear me laughing in my office.

Lisa M. said...

*Laughing* Great post!

I think that anyone who takes on, Achievment or Activity Day groups (I can't remember which is the former name and which is the new one!) is a winner all around! Who cares about Ringworm! *Grin*

Thanks for the recipe. I am in a dinner group.. and that will help! I am gathering tips, anywhere I can!

*Grin* Thanks for the smile and the blog.

Alice said...

I love that you added the recipe… I am going to add “and a dash of ring worm” to the end of it when I add it to my collection, just so I always know where it came from.

Amy Lynn said...

I was there to witness the carnivorous mashing of the meatloaf ingredients and without knowing that one of the little darlings was harboring ringworm, I was still pretty horrified. Carrie must have noticed the look on my face because she said, "We had a thorough hand washing before." Heaven help me if one of my darling children gets ringworm. Anyone know a good nanny??

Suzie Petunia said...

"Uuuugh...my cat has wingwoorm..."

Did you hear about the couple living in the trailer with 40 cats, and the local law enforcement evicted them, siting "cats with ringworm and cat herpes"?

*shudder*