Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--July 12, 2013

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. 

                                This Week's Food Waste

                                Bread

We have entered the hot humid time of summer when the bread on the counter seems to mold overnight. Or at least that's what happened this week. Maybe we will only unfreeze a 1/2 loaf at a time to see if that works better.


                  This Week's True Food Confessions  

Among other things we had this week, I made more cake balls for a friend's birthday.

We ate in all week and cooked several things. However, amongst all of this home cooked food, we seemed to be somewhat lacking in fruit and vegetables. Gonna have to work on that next week. However, there was one vegetable that was not lacking--the first local corn-on-the-cob of the season. Aunt Martha brought it to a cookout that we had on Saturday and I've been having it at practically every meal since then. I wait for corn time all year and this corn was all that I had been dreaming about--tender and sweet.

The recipe I tried this week was Taco Meat Loaf that was inspired by this recipe (and reprinted below) from All You magazine. When I make meat loaf, it is usually inspired by whatever leftovers we have in the fridge that I need to use up. This one was a little bit like that in that we already had the chips and salsa on hand that it called for. The recipe is good especially if you like the taste of corn meal. That flavor from the chips came through even though it was just a small part of the ingredients. Also, depending on the your taste and the strength of your salsa, you may want to cut back on the ketchup and add more salsa. I thought the spiciness was just right of our loaf, but the others thought it was a bit bland. We solved that by serving theirs with salsa on top. Here's the recipe if you want to give it a try.


Turkey Taco Meat Loaf
 

Prep: 10 min.
Cook: 1 hr.
Serves: 6
Cost per serving: 86¢
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb. ground turkey (I used very lean ground beef.)
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup corn chips, crushed
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup salsa, plus extra for serving
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp. pepper
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with foil, leaving 3 inches of overhang on both long sides. Lightly mist with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, using your hands, gently mix all ingredients until just combined. Pat mixture into prepared pan, scraping sides of bowl with a rubber spatula if necessary; smooth top.
3. Bake until internal temperature registers 165°F on an instant-read thermometer, about 1 hour. Let rest 10 minutes. Using foil overhang as handles, carefully lift meat loaf out of pan. Place meat loaf on a cutting board, peel back foil and slice. Serve hot with extra salsa, if desired.
Per serving: 283 Cal., 14g Fat (4g Sat.), 128mg Chol., 2g Fiber, 23g Pro., 15g Carb., 501mg Sod.