Chopped Taco Salad with Homemade Catalina Dressing

Eric loves taco salad. I don't. But this salad popped up on my facebook page and I decided it looked okay, so I made it (mostly for Eric). I used ground beef (though I would have used vegetarian beef-like crumbles if I had found them at the grocery store because I don't love ground beef outside of burgers and meatloaf) and only romaine lettuce (because I thought it would be silly to be left with two half-heads of lettuce). It was pretty good. I was surprised to be a big fan of the dressing because I thought I didn't like catalina dressing.

Next time I'm going to try to do a vegetarian version - maybe with more black beans.

Chopped Taco Salad with Homemade Catalina Dressing from Mel's Kitchen Cafe

Hot and Sweet Meatballs

I saw this recipe on the Pioneer Woman website and decided it would probably work for the Costco meatballs we have. I used mango peach jam because we didn't have apricot (the next time I made it I used apricot and it seemed the same). Everyone who's had it likes it a lot (for me it's almost too spicy because the meatballs also have some spice, I think).

I've used this with about 16 meatballs up to about 32. When I did 32 I increased the recipe to 1.5, but it was almost too much sauce.

We eat it with rice, and the leftovers are just as good.

http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/main-courses/hot-sweet-drumsticks/

Pioneer Woman's Meatloaf

One day I was watching the episode of Grey's Anatomy where a couple of the characters were trying new recipes, and they were making meatloaf. It made me super hungry for meatloaf, so I googled for recipes and found one on Pioneer Woman's website. It's amazing.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/09/my-favorite-meatloaf/

I cook the bacon first and then chop it into small pieces and pat it onto the loaf before baking (because I don't like a lot of fatty fat around the meatloaf). Also, I've tried cooking this on a broiler pan, in a loaf pan, and on a roasting pan covered in foil, and only the broiler pan (covered in foil to make cleanup easier but with holes punched through so that the fat can still drain) works for me.

And I always use a meat thermometer.