Magic Meatloaf and a Conversation with a Local Beef & Dairy Farmer

by The Meal Makeover Moms on October 11th, 2009

lucinda-with-cow-farm-june-09Lucinda Williams is a mother of four children, ages 14 to 23, and a Massachusetts beef and dairy farmer. Together with her husband Darryl, they run the Luther Belden Farm in Hatfield, MA. This is no ordinary farm. It’s been in her husband’s family since 1661, and her children are the 13th generation to work the land. Today, they milk 100 cows twice a day, keep a herd of 200, and grow hay, corn and alfalfa to feed their livestock.

 In a recent conversation with folks at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (one of our former blog sponsors), we were surprised to learn that 97% of beef cattle farms are family farms. We caught up with Lucinda (who is also Chair of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board) to hear more about that and to get her family’s favorite recipe from the ranch.

Q: We often hear about the decline of the family farm. What changes have you seen since you first started farming in terms of new challenges and the increased emphasis on the environment and sustainability?

A: The family farm is alive and well. We strive to provide safe, high-quality beef for consumers at an affordable price while sustaining and improving resources under our care. Beef production methods have evolved over the years to achieve this goal, resulting in new management protocols and technologies that help producers meet consumer demand.

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Q: Do your children help out on the farm? If so, what do they like to do?

A: Absolutely!  During the school year, our kids are busy with sports, music, and drama, as well as church and community activities, so their available hours to help on the farm are somewhat limited.  Nevertheless, they still have daily chores such as feeding the calves and additional weekend work as needed.  This summer, we milked our cows three times a day — 4:00am, noon, and 8:00pm and all of us helped out.  This summer, our 21-year old son, Jackson, worked on the farm mowing, raking, baling hay, tending to the cows, fixing fences, and the myriad other jobs that go along with running a dairy farm.

Q: What’s your family’s favorite recipe?

Magic Meatloaf (from the kitchen of Lucinda Williams)

It cooks like magic in the slow cooker and disappears like magic, too! I use a 6-quart slow cooker.

  • 3 pounds lean ground beef
  • 1 ½ cups quick-cooking oats
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 1 cup barbeque sauce
  • 1 tablespoon dried minced onion
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 cup shredded lowfat Cabot cheddar cheese

1. In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, oats, eggs, barbeque sauce, minced onion, and Worcestershire sauce.  Mix until all the ingredients are combined.

2. Fold a sheet of aluminum foil in half and place in the bottom of your slow cooker (allow the foil to extend up the sides of the slow cooker). Spray the foil and the exposed bottom of the slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray.

3. Form half of the meat mixture into an oval or rectangle and place on top of the foil (leave half an inch to an inch of space between the meatloaf the sides of the slow cooker).  Sprinkle the cheese over the meat. Add the rest of the meatloaf mixture on top of the cheese. Seal the “seam” by pinching the mixture with your fingers.  Cook on low 4 to 5 hours.

4. Remove the meat from the cooker by carefully pulling up the sides of the aluminum foil. Transfer the meatloaf to a plate or platter. Slice and serve.

We agree with Lucinda that this recipe disappears like magic! Liz made it the other day (she cut the recipe in half and it worked great), and it was a big hit with the kids. The half recipe yielded about 8 servings.  Post your favorite meatloaf recipe here!

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4 Comments | Filed Under Beef, Dinner, SlowCooker 

Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken & Crock-Pot Winner

by The Meal Makeover Moms on October 5th, 2009

After reading the 200-plus blog comments for our Crock-Pot giveaway, it’s clear busy families rely on the slow cooker to get fast meals on the table night after night.  We can’t thank you enough for sharing your favorite Crock-Pot dinners (and desserts)!  Some of the recipes that caught our Meal Makeover Mom eyes were Cathy’s Slow Cooker London Broil, Tamara’s Feta and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts, and Kelli’s Slow Cooker Molten Chocolate Lava Cake.

This weekend, Liz made a recipe for Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken, inspired by Kathleen from Dinner Together.  She served it over chow mein noodles with baby corn on the side (one 15-ounce can drained and then heated in the microwave). Wow. Talk about flavor!

Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken (Inspired by Kathleen at Dinner Together)
Makes 4 Servings

This is one of my family’s all-time favorite meals. You can also assemble and freeze the ingredients ahead of time and then defrost and dump everything into the Crock-Pot when you’re ready to cook.

  • 1/3 cup lite soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons sherry wine
  • 1 ½ tablespoons cider vinegar
  • 1 ½ tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 ½ tablespoons minced fresh or jarred ginger (or 1 teaspoon ginger powder)
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 1 1/3 pounds)
  • 1 large carrot, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch

1. In a bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, sherry wine, vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic. 

2. Place the chicken, carrots, and sauce in the bowl of your slow cooker and stir together until the chicken and carrots are coated (Liz used her 6 quart Crock-Pot).

3.  Cook on low for 4 hours (Kathleen calls for cooking 6 to 8 hours).  When done, whisk the cornstarch with 1 tablespoon cold water until the cornstarch dissolves. Gently stir the cornstarch mixture into the chicken mixture. This will thicken the sauce slightly. Serve over noodles or rice.

Now for the winner of our 6.5 programmable Crock-Pot (the drum roll please…..). The winner is Stacy Kerr, a Facebook Fan from Murrieta, CA. In Stacy’s post, she told us she could use a new slow cooker. Apparently, the one she uses each week has a broken foot and is currently being held up with a wine cork!  Congratulations Stacy.

Keep your slow cooker ideas coming. We love hearing from you.

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3 Comments | Filed Under Dinner, Giveaways, Poultry, SlowCooker 

Crock-Pot Giveaway

by The Meal Makeover Moms on September 28th, 2009

Raise your hand if you got a slow cooker as a wedding gift. Was it avocado green (ooh, we’re dating ourselves) or one of the newer, stainless steel designs? Slow cookers have been around since the early 1970s, and if you’re like us, it’s the go-to kitchen appliance when you’re craving “easy” for dinner.

crock-pot-programmable-slow-cooker

When summer ends and schedules get super busy again — you know the drill … carpools, after-school activities, homework — it’s the perfect time to dust off your slow cooker.  But what if you don’t own one or you’re looking for an upgrade to your avocado green model? Today is your lucky day, because the folks at Crock-Pot have donated a 6.5-quart Programmable Slow Cooker with Touch Screen Technology for this month’s Meal Makeover Moms’ giveaway! We love the contemporary design and how the unit switches to WARM when the recipe is done.

To Enter our Crock-Pot Giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post sharing your family’s favorite slow cooker recipe and/or why you want to win the giveaway.

We Will Enter You into the Giveaway Multiple Times if you do any or all of the following (just be sure to leave us a new comment every time you do one of these things):

> Tweet about our giveaway on Twitter or tell your Facebook friends about it with a link back to this blog post.

> Listen to our weekly radio podcast, Cooking with the Moms, and then head over to iTunes to subscribe and post a review (you can click through to iTunes from our podcast page).

> Add one of our buttons/widgets to your blog or website. They are located in the upper left sidebar of our blog. We have three to choose from: Our blog post widget, our Recipe badge, and our Meal Makeover Moms’ Kitchen badge.

> Subscribe to Meal Makeover Moms’ Kitchen or sign up for our Meal Makeover Moms’ e-newsletter.

Our giveaway ends on Monday, October 5th at noon. As always, we’ll use Random.org to choose the winner. Good luck!

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224 Comments | Filed Under Giveaways, SlowCooker 

Recipe Rescue: Spinach Goo

by The Meal Makeover Moms on August 14th, 2009

When Barbie D., a mom of five from Scotch Plains, NJ, sent us her recipe for Spinach Goo and asked us to give it a healthy makeover, we couldn’t say no.  With a name like “goo,” we knew the recipe was sure to be rich and well, gooey.  Barbie told us that Spinach Goo (AKA Cheesy Spinach Casserole), is a favorite at family gatherings, but given the ingredients, she always felt a twinge of guilt when serving it.  “I originally got the recipe from my 90-year old mother, and for years, I’ve been serving it at parties as a side dish.  It’s been in the family for a long time,” Barbie said.

This family classic is made in the slow cooker so it’s oh-so easy.  The recipe calls for spinach, eggs, cottage cheese, half a stick of butter, 1 teaspoon of salt, and nearly half a pound of American cheese. When we crunched the numbers, we found that each small serving (it serves 12 as a side dish) has 180 calories — not bad — but 7 grams of saturated fat and nearly 800 milligrams of sodium … not so good.

Experts suggest eating no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day and no more than 20 grams of saturated fat. When you consider that half a cup of regular cottage cheese has over400 milligrams of sodium and that the butter and American cheese contributed about 6 grams of saturated fat to the dish, you can see why this recipe needed a rescue!

cheesy-spin-casserole-ingredients

For the fix, we switched from regular cottage cheese to a no-salted added, lowfat version. We also swapped reduced-fat Cheddar cheese for the American cheese and nixed the butter and salt all together. Admittedly, our makeover was a bit on the extreme side, so we added grated Parmesan cheese for a kick of flavor. The result is a healthy vegetable side dish with less than half the fat and sodium.

barbie-spinach-casserole-drain-spinach-400

Cheesy Spinach Casserole
Makes 12 Side Dish Servings (or 6 Main Dish Servings)

  • 3 large eggs, beaten
  • One 16-ounce container 1% lowfat, no salt added cottage cheese (2 cups)
  • One 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed very dry
  • 1 ½ cups shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese (6 ounces)
  • ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • ¼ cup all-purpose flour
  • ¼ teaspoon black pepper

1. In a large bowl, stir together the eggs, cottage cheese, spinach, Cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese, flour, and pepper until well combined.

2. Spray the bowl of your slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray.  Add the spinach mixture, and use a spatula to smooth the top.

3. Cover and cook on low until set, 3 hours.

Nutrition Information per Serving: 120 calories, 5g fat (2.5g saturated), 340mg sodium, 6g carbohydrate, 1g fiber, 13g protein, 120% vitamin A, 25% calcium

barbie-spinach-casserole-ingr-in-bowl

Overall, Barbie was happy with the new recipe. While clearly the dish was less salty and not nearly as rich, she said she was “pleasantly surprised” as was her husband. “I think I could pass this off at the next party!” Barbie suggested adding a pinch of nutmeg next time for added flavor. We agree and also think this dish would be great as a vegetarian main dish.

Check out our Flickr page for more photos of the Cheesy Spinach Casserole.  Let us know if you try this recipe and be sure to post your comments right here to our blog.

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8 Comments | Filed Under Dinner, RecipeRescue, SlowCooker, Vegetarian 
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