Cupcakes For Dinner

     Fore some reason, I'm not a huge fan of cupcakes. That's not to say that if someone put one right in front of my face, I wouldn't eat it, but I just don't like them enough to bake them myself. I think it has something to do with the frosting to cake ratio. Call me crazy, but I like the cake part better. Anyway, today I just felt like making cute food, and since I've been wanting to share my family's meatloaf recipe, I thought i'd give it a little more visual appeal by making it look like dessert. Plus, as yummy as it is, a plain old meatloaf recipe wouldn't make a very good post. You'll see that I really got into the presentation on this recipe, especially in my approach to the "frosting." I love the look and flavor of it, but if you want to keep it really simple, you can definitely just plop a spoonful of plain mashed potatoes on top of them and call it a day. Another thing that bugs me is meatloaf recipes that call for 15-20 ingredients, some of which are rather bizarre. (Cornflakes? Really?!) No. The most delicious meatloaf recipe only needs 6 ingredients and they are as follows:

INGREDIENTS: (makes 6 very large "cupcakes")
1lb ground beef
1lb ground pork
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup tomato soup
1 packet dry onion soup mix
1 egg

1 rutabaga
enough red potatoes to equal the size of the rutabaga
1/2 stick butter, divided
1/2 cup sour cream, divided
1 tablespoon dried dill, divided
2 little splashes of milk

DIRECTIONS:
1. Boil 2 large pots of water, one for the potatoes, and another for the rutabaga.
2. Since it takes so long to cook, start with the rutabaga. Chop it by first slicing off the ends, then peeling it. Next, chop it in half, chop the halves in half the long way, and finally chop them across into 2in. chunks. It helps to use a really big, sharp knife. Rutabaga needs to boil covered for 40 minutes, compared to 20 for potatoes, so put it in the pot 20 minutes before. For more info on preparing rutabagas, click here.

3. wash and peel the potatoes and chop them if they are on the bigger side. Once the rutabaga has been boiling for 20 minutes, add the potatoes to the other pot and boil for 20 minutes.
4. While you wait, make the meatloaf. Use your hands (with gloves if you want) to mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl. Preheat the oven to 375.

5. Find the deepest muffin tin you have. That way, one "cupcake" per person will be plenty. Lightly spray it with Pam, and spoon the meatloaf mix into each mold, making sure it's completely full and the top is flat.

6. Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, drain the potatoes and rutabaga. Return each to their respective pots, and add 1/4 stick of butter and a little splash of milk to each. Mash the potatoes slightly just to break them up a little. Then, do the same to the rutabaga, which will seem very difficult to mash, but don't worry, we'll finish off both with either an electric mixer or preferably a food processor in step 8.
8. Add the partially-mashed potatoes to the bowl of a food processor, along with 1/4 cup of sour cream and 1 1/2 teaspoons of dried dill. Process it until it's very creamy. That's especially important for this recipe because we don't want any potato lumps to get stuck in our pastry bags. (More on that later.)

9. Transfer the mashed potatoes to another bowl, rinse out the food processor a little, and repeat step 8 for the rutabaga. Remember to add dill and sour cream.

10. Now it's time to showcase your artistic talent. To get the beautiful swirled look in your "frosting," you need 3 pastry bags. You can make makeshift ones by snipping a corner off of a ziplock bag, but real ones, with plastic tips are much easier to use. They can be found in the baking aisle at a grocery store and aren't too difficult to use. In fact, this was the first time I used a real one. To prepare the bags, use sharp scissors to snip off 3/4 of an inch at the tip. Take one of your 3 bags, and put the plastic tip into the snipped end, so that the fit is snug. The other two bags don't need plastic tips.
11. Take each of the 2 pastry bags without plastic tips and open them up a little. Hold it at the point and fold the top over your hand a little bit so that they are easy to fill. With the other hand, Spoon mashed potatoes into the bag until it is about half full. Now unfold the bag off your hand squeeze it down until the extra air is gone. Then, twist the top a few times, and test it out.
12. Take the other bag without a tip and repeat step 11, filling it with rutabaga. It's important not to overfill these 2 bags because now they both need to fit inside the third bag.

13. Now put both of these filled pastry bags into the third one with the plastic tip. Make sure the tips of the 2 filled ones both reach down to rest inside the plastic tip of the third bag. Remove the extra air again, and twist the tops of all 3 together this time. Test it out to make sure both colors come through.

14. Remove the "cupcakes" from the oven and plate them. Then pipe the "frosting" into each in a spiral shape, to make it look just like a really fancy cupcake. You'll have to re-fill the pastry bags at some point.

     Now doesn't that just look adorable? In fact, it's almost like eating a cupcake for dinner! Enjoy, and come back tomorrow morning for easy cinnamon rolls!