Chicken meatloaf- based on a Rachael Ray recipe. I know some people think she's not gourmet or whatnot, but ya know, I adore her. Not only are her recipes simple, fast and absolutely delicious, she doesn't try to present herself as gourmet. I love Food Network and I love the more classically trained chefs too, but RR uses ingredients that are far more accessible and more reasonably priced than most. So two thumbs WAY up to Rachael Ray. ;)

2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. butter
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks of celery, finely chopped

1 box Reduced Sodium Stove-Top Stuffing

1 1/2 cups of Reduced Sodium chicken stock

1 tsp. poultry seasoning

1 bay leaf

3 lbs. lean ground chicken (or turkey)

salt & pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425F. Place ground chicken in large bowl.

2. Melt butter with olive oil in a pan. Sautee the onion and celery with the bay leaf until the veggies are softened.

3. Add the box of stuffing mix to the pan and stir around to get the fresh veggies mixed through. Add poultry seasoning and chicken stock and take off the heat to mix in. Let cool before adding to ground chicken. Note: I don't usually need the entire pan of stuffing- I typically have about 1/2 c. of it leftover... which makes a dandy snack.

4. Mix stuffing and chicken together, and then you have the choice of how to bake it. I like the texture better when placed in a glass loaf baking dish and baked for about 2 hours. Alternatively, you could form it into a loaf and place it on a baking sheet- I believe this only needs to bake for 90 minutes, but the texture is slightly different/drier.

Part of dinner last night was "Let's use up all of the veggies in the fridge before they go bad." lol I had some fresh local green beans and a couple of small local zucchini.

For the green beans, I trimmed the ends and cut most of them in half, blanched in salted water, then "shocked" in an ice bath. While they were in the ice water, I heated up about 1/2 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp of butter in a skillet and then tossed the green beans in there (after draining, of course). Not knowing what else to do, I added a touch of poultry seasoning, salt and pepper, and cooked for about 5 minutes. Then realized I had some whole grain dijon mustard leftover. So I squirted *snort* about 3 tbsp onto the beans and tossed them around for another minute or two. Not too bad if I do say so myself.
The zucchini were a bit troublesome. I love zucchini and I always tend to do the same thing with them (zucchini, tomato and curry powder), so I thought I'd try a different approach this time. I softened up 1/2 a HUGE white onion, chopped pretty roughly, in some olive oil over super high heat. Cut the zucchini into 1 in. medallions, then cut the circles in 1/2. Tossed those in with the onion and let those cook a bit- I look for at least one side of most of the pieces to turn brown. Then I open ALL the windows and turn on the fan, and add 1 & 1/2 whole chopped fresh tomatoes. Yep, whole fresh tomatoes. NOM NOM NOM. After those cook together for about 2 minutes, I added salt, pepper, and tons of fresh lemon juice (instead of curry powder this time!).

This is what the whole spread looked like- the copious amount of bread was for the Hubs. He is physically incapable of eating food without bread. He doesn't even need a fork most of the time. lol

3 c. flour
2 c. sugar (I do 1 c. white granulated sugar, 1 c. demerara sugar- my love)

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 lb. (or 1 c.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs
3/4 c. milk

2 tsp. vanilla extract (1 tsp. maple extract optional)

2 overripe bananas, mashed

1 ripe banana, chunked

1 1/4 c. chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix in the sugars.

3. In a separate bowl, mash bananas and mix in milk, extract and eggs.

4. On low speed (or by hand), mix in melted butter to dry ingredients.

5. Still on low (or by hand), mix in banana mixture. Make sure to mix thoroughly, and scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to incorporate all ingredients.

6. Toss banana and chocolate chips with roughly 2 tbsp. of flour (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the batter as the muffins bake). Mix banana and chocolate chips in by hand.

7. Using ice cream scoop, fill baking cups place in muffin tins- I tend to get 16-18 out of this recipe, but I got 23 this morning!

8. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes.

9. Cool muffins in pan for 5 minutes, then remove carefully and let cool on rack.

These are so incredibly soft and tasty. I like to play around with the sugars and the extracts sometimes- I've used maple syrup, instead of white sugar, in combination with the demerara sometimes, and those were great too!

And now for the finale, I posted a picture of my baby tomato plants when I first planted them a few months ago. Remember?

I counted no less than 50 of these little guys:

On a life note, summer semester is allllmost finished, thankfully. And surprisingly, I'm doing better in both classes than I expected. I hope to have a job by the time fall semester starts, as I've started to apply to some jobs that have to do with the fields I want to get into (audiology and speech pathology- one job is working with adults that have acquired brain injuries). So here's hoping something good happens in that area of my life. Other than that, things are looking better-- Hubs and I are good, my friends are the best people I could ever ask for and if I could, I would adopt them all, and my family are all good.

Life is short. Drink good wine, eat something chocolate and just enjoy the ride. :)