New twist on an old stand-by
By katsmeow1213
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
United States
January 29, 2010 12:51pm CST
Most families have a few favorite stand-by meals they seem to have quite often. For us a couple of those old stand-bys are tacos and meatloaf. My family absolutely loves both dinners, and when I'm not feeling inspired to come up with something new, these are a couple things I tend to go to. The problem is that I worry that if we have these meals too often, we'll start getting tired of them.
I learned awhile ago how to spruce up taco night. Sometimes instead of ground meat (we use ground turkey now for health reasons) I'll use chopped up chicken to make it more interesting and a little different. Sometimes we'll serve quesadillas with the tacos, or sometimes we'll do nachos with them, complete with refried beans and all.
Meatloaf is trickier though. I know there are thousands of different recipes for meatloaf, but I like it the way I usually make it, and the last time I tried something different with meatloaf, my husband didn't like it and wouldn't eat it.
Last night (being the last day of the week before I do grocery shopping) all we had left was meatloaf. I told my husband my worries about us getting tired of the meal, because we have been having it a lot lately. So he came up with a pretty neat idea. He prepared the meat the same as you would for regular meatloaf, but instead of forming it into a loaf and baking it, he formed the meat into patties and cooked them in a skillet. Then he served them on buns like hamburgers, complete with mac cheese and some french fries. So we had meatloaf burgers for dinner! I loved it. The meat still tasted like meatloaf, but we felt like we were eating burgers!
What sort of twists do you do to make your old stand bys new and exciting?
1 person likes this
10 responses
@mtdewgurl74 (18151)
• United States
30 Jan 10
My husband likes to have Taco burgers sometimes..uses everything a taco would but instead of a shell or soft tortilla you would use a bun.. it is good..and different one in awhile.. also with hamburgers we have mixed it up by adding mushrooms,onions,green peppers, cheese and sometimes other things to the meat to get it different flavors so it isn't the same ol' same ol' With chicken I have a few different marinades plus BBQ sauces I use to mix that up as well..
@mtdewgurl74 (18151)
• United States
30 Jan 10
That's what my nephew said..while looking at it funny..but he ate it and said it was alot better then expected..so ya never know..I never tried it with turkey or other meats besides the ground beef so not sure what the outcome would be with those.
@mtdewgurl74 (18151)
• United States
30 Jan 10
oops! I make the meat for tacos like usually would...not made into patty's
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
30 Jan 10
I just use a different seasoning for my baked chicken, I love the Mrs. Dash seasonings. I'm not sure if that taco burger sounds appetizing to me.. I'd probably have to try it, but not sure if I could! LOL
@dawnald (85137)
• Shingle Springs, California
29 Jan 10
I don't do twists, but I do sneak veggies into things like spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes, juice, etc. I should try meatloaf on the kids. I grew up with that, but I haven't made it in years. My mother-in-law uses tomato sauce on her meatloaf.
@dawnald (85137)
• Shingle Springs, California
29 Jan 10
My mom just put in oatmeal and onions and and egg and maybe some salt and pepper...
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
30 Jan 10
I use bread crumbs, not oatmeal, and lately I've used 100% whole wheat bread crumbs with Italian seasonings. I've never tried the oatmeal, but I have seen some recipes that use oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs. My mom used breadcrumbs, so that's what I've always done. I also use an egg, or a splash of egg substitute, a bit of ketchup or pasta sauce, and then a bunch of seasonings. After I form the loaf I put ketchup on the top and sprinkle some more italian seasonings on it.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
29 Jan 10
If I have left over pasta sauce or pizza sauce in the fridge I will put that into the meatloaf mixture, but I have to have ketchup on the top of it, I just love the taste of the cooked ketchup!
My mom used to make meatloaf with Heinz 57 sauce. I liked it, but when I tried to make it my hubby did not like it at all. One of these days I think I'll do it again, and just get him something else to eat that night.
1 person likes this
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
• United States
29 Jan 10
To make stuff like chicken noodle soup I sometimes add rice, or beans, or dumplings instead of noodles.
Spaghetti I like to add canned or fresh tomatoes to the jarred sauce along w/ zucchini or green peppers & I try different noodle shapes. Or even substitute ground meat with sausage, chicken or porkchops.
Mac'n cheese you can add ground beef, sausage, salsa, tuna, canned or frozen (cooked) veggies, canned tomatoes or whatever floats your fancy OR whatever you have on hand.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
29 Jan 10
I do the same things with pasta. Sometimes I make my own sauce instead of buying some. Sometimes I do not add meat, sometimes I'll add breaded chicken I bake myself, like a chicken parm.
Chicken noodle soup is not something we do often enough to need to change it up, and we don't really make meals out of mac cheese, it's more of a side dish for us, although hubby does like dressing it up for his lunches. He's added seasoned taco meat to mac cheese before and likes it.
@GreenMoo (11833)
•
8 Feb 10
I´m obviously showing my ignorance of American food again, but exactly what would the difference be between hamburger patties and meatloaf formed into patties? I thought it was pretty much the same thing?
We enjoy forming minced meat into small meatballs and serving them with different sauces.
I don´t think I try terribly hard to create twists on my usual dishes simply because I don´t often cook the same thing. I rarely use a receipe so nothing turns out the same twice anyway, and I tend to use different veggies each time depending on what I have in the cupboard.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
8 Feb 10
Meatloaf has a totally different flavor, because of the things you add to it. Hamburger is just plain beef, but meatloaf requires the addition of bread crumbs, ketchup or other tomato sauce, and I add loads of Italian seasonings.
@Opal26 (17679)
• United States
29 Jan 10
Hey kats! My bf seems to love having meatloaf too and I am
also always afraid of making it too much, but he seems to always
want it! I, myself am not a big meatloaf lover! I also make
meatsauce alot too! I used to make meatloaf with tomato sauce!
Now I have started to make it with brown gravy and we both seem
to like that better! I also make no yolk noodles with it! We
also like to have "Manwich" every now and then just to mix
it up! I like to have chopped meat in the house because there
is so much to you can do with it! But, I just can't get past
the taste of the turkey meat! So, eating healthy for me is
just a bit harder! I have enough trouble finding things to
eat to keep meals interesting and I only cook on the weekends
since he eats at work all week long! If I had to cook for him
all week I'd go crazy!
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
29 Jan 10
Because of the kids I do have to cook everyday. If I didn't have the kids I wouldn't really bother because hubby doesn't get home until after 9 most nights. But the kids need to eat. That's why I have such a hard time coming up with different meal ideas.
@LaurenInLA (2270)
• United States
29 Jan 10
I'm just not that creative when it comes to meals. We generally eat the same old same old. The only thing that I can think of that I do that's a little bit different is that I cut butternut squash into french fry shapes, brush them with a little olive oil and bake them in the oven. Give it a try. I bet that you'll never use potatoes again. I also add soy crumbles in place of half of the ground meat in my pasta sauce. Much less fat and no one notices the difference. Have you tried replacing some of the ground meat in your meat loaf with ground turkey? A Rachel Ray tip. Cut havarti cheese into small cubes and mix it with ground turkey. Form it into patties and fry. Yummy.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
29 Jan 10
As I said in my post, I do not use ground beef, I use ground turkey. I also do not use potatoes for myself. My kids and husband do, but I use sweet potatoes.
@frankiecesca (2489)
•
1 Feb 10
I don't really make any twists on it but, our favourite mal is chilli! We probably have it at leats once a week and in the past I have been known to have it more than twice a eek as I justlove it so much!! lol
@thedailyclick (3017)
•
29 Jan 10
Well it's not a major twist but I always love proper Lasagna and usually have it when ever I can't decide what else to have or can't be bothered to think up something new. But occassionaly to make it different I make it with tinned tuna instead of minced beef. I told you it wasn't a major twist but makes a change from the heavy meaty version to the lighter fishier version. It's actually easier to make as well as instead of frying up the onions and minced beef then adding tomatoes, all you do is open a tin of tinned tomatos into a pot with a big tin of tuna and let it reduce till it thickens enough to construct the lasagna.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
29 Jan 10
That doesn't sound like something we'd eat.. but when it comes to lasagna for us it has to be just so. We only have lasagna a couple times a year as it is, so we're never tired of it.
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
1 Feb 10
A couple of our old standbys are Mexican and Spaghetti. Well, with Mexican there are lots of different things that we can do with it. We will do plain tacos. I love to do quesadillas as well. We will do these with either beef or chicken cut into bite sized pieces, sauteed peppers and onions, cheese, and salsa. This is really one of my favorites. Now, with the spaghetti I will sometimes use half ground meat and half sausage. Sometimes I will use italian sausage and spinach and diced tomatoes. There are a lot of fun things that you can do with spaghetti.
