Not Your Mother's Meatloaf!

So what else do you do when you're having a blizzard? That's right! Cook comfort food!

A friend of mine gave me this recipe ages ago so I'm not sure where it came from. But I've been making it ever since! If you're tired of the same old meatloaf, try this recipe out!

Your favorite Meatloaf mix
6-8 slices of your favorite cheese- I usually use either Swiss or Provolone
About 1 1/2 cups of chopped broccoli- I use frozen
Ketchup
Sheet of Wax paper about 2 feet long

If you don't have a favorite meatloaf recipe, you can find a few to choose from here: Kraft Foods, This is my favorite recipe site. For my meatloaf, I don't measure anything. I just use about 2 lbs hamburger, 1/2 package dry onion soup mix, about 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 1 egg , about 1/4 cup of ketchup, and enough milk to make it all stick together but not too soggy.

meatloaf mix	all mixed up

Mix up your meatloaf. Pour it out onto your sheet of wax paper. Shape your meatloaf mix into a rectangle about the width of your meatloaf pan and approximately 15 inches long. Lay your slices of cheese on top, leaving a little room at both ends. If you use frozen broccoli, I suggest rinsing it in a colander with cold water. This just makes it a bit easier to spread and not all sticking together.

spread out on wax paper	cheese on top

Spread your broccoli evenly on top of the cheese. Now for the rolling. Turn the meatloaf so that the shorter end is toward you. Grab the wax paper and start rolling! As you roll, pull up the wax paper so it is not in your meatloaf.

broccoli on top of cheese	short end towards you

When you get to the end, stop just short of rolling it over the end. Pull the end up to the top of the meatloaf so that your seam is on the top. Press together as much as possible. At least with the seam on the top, nothing will fall out into your pan!

rollin' rollin' rollin'	Voila!

Carefully put the meatloaf into your pan. I have this cool meatloaf pan that has an insert with holes in the bottom to keep the meatloaf out of the grease. Cook for approximately 1 hour at 350 degrees.

in the pan	after an hour

After an hour, I put about a half cup of ketchup over the top of mine and let it cook for another 15 minutes or so to be sure it is done.

ketchup added	finished meatloaf

There you go! Serve with your favorite sides and the leftovers make great sandwiches, even with the broccoli!

Clairol Giving Away Free Hair Color

Ok... so promise you won't tell... but I do have a gray hair or two. Clairol is having a giveaway of 25,000 boxes of their new foam product each day for the next few days. Check it out here!

Clairol Foam Giveaway

They are out for today (I got mine in!) but they will start again tomorrow at 12pm est.


I would think foam would be easier to use than what is out there now! Hopefully I will get to try it out for free!

I'm a Grandma again!

Welcome to my new grandbaby! Kaitlyn Patricia! Born yesterday at 8:20 pm, 7.5 ounces, 19.5 inches. She's smiling already! hehehe

She will have 2 of the best big brothers! And a great mom and pop!

Quest for Challah!

We love challah! None of the grocery stores around here carry it and the one bakery we found that makes it just doesn't get it quite right.I was directed to this recipe to try:  Challah! This is the printable version of the recipe. In the regular web page version, there is no "About this Recipe' paragraph.

In that paragraph it says "I don't use all the water called for in the recipe"... Well if you don't use it all... why is it stated as that much in the recipe?  I added 1 1/4 cups and it was still too much. Tell me how much to start with and then I can add! I ended up with sticky dough and had to add flour to fix it.

So I got out my bread machine which hasn't seen any use in oh... 5 or 6 years maybe? It was in the garage, and practically frozen! As you can see I made a mess.

Put all the ingredients in the bread machine. You have to do it in the right order or something bad will happen with the yeast. Not sure what... but I don't want to find out!

The bread machine does it's thing for oh... an hour and a half. Then you  dump it out and try to braid it.

 I tried to braid it into 2 loaves. They look kinda mooshed. It's so cold in my 

house it took longer than the prescribed half hour for them to rise.

Finally get to put them in the oven and here is the finished product!!!

They taste exceptionally yummy! And all in all they weren't that hard to make. And as an added bonus, the house smells really good!! I don't think they're going to last long!

Next I think I'm going to make some sourdough starter and try for sourdough!

New Stuff!!

The new year is here and it's out with the old and in with the new. KZ Embroidery & Gifts will be retiring some products and bringing in some new ones! Here are the two newest:

Cute Luggage Tags!

 

 

Several designs to choose from. You can have your first name or initials monogrammed on the back. They all have a vinyl pocket and come with a card to write your address info on and stick it into the pocket. You'll always be able to find your luggage on the carousel with these bright, colorful tags attached.

Monogrammed Fringe Scarves

Perfect for winter or any time of the year. 28 by 80 inches with a 3 inch fringe. Can be used as a shawl or a scarf. Monogrammed with your 3 letter monogram.

Keep checking back as we update our site with new products. Soon to come: Cute Tooth Fairy Pillows for boys and girls, more gift sets packaged and ready to give, Vinyl wall words and more!

Facebook Emails Going to 'Updates' Folder

Hi! and Happy New Year!

Well, Facebook is rolling out another change. They are changing the way their 'mail' system works. For those of us with business pages, some functionality has already changed.

First of all, to send an 'update' to people who have 'liked' your page, you now need to do the following:
Select 'Edit Page' under your profile picture for your business page.
Click the 'Marketing' tab.
Click 'Send an Update'

You used to be able to 'send an update' from the bottom of your business profile page.

Next... when you send these 'updates' they no longer go to the 'messages' box where you see all your normal emails. They go to an 'updates' folder that you won't see unless you actually look for it. This is how it looks under your profile:

You actually need to click on 'Messages' and then it will look like this:

As you can see, it opens up a new menu and shows that I have messages in my 'Updates' box.

There is no other notification that I have these messages, just like the new 'Spam' filter for your news feed.

Facebook is making quite a few changes to their 'mail' system. One of which is you will be able to have an @facebook email. They are rolling them out a bit at a time and you must request an invitation to be included. I've requested an invitation, we'll see how it goes. I'm not sure I like the new profile changes yet. Any thoughts on this?