Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: All right, let’s read a little, what do I want to call it? A comment, five star comment from this recipe that we’re making today. “Very delicious period. No leftovers.” I think that’s a good sign. 

Super good, super delicious, super balanced flavors. We are making a savory mashed sweet potato recipe today. I think that we’re all used to the really sickly sweet mashed sweet potatoes that are loaded with brown sugar topped with marshmallows. It can taste a little bit more like dessert than a savory dish that you would serve with dinner, and so I set out to create something that was super balanced and really rounds out the flavor of the sweet potatoes. I’ll tell you, this recipe accomplishes it in spades. I absolutely love this recipe. I will tell you I’m not even a huge, sweet potato fan, but I absolutely love this recipe.

Savory Mashed Sweet Potatoes Recipe: So no tips today. We’re just going to get straight into it and go over everything, how to make your savory mashed sweet potatoes. One difference with this recipe. A lot of mashed sweet potato recipes out there call for you to boil the sweet potatoes. We’re not doing that. We are going to develop their natural sweetness and their really deep, beautiful flavor by roasting the sweet potatoes first before mashing.

So, what you want to do is preheat your oven to 400 degrees and you’re going to grab a nine by 13 or larger baking dish, or a rimmed baking sheet. What you’re going to do is cut your sweet potatoes in half lengthwise, lay them cut side up on that roasting pan, and then you’re going to drizzle them with about three tablespoons of olive oil. You could also use canola oil here. So some type of, you know, just neutral oil will. 

Then on that same tray, you’re going to take a small head of garlic, not one clove. We want a whole entire head of garlic. You just need a small one. You’re going to trim the very top of that head of garlic off, discard the top. Then you’ll take a small piece of foil, hold it in your hand, put that whole entire head of garlic cut side up in the foil, drizzle just about a teaspoon of olive oil over the top, and then close it up so that it makes a nice little pouch for your garlic. What you’re doing is roasting that garlic and we’re going to add it to the mashed sweet potatoes, which is, Ooh, so good. If you love garlic, you’re going to love these. So pop that in the oven and you’re going to let that roast for about 15 minutes. Pull the sweet potatoes out, flip them over, and this is going to help caramelize the top of the sweet potatoes, which is so delicious. Pop them back in the oven for about another 20 minutes.

Now after that’s done, you’re going to want to make sure that your potatoes are cooked through. So take a fork and just poke it into one of the sweet potatoes. If it just goes in without any resistance, except for of course the skin, then they’re done. If you meet any resistance, you’re going to want to pop them back in the oven for five minute increments. However, before you do that, take the garlic off of the tray because you do not want to burn your garlic. So once they’re cooked all the way, you just want to let them cool for a little bit because you’re going to actually handle them with your hands or with a towel and you don’t want them to be smoking hot. 

So as soon as they’re cool enough to handle, what I usually like to do is take a towel, like a clean kitchen towel and put it in my hand, and then I’ll pick up a potato and then over a bowl where I’m going to mash the potatoes, I squeeze the inside of the potato, out of the potato skin. It usually works perfectly. Now, of course, if you don’t want to do it that way, you can just hold the potato in your hand, take a large spoon, and scrape all of the sweet potato out of the skin of the potato. Put it into just a large bowl, and then repeat that with all of the sweet potatoes.

Then you want to take that head of garlic, take it out of the foil packet, turn it upside down over those sweet potatoes, and just give it a squeeze. All of the roasted garlic should squeeze right out, and it will be so yummy. It will smell so good. So when you roast garlic, It becomes kind of sweet, but still savory and really takes off that bite of the garlic and so you can add an entire head into your sweet potatoes.

Now, here’s where we’re going to round some of the flavors out. You’re also going to add one tablespoon of brown sugar. That’s going to enhance the natural sweetness of the sweet potato, so it rounds that sweetness out. You’re going to add four tablespoons of salted butter, one tablespoon of milk, or half and half, and one teaspoon of kosher salt.

Now this is the part that I absolutely love. You’re going to add two teaspoons of balsamic vinegar in with those potatoes and that just adds that high note that the sweet potatoes need. Sweet potatoes have a very flat flavor, and when you add that tangy balsamic vinegar, it just is perfect. 

Now, either with a potato masher or with a handheld mixer, you can mix everything together. I will tell you the handheld mix works really, really well. So mix those all up until they are at your desired consistency. 

Now, of course, before you serve this dish, you want to give it a taste. So taste it, see if you like a little more balsamic vinegar. See if you want them a little sweeter. Do you want some more salt, whatever’s going to make them right for you, add just a little dash of whatever it needs. 

One thing that I do love to do when I serve these. I’ll put them in a shallow serving dish, take the back of a spoon and make some swooshes and some divots in there. Put a pat or two of butter on top so that it melts over top and keeps it looking super delicious. Then I will take some flaky sea salt. In my kitchen I have Maldon flake sea salt, and actually in the recipe card and in the show notes, I will link that product for you. It’s literally flakes of salt that are kind of crispy, and that makes such a wonderful garnish on top of these sweet potatoes, you’re going to love it.

Now you don’t need any gravy. You don’t need anything or any marshmallows or whatever topping for these sweet potatoes. So you can serve these right alongside any protein, roast, holiday table, wherever you need a starchy side dish. These savory mashed sweet potatoes will work perfectly. 

So that does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. Of course, I will link all of the recipes and products that I talked about right in the show notes for you so you can save it, pin it, make it whatever you need when you are ready. 

Always my request, I would love to have you guys subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player and then also share this podcast and the Mom’s Dinner recipe with your friends, your family, a loved one. I would appreciate it. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, make your dinner time a little easier. See ya.

Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. Hi, I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.

Susie Weinrich: I’m super pumped about this recipe today. We are making a no dripping gravy and if I had to categorize this recipe on my site, I think I would put it under the heading helpful content. I guess I have that top of mind because Google just did an update where they said, if your content is not helpful, we do not want to show it. So hey Google, this is super helpful content. You know, you have the holidays and let’s say you roasted the Turkey or the chickens and now it’s time to make the gravy, and you’re supposed to make the gravy out of the drippings. What if you don’t have sufficient drippings? Or what if you have a really heavy mix of greasy drippings and now how do you separate it? What do you do with it? What tools do you need? Sometimes making gravy can be extremely stressful and you don’t want to end up with lumpy gravy. There are so many levels of gravy stress, I can’t even tell. But this recipe for no drippings gravy, it’s consistent. You know how much you’re going to get. It’s not lumpy, it’s crazy flavorful. You can change the flavorings depending on what you’re serving it with. If you want a chicken gravy, a brown gravy, if you want Turkey gravy, you can totally change it up to suit the dinner that you’re making the gravy for.

I also just recently made this recipe on PinTV, so I will link in the show notes for you where I make Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes, and then I finish with making this no dripping gravy. So besides just listening to this recipe, you can actually also watch me make this recipe on PinTV.

Gravy Recipe: Usually at this point in the audio recipe, I will go over some tips to share with you about the recipe. But I think I’m going to do that while I’m going through making the actual recipe so you can hear how things work out as you’re making this. One thing I will say is that this recipe does take a little bit of time. So of course you could just make gravy with butter, flour, and chicken stock. Sure. You’ll have fine gravy, but we’re not making fine gravy. We’re making outstanding gravy. So we’re going to develop layers of flavor before we add the broth and really punch up the flavor of your gravy. To start off, you need a large, high sided skillet and you’re going to place that over medium low heat. You need one full stick of butter, so eight tablespoons of butter, and get that melting on the stove top.

Now, you want to take yellow onions. It is preferred here, it’s a little bit sweeter, so grab a yellow onion if you have it, and slice it into about quarter inch thick slices. Place that in the butter. Here’s where we’re going to take our time. You’re going to caramelize the onions. So if you pump the heat up, you’re going to burn the butter, you’re going to burn the onions, and the flavor is not going to be the same. Keep it on medium, low to maybe a medium, and you’re just going to let the onions sit and caramelize. Stir it about every five minutes. Keep an eye on the pan, but you can also just let it do its thing. 

The onions will start to get a golden brown color around the edges, maybe about 15 to 20 minutes in. This is where you’re going to add one full sprig of rosemary. There’s no need to chop it. Actually it’s better if you don’t chop it, because we’re going to remove that later. So one full sprig of rosemary, and if rosemary is not your jam, you can absolutely sub thyme here. Or you can do both. I’ve even added a sprig of sage, and that’s delicious.

So pop that in there. Then you want to crack three garlic cloves. You’re not mincing it, you’re not chopping it. Just crack them open so that they can release their oils and their flavor into the gravy. But you’re not going to end up with pieces of garlic in the gravy. 

Now let that saute and simmer and caramelize for about another 15 minutes over that medium low heat. That’s your flavor base of heaven. I’m telling you, it will smell so good. That’s the flavor you’re infusing into your gravy. Next you’re going to add another big flavor punch. So there’s something at the grocery store called Chicken Base. It’s going to be by the Bouillon, but it’s like a grownup version of Bouillon. It comes usually in a jar or a tub, and it’s a paste form. It makes this gravy stand out. So you’re going to add one and a half teaspoons of chicken base. I personally like the Better than Bouillon brand. It seems to be just a true, really good flavor without being overly salty. 

Now, if it’s during the holidays, you can absolutely add a dash of ground sage and ground poultry seasoning at this point, just to punch up the flavor a little bit. Stir that chicken base in, and it should just melt right into the onions and right along with that butter. 

Also, this is where you can change up the flavor profile. The better than Bouillon Brand has, just about every base from lobster to ham. Everything you need. If you want beef, Turkey, chicken, whatever you want your gravy to match, then change up the base that you’re adding here.

Alright, now you’re going to add in one third cup of all-purpose flour. This is making a roux. A roux is basically flour mixed with a fat that thickens a sauce or a liquid. Stir that flour into that butter mixture and just stir it around the pan for about one minute so that you get rid of that raw flour flavor.

Next, you’re going to slowly whisk in three cups of stock or broth. Again, this is where you can change up your flavor profile. So if you’re using chicken, beef, Turkey, change up the broth or stock to match what you’re serving. Once that is completely whisked in and everything looks smooth, it’s going to look really liquidy. Don’t be nervous. What you’re going to do is crank the heat up to medium high and let that simmer just for a few minutes until it thickens up perfectly. If you want to make it extra. Luscious and shiny and delicious. You can stir in a little bit of heavy cream at this point, or add another pat or two of butter.

But the very final step you want to do is strain the gravy. So you still have some onion pieces in there. You still have the garlic chunks, and you have the rosemary or the herbs that you added in. You want to strain all of that out. So what you’ll do is take a fine mesh colander, place it over a large bowl and strain all of those solids out. So I usually just pour it all right into that colander and then take my whisk and stir it around in there. Make sure you scrape all of the gravy off the bottom of the colandar so that you get every last bit. Give it a taste. See if you want more salt, see if you want more cream. If it gets too thick, you can pour in a little extra broth. If it’s not thick enough, you can put it back on and simmer it for a little bit longer. Right in the post I have all of the troubleshooting things that you need to make sure that your gravy is absolutely perfect. Because for some people they say that mashed potatoes are just the vessel to carry the gravy. So you want to make sure it’s perfect and delicious. 

So that does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. Of course, I will link the recipe for no drippings gravy right in the show notes for you, as well as a couple really killer mashed potato recipes that you can use to carry your gravy. That’s it.

So I would love to have you guys follow and subscribe to your preferred podcast player and also tell a friend, a loved one, a family member about this show and about the Mom’s Dinner recipes. I would appreciate it. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.

Intro: Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.

Susie Weinrich: You guys, I am so excited to be recording this episode. So last night, which I’m going to date this episode, it was November 8th. I did a PinTV live making these Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes, and it went so well. So within the show notes of this episode, I will also put a link to that PinTV episode so you can actually watch these Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes being made as well as listen to the full recipe here on this podcast episode.

Obviously we’re in November when I’m recording this, so Thanksgiving is right around the corner and mashed potatoes can sometimes be the star of the table. For me, it’s the mashed potatoes, the stuffing, the corn casserole, and the cranberries. Those are the things that I want to eat at Thanksgiving. Turkey, it’s fine, right? Turkey’s just okay in my mind. I love ham. I actually might make a ham this year, but enough about Thanksgiving. This is not supposed to be a Thanksgiving episode. It’s just on my mind because here we are. But you can make these Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes year round. They go great with burgers. They go great with pot roast. They go great with Swedish meatballs. Anything that calls for a mashed potato side dish, these are knockout. They are not your traditional butter and milk mashed potatoes. This recipe has cream cheese, sour cream, butter, kosher salt, a little raw garlic, and it is just knockout. They do not need any gravy. But if you want to make gravy, I have a great no dripping gravy recipe that I will link in the show notes for you. 

Tips and Tricks: So let’s go over a couple tips when you’re making these Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes. Number one, the recipe calls for Russet potatoes. You could try to make it with Yukon gold potatoes, but that is such a different potato compared to a Russet. The recipe was really written for Russet potatoes because what you end up with is, the Russets are a very nice starchy, sturdy potato. They hold up to the instant pot. Then the amount of liquid and cream and butter and sour cream. Everything that you’re adding makes them this just velvety texture where they’re still thick enough so they hold up to all of those mix-ins. So I would highly recommend this recipe, you stick with the Russets. However, I do have a recipe for Yukon Gold mashed potatoes. They’re not made in the Instant Pot, but they’re made on the stove top and I will link that recipe for you as well if you want to check that one out too. 

At the very end of this recipe, you add raw garlic. The recipe is made with three pounds of potatoes and you’re adding one raw garlic clove. Don’t be scared that the raw garlic is going to take over the entire dish. It does not. It’s just the right amount to flavor the mashed potatoes with the most delicious garlic flavor. It is perfect. 

Two other add-ins that we are adding. Well, actually three other things we’re adding. We’re only adding a half a cup of water, so these mashed potatoes are no drain mashed potatoes, which is amazing. You don’t have to use a colander. Everything’s done in one pot. Another add-in is your sour cream. Use full fat sour cream. It’s just going to make things creamier and more delicious. You could maybe get away, maybe, I don’t know. You could maybe get away with using a Greek yogurt, but sour cream is really where it’s at. 

The other add-in is your cream cheese. You want the cream cheese to be slightly softened, so leave it at room temperature for a while while the Instant Pot is coming to pressure and cooking the potatoes. If you leave it out at room temperature, it’s going to soften just enough so that that cream cheese mixes in with the mashed potatoes really well, and you don’t end up with clumps of cream cheese, which wouldn’t be terrible, right? But it’s better if it’s nice and mixed in, nice and smooth. Those are all my tips for your Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes. Let’s get on to making this recipe. 

Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes Recipe: I think I have this recipe actually memorized, so I’m not even going to open up a recipe card to move through this with you. What you’re going to do is start with three pounds of recipe potatoes. You’re going to get those peeled up washed. Here’s another little tip for you actually. I’m going to sprinkle a few tips throughout this recipe. If you’re making these for the holidays and you need to get your potatoes done ahead of time, you can absolutely peel your Russet potatoes a couple hours ahead of time and just put them in a cool water bath and they’ll stay fine and ready for you to use in a couple hours. That water will keep your potatoes from browning, so that’s a great tip anytime you have to make mashed potatoes and you have to peel a lot of potatoes. 

So you’re going to start with those three pounds of Russets, peel them up, and then you’re going to cut them into two to three inch pieces. What that’s doing is making sure that all of your potatoes have an even cooking time in the instant pot. Pop all of those into your instant pot, and then you’re going to pour in half a cup of water, and then you’re going to sprinkle in two teaspoons of kosher salt. It’s going to sound like a lot of salt, but potatoes require quite a bit of salt and butter and flavor to be delicious. So that’s where we’re starting with this one. You’re going to pop the lid of the instant pot on, turn that pressure valve to seal and set it to cook manual setting. So manual pressure, normal heat, high pressure for 11 minutes. Let it do its thing, and then finish with a natural release.

Once all that pressure is released, you’re going to open up the Instant pot. Your potatoes are going to be cooked perfectly. Like I said before, there’s no need to drain. You only put a half a cup of water in there and you can leave it in. You’re going to mix it in with the potatoes. Now you’re going to add your mix-ins. You’re going to add four tablespoons of butter, half a cup of sour and four ounces of cream cheese. Now it’s time to mix them up. So you can use a handheld potato masher, but what I like to do is use my handheld mixer just with the two beaters and whip the potatoes up. It whips them perfectly smooth and creamy. After that’s all mixed up, what you’re going to do next is chop up one raw garlic clove. Give it a really good mince so it mixes throughout the potatoes. Add two tablespoons of milk or half and half. Give it one last mix and your potatoes are ready. 

Guys, it’s the easiest recipe ever, and I’m telling you, you don’t need gravy. You don’t need extra butter, you don’t need anything. They are super, super delicious, just as is. 

So, of course you can find the full recipe on my website momsdinner.net, and I will put a link right in the show notes that can take you directly to that recipe. You can print it out, you can pin it, save it, make it, whatever you need to do.

So that does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. If you’re enjoying these episodes and these recipes, I would love to have you follow and subscribe to your preferred podcast player as well as tell a friend or a family member or a loved one about this podcast and about the Mom’s Dinner recipes. I would love you for it.

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya. 

Okay, you guys, one tip that I totally forgot to add in the episode, so we’re just going to add it here at the end. We’re just going to keep it casual. When you are serving mashed potatoes, you want to plan to make half a pound of potatoes per person. So in this recipe, we’re using three pounds of potatoes. You’re going to get six servings. All right, use that tip. See you guys later.

Intro: Hello, hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes and holiday recipes that you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Ooh, you guys. Cuddle up. Let’s talk about the holidays a little bit. I’m super excited. So I’m recording just before Thanksgiving. So we’ve got all of the traditional holiday recipes on the top of our minds, and one that I absolutely love that is always a pop out for me are the cranberries. So it was just, to me, the cranberries, of course when I was little, I hated them. Like how disgusting were cranberries when you were little. But as an adult, it is such a flavor balancer for the holiday dinner. So everything is super rich. You know, you have potatoes and gravy and Turkey or ham and stuffing. Everything is so heavy. Then you put those tart, fresh, cold cranberries on your plate and it just balances everything out. It’s like the palate cleanser you can keep coming back to after you’re like, okay, I’ve eaten all the mashed potatoes. Okay, let me take a few bites of those cranberries. It’s cold, it’s refreshing. So good. 

So if you’ve never made cranberries before, of course there’s a few different options that you can go here. You can just buy jellied cranberries from the grocery store. It’s what you think of when you think of EW cranberries, the whole thing dumps out in one piece. You can still see the ribs of the can on it. You slice it into slices and for some people that is what cranberries are, and it’s traditional. It’s kind of funny. People love it. However, there’s another option in the canned variety. You can buy whole cranberry, cranberry sauce. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. Of course, you can make cranberries with fresh cranberries, which is great. But if your grocery store is out of fresh cranberries and you need to make cranberry sauce, go to the canned aisle and grab a can of whole berry cranberry sauce. We love the Ocean Spray brand, but use whatever they have available at your store.

What this is going to be are basically whole cranberries. There’s still going to be pieces and whole round cranberries within the jellied cranberry sauce. The thing that this lacks is depth of flavor and multiple layers of texture. So you can take two cans of whole berry cranberry sauce from the grocery store and zhuzh it up and make it so incredibly delicious. So let’s just jump right into this recipe. 

Tips and Tricks: I don’t have a ton of tips around this recipe. It’s really just an easy way to have super delicious cranberry sauce at your holiday table. Here are the ingredients you need to make your canned cranberry sauce recipe. You need two 14 ounce cans of whole berry cranberry sauce, an eight ounce can of crushed pineapple in juice. You want to make sure that you buy the one in a hundred percent juice and not a crushed pineapple in syrup. Then you’ll need one navel orange, just a fresh orange, medium, or large size. You’ll need some ground cinnamon and then some ground clove. 

Canned Cranberry Sauce Recipe: All right, so what you’re going to do is you’re going to take a large saucepan and put it over low heat. You’re going to pour in the two whole berry cranberry sauce cans, the whole can of eight ounce crushed pineapple and juice, the zest of one full orange, then a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon and a really healthy pinch of ground clove. You just warm that together for about 10 minutes over low heat, and you want to give it a stir occasionally, and that’s it.

Susie Weinrich: Now the key here is, tasting for your preference. If you like your cranberry super sweet, you can absolutely add in a little brown sugar, a little white sugar. Give it a stir, let it melt in. Now, if you like your cranberries a little more tart like I do, then you can squeeze in just a little bit of lemon juice. Of course, taste as you go because once it’s in there, you can’t take it out. If you added too much lemon juice and now it’s a little too tart, sprinkle a little sugar in and it should balance out perfectly. 

You’ll remove this from the heat and let it cool for about 15 to 20 minutes. It’s up to your personal preference if you want to serve your cranberries warm, or if you want to make them ahead, you can make them up to three days ahead, pop them in the fridge, and then serve them cold. 

So during the holidays when you’re making all of those dishes, I highly recommend making your cranberries a couple days ahead so that you don’t even have to worry about it. It’s already done. If you have some cranberries left over after the holidays, try eating this cranberry sauce over vanilla ice cream. I’m telling you guys, it is such a delicious treat. I know the tradition is to put it on Turkey sandwiches, but just give it a try over vanilla ice cream and let me know what you think.

You can always connect with me in the comment section of the actual recipe on momsdinner.net. So if you have anything to say about it. That’s where you need to meet me. 

That does it for this episode of Let’s Make Dinner. Of course, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about right in the show notes so you can find them, make them, save them, pin them, whatever you need.

I would also love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player or tell a friend, a loved one, a family member about this show and about Mom’s Dinner recipes. I would absolutely love you for that. 

Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner Makes your dinner time a little easier. Happy holidays, everyone.

Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Oh my gosh, I’m so excited you guys are here. We are going to be making a super classic dinner, Coca-Cola Classic. We’re making meatloaf muffin cups. So meatloaf is a super traditional, Sunday family dinner recipe, eighties, seventies, yummy. Something that I grew up eating. We are going to put a little modern spin on meatloaf. It’s still going to have all of your classic flavors, you know, onion, tomato, with a ketchup topping. But it’s just going to be made a little bit easier by baking them in a muffin tin so that it bakes faster.

Sometimes meatloaf can take an hour and a half to bake if you make a really big, solid meatloaf. So if you cut it down into smaller little individual portions, it’s ready in a flash. Which we’re all busy, okay? We need minimum effort, maximum flavor. Maybe that should be the name of my podcast. Minimum Effort, maximum flavor, let’s make dinner. 

Tips and Tricks: Okay, let’s get into a couple tips with this recipe. So we’re making ground beef muffin cups. With ground beef, there’s lots of different fat ratios that you can buy for ground beef and different fat ratios work for different things. So if you’re cooking something made with ground beef in its own juices, like a meatball or a meatloaf, or a casserole or a chili, something where the beef and the fat are contained, you want something that is not quite as fatty as an 80/20. 85/15 is excellent. If you want to go, if you can find a 90/10, wonderful. You could go 93/7. That’s getting a little bit lean, but you could certainly use that. 80/20 is going to be great for burgers or something that you’re cooking where the beef is not cooking in its own fat. Because the fat is good. I mean, it adds flavor, but it also makes things greasy. So you want to avoid that. 

Now the other tip with these meatloaf muffin cups is that we’re going to be adding a panade anytime. I’ve talked about making burgers, making meatballs, anything that’s really made with ground meat, we make a panade to add to it. That’s basically just a mixture of a starch and a liquid that keeps a ground meat recipe juicy.

So for this one, we’re using panko breadcrumbs and milk. It’s the perfect addition for meatloaf. Now let’s talk about the topping. I’ve seen a lot of different toppings for meatloaf. I mean, I’ve seen zhuzh up ketchup, I’ve seen a barbecue sauce, I’ve seen a barbecue ketchup mixture. Lots of different options here. If you have a family favorite, use whatever you like. At my house, we like straight up traditional ketchup. Nothing added in, just ketchup. It’s not going to taste like straight up Heinz ketchup after it comes out of the oven. Something happens. To the ketchup when it’s in the oven, and I think it has to do a lot with the sugar content in ketchup. It caramelizes and really becomes rich in flavor and it’s the perfect topping for these meatloaf muffin cups. So if you trust me and you trust my flavor, then go with just the straight up ketchup. I think that’s all the tips that I have for this recipe. 

Meatloaf Muffins Recipe: So we can just pop right into making the full recipe. You want to start by making sure that you have a 12 cup muffin tin. This recipe’s going to make exactly 12 cups. Get yourself a 12 cup muffin tin. Then the other thing that I recommend is placing that muffin tin on a rimmed baking sheet because the meatloaf muffins will pile a little bit higher than your muffin tin, and you don’t want any grease to bake out and spill in your oven and make a mess. It will make a smoky mess if grease runs out in your oven. 

Okay, let’s get to making these. You’re going to start by preheating your oven to 400. Then you want to spray your 12 count muffin tin with a little non-stick spray baking spray, or you can coat it in some kind of olive oil or canola oil.

Then you can set that aside. In a skillet over medium heat, you’re going to saute one diced onion and three chopped garlic cloves until they’re softened. So this will be like eight to 10 minutes. Then you remove that from the heat and you’re going to stir in two tablespoons of worcestershire sauce, one tablespoon of tomato paste, and one teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary.

Now, if rosemary is not your jam, then you can absolutely sub in chopped fresh thyme. I think those are probably the two herbs that I would use here. I don’t think I would stray into basil or oregano. I would keep it to that rosemary or thyme, or you could do a combo of the two. That would work as well.

So go ahead and set that mixture aside and let it cool while we make the ground beef mixture. In a large bowl, you’re going to add one cup of Panko breadcrumbs, and a third a cup of milk. You’re going to let that sit for just like a minute or two so that the Panko breadcrumbs can soften in that milk. Then to that, you’re going to add two pounds of ground beef, two eggs that are lightly beaten, one teaspoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper, half a teaspoon of onion powder, and then that sauteed onion mixture.

With clean hands or a fork, you’re going to mix everything together, just until it comes together. You don’t want to overmix it because we’re not trying to make compact little meatballs here. We’re trying to make some nice tender meatloaf cups. Once that is all mixed together, it’s time to grab that prepared muffin tin. With a third a cup, a measuring cup, you want to portion the meatloaf mixture into the muffin tin. So it should be just exactly one third of a cup into the muffin tin. No need to pat it down or make it look perfect. It’s totally fine if it looks kind of craggy on the top and is just messy. Totally fine. 

Next, you want to top each individual little meatloaf cup with about one tablespoon of ketchup and just spread it just a little bit so it’s not all the way to the edge, but so that it covers the surface.

Then you’re going to place that muffin tin on top of the baking sheet, like I said before, to catch any spills. You’re going to bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes until the center of the meatloaf cups reaches around 160. If you have an instant read thermometer, you can check the internal temperature there. 160 is totally fine. It will climb a couple degrees once you take it out of the ove., and that’s just called carry over cooking. Let them rest for a few minutes and then you can pop them right out of that muffin tin and serve them. Serve them! 

I got really excited about serving my meatloaf cups. Okay, so you’re going to serve one to three meatloaf cups per person. One per kid, right? Maybe three per super hungry person is great. 

As far as side dishes go, keep it classic,okay. It goes great with mashed potatoes and any kind of green veggie; like roasted broccoli, green peas, roasted asparagus, green beans, anything like that is just super classic.

Now if you want to make this recipe with ground Turkey, I actually have a recipe for ground Turkey meatloaf muffin cups that’s wonderful. So I will link that in the show notes for you. I also have a really fun recipe for meatloaf slider sandwiches, you know, like little mini sandwiches. I will link that in the show notes as well, because you can serve your meatloaf muffin cups one night and then a couple nights later you can serve meatloaf sliders if you have leftovers. So a great two for one dinner. 

That does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. Of course, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about right in the show notes for you so you can find them when you’re ready to make dinner. 

If you’re enjoying this show, I would love to have you follow or subscribe to your preferred podcast player, as well as let a friend or family member or somebody you love know about this podcast. I would totally appreciate it. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.

Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: All right, we have a little extra special bonus episode for you today. This is not a dinner recipe. Since we are headed right into winter, I thought I would come on and do a little hot chocolate recipe. I am all for a really good shortcut in the kitchen. Really good marinara sauce, a really good refrigerated pesto, really good refrigerated pico de gallo you can get at the store. Packaged hot chocolate, it’s fine. But if you’ve ever had homemade hot chocolate that has a really rich, deep chocolate flavor and has a thicker texture, it’s almost like drinking chocolate, you won’t go back to the packaged stuff. It’s super, super easy. If you have a well-stocked baking cabinet, most likely you can actually make hot chocolate any day, especially on a snow day. This will be an extra special treat. If you have some teens in your house that maybe are feeling a little bit too old to go make a snowman outside, you can leave them inside and they can make this hot chocolate for everybody. They’ll love it. It’s a great little snow day project for the older kids. 

Tips and Tricks: So there is one ingredient that you may not have in your baking cabinet already, and it’s powdered milk. It’s kind of an odd ingredient, but it definitely makes this hot chocolate recipe extra creamy and rich. You can find powdered milk usually in the baking aisle, and it’s probably going to be on one of the bottom shelves. It will either be in a box or in a canister. The one I have is just from Target. It’s on the bottom shelf. It comes in a box, and then there’s three pouches in the box. So look for that at your store and pick it up, and then you can just keep it in your baking cabinet. When you’re ready to make this hot chocolate, you’ll probably have all the ingredients you need.

Homemade Hot Chocolate Recipe: To get started, you’re going to need three cups of milk. In the recipe, I recommend whole milk just because it’s extra creamy and rich, but you can definitely use a 2% if that’s what you have. So in a small saucepan, you’re going to get that warming over medium low heat. While that warms together, you’re going to whisk together a quarter cup of powdered milk, a quarter cup of unsweetened cocoa powder and three tablespoons of powdered sugar. Whisk that together until it comes together and there’s no clumps or anything. Then once that milk is warm on the stove top, you’re going to slowly whisk that cocoa mixture into the warm milk and keep whisking until it is smooth and fully combined. Then you’re going to pour in one cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips into that warm milk cocoa mixture and stir until they’re completely melted and incorporated. Remove that from the heat, and that’s it. That is your hot chocolate. It is super simple and is so much better than the package stuff. I hate saying that because it feels snooty, but it really is. It really is better than just the package stuff, I promise. 

So this recipe will fill two mugs completely. Or to be honest, what I find is that when I pour hot cocoa for the kids, they generally don’t drink the whole cup anyway. So I would pour it into three cups, filling it about two thirds of the way full, and then leave the rest of the room for the kids to pour on all their toppings. We’re not having hot cocoa every day, so let them go crazy with their toppings. 

Some of the things that I like to have for the kids to add in are, of course marshmallows, mini marshmallows, whipped cream, maybe some chocolate sauce, maybe some extra cocoa powder or powdered sugar in a little shaker. For the adults you could add a little boozy note to your hot cocoa. So some things that would be really good are Peppermint Schnapps, Baileys, maybe Kahlua. RumChata is probably my favorite. It has a cinnamon and cream flavor to it. You could do whipped cream vodka, marshmallow vodka. Fireball or just a chocolate liqueur to add a little bit more chocolate flavor.

So I hope that this hot cocoa recipe warms up your next snow day. Of course, I will link the full recipe right in the show notes for you so you can find it when you’re ready to make your homemade hot chocolate. 

If you’re enjoying all these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That just makes it easier for you to find all of our new episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: All right. Usually at the end I say, I hope this recipe makes your dinner time easier, but since this isn’t for dinner, I guess we’ll just see you later.

Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.

Susie Weinrich: I am super excited to share this recipe with you guys today because if you have picky eaters in your house, they are going to love this recipe. We are making chicken noodle soup for the kids for dinner tonight. This is a perfect kid-friendly dinner. It’s full of flavor so the adults can eat it, but not full of ingredients that your kids are going to hate. Like pieces of onion, pieces of garlic, chopped-up celery, and no green stuff; no parsley, nothing that they’re going to turn their nose up at.

Intro: This is a homemade chicken noodle soup with just a few ingredient adjustments. That makes it a perfect kid-friendly dinner, that is great for your picky eaters. I also will tell you that this recipe is famous adjacent. So Jenna Fisher, who played Pam on The Office, made this recipe for her kids and her family for dinner, and everybody loved it and she shared it on Instagram and the recipe blew up. So you can tell your kids that Pam from the office even likes this recipe. 

Tips and Tricks: All right, so a couple of tips on a few ingredients when you’re making this chicken noodle soup. Number one, the chicken. I always recommend that you take advantage of the rotisserie chicken either at Costco or at your local grocery store.

It’s super tender and juicy chicken that is perfect in any recipe that calls for cooked chicken. The other option would be to roast a chicken breast in the oven at 350 for about 15 to 20 minutes until it reaches 165. Or you could poach a chicken breast in simmering water. I have a great recipe on Mom’s Dinner that I will link in the show notes for you on how to poach chicken breasts. The last option would be just to use the leftover chicken that you have in your fridge. 

Another ingredient I want to chat about is chicken base. So chicken base I always say is like the older, better-looking brother of chicken bouillon. Basically, it’s a paste form of bouillon that has so much more flavor and is so much more delicious. So you will find it in your soup aisle, and I usually purchase the Better Than Bouillon brand. It comes in a jar and it’s a paste form. Definitely do not skip that ingredient. 

The last thing I want to talk about before we get to the full recipe is the noodles traditional. You know, like canned Campbell’s chicken noodle soup has a very specific noodle. It is not spaghetti, it is not a frozen thick egg noodle. It’s something called a kluski noodle, and I believe it’s spelled K L U S K I. They sometimes are also called Swabian Spaetzle noodles, which you’re probably like, yeah, I’m never going to find in my grocery store. But you’ll be surprised. It’s probably going to be called a Kluski Noodle at your grocery store, and most likely it’s going to be maybe in the soup aisle, or it’s going to be on the bottom shelf near the pasta. So definitely look for that. That is the type of noodle that your kids are used to if they’ve had just canned Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. 

Chicken Noodle Soup for Kids Recipe: So let’s get on to making this full recipe. You’re going to start with a large pot over medium, medium-high heat. Add a little bit of olive oil or canola oil. Then you’re going to add in one cup of diced carrots. You can use baby carrots or you can use whole peeled carrots. Whatever you have in your fridge will work just fine. You’re going to let those soften for about three to five minutes, and then you’re going to sprinkle in a quarter teaspoon of garlic powder and onion powder.

I know I said there would be no garlic or onion. This is just a quarter teaspoon, so it’s going to add enough flavor to the soup that they won’t be able to put their finger on. They’re still going to love it. They also sprinkle in an eighth of a teaspoon of kosher salt, celery salt, and turmeric powder. Give that a good stir around the pot. Then you’re going to pour in 32 ounces of chicken broth and one teaspoon of that chicken base that we talked about. Give that a good stir and turn the heat up to medium, medium-high, and bring the pot to a simmer. Once that broth starts to simmer, you’ll add in one cup of cooked chicken that’s diced pretty small. Whatever you think your kids will like, dice it to that size. And one cup up to one and a half cups, if your kids really like noodles of those kluski noodles that we talked about in the ingredient section as well. You’re going to let that simmer for about 12 to 15 minutes until the noodles are cooked through, and the carrots are nice and softened. 

At the end, you want to make sure you taste it for additional seasoning and it’s good to go. Now as far as serving your chicken noodle soup for kids for dinner, we just keep it really simple and we either add some warm, crusty bread on the side, as they would get at Panera or saltine crackers. Then we might mix up some chocolate milk to go with the soup. 

That does it for today’s recipe. As always, I will link all of the recipes I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow your preferred podcast player. We’ll just make it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed.

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: All right, calling all of my instant pot lovers. Today we are making some Instant Pot Pulled Pork. It is so delicious and it is so versatile for dinner. I mean, you can do pulled pork tacos, pulled pork pizza, nachos, pulled pork barbecue sandwiches, and pulled pork grilled cheese. Anything is possible with pulled pork. So it’s a great option for dinner. It’s a great meal prep option too because your pulled pork freezes beautifully. 

Tips and Tricks: So let’s talk about what you’re going buy when you’re ready to make instant pop pulled pork. You obviously need a large piece of pork. What you’re going to look for in the grocery store is one of three things. It just depends on where you’re at and how they’re labeling. You’re going to look for either a pork butt, a pork shoulder, or a Boston butt. Those are basically all going to come from the same area on the pig and be basically the same thing. The only other thing you’re going to find on the packaging is whether it’s bone-in or boneless. With this one, it’s easier to use if it’s boneless, but you definitely don’t have to buy it that way. If you get a bone in pork shoulder, you can either cut the bone out or cut around it, still put it in the instant pot, and all the meat should come right off of that bone when you’re done with the cooking time.

This is also a great recipe to make if you love barbecue, but maybe you don’t have a smoker, which would be me. We just have a traditional grill. I don’t have a smoker, and so when we have pulled pork, I like to just do it in the instant pot. It’s easy for me. It’s quick, and it’s still super delicious. 

A couple of questions that I get when people are making pulled pork. First of all, people will ask, how should I estimate how much pork to make? If I have 10 people coming, how much pork should I make? What I usually say is that you should estimate anywhere from three to four people per pound of pork. So if you’re having 10 people for dinner, then you should estimate probably around four pounds of pork.

Here is another common question that I get when people are making larger cuts of meat in the Instant Pot. If I double the recipe, do I double the time? The answer here is, it depends. With this recipe, we are taking one large pork shoulder and cutting it up into equal sizes, so three-inch pieces. So since we’re cutting it up into those individual pieces, if you double the recipe, there is no need to double the time. Now, in the case of my pork roast, my Instant Pot Pork Roast, that’s going to be cooked as one large piece of meat. So let’s say you were going to try and double the recipe. So instead of a three-pound pork shoulder, you were going to try and find a six-pound pork shoulder, then you would need to increase the time because you’re trying to cook one large piece of meat. So I hope that clears that up for you when you’re using your Instant Pot. 

Instant Pot Pulled Pork Recipe: So let’s get on to making this full recipe for Instant Pot Pulled Pork. As I said before, you can use any size pork shoulder you want. This recipe is written for a three to five-pound fresh pork butt. We’re going to start by actually making a dry rub. So if you happen to have a pork barbecue dry rub that you really like, you can absolutely use that and skip this step. But if you are going to make this barbecue dry rub, in a small bowl, you want to combine two tablespoons of brown sugar and one and a half tablespoons of kosher salt. One teaspoon each of onion powder, garlic powder, and black pepper. Half a teaspoon of chili powder and smoked paprika and then a quarter teaspoon of dry mustard. Just give that a really good stir and make sure there are no brown sugar clumps left, and you can set that aside. 

Now we’re going to turn our attention back over to the large pork butt. What you want to do is trim away any of the white fat that you can see around the outside, and then cut it into large three-inch chunks. 

So a note about the fat. Usually, we love the fat and we want to keep the fat. But since we’re not cooking low and slow as you would on a smoker, the fat renders down and just creates flavor and juiciness. When we’re cooking hot and fast at this high pressure, that fat is not going to render down completely, and it’s just going to turn into these little clumps of gross, jiggly fat. You don’t want that in your pulled pork. So try and trim away as much of that fat as you can. 

Now as you’re cutting your pork into three-inch chunks, you may find some more pockets of fat or some connective tissue. Go ahead and cut those away as well. What I like to do at this point is take all of those pieces of pork and put them on a rimmed baking sheet, or you could put them on a large piece of parchment paper and sprinkle them with that dry rub we made in the first step and sprinkle it and press it onto all sides of the pork.

Now it’s time to get your instant pot out. In the bottom of the Instant Pot, you’re going to pour in one cup of water, one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, and one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Your Instant Pot probably came with a metal trivet. It’s up to you if you want to play set in the pot, or if you just want to put your pork right in the liquid.

But go ahead and pile all of your pork pieces right into the instant pot. Then you want to just pop that lid, turn it, and lock it in place. Turn the pressure valve to seal and set the pot to cook on high pressure, normal heat for 40 minutes. At the end of that 40-minute cook time, you’re going to do something called a 10-minute natural release, and that’s basically where the 40-minute cooking time is up and the instant pot will start to count back up to 10.

So let that happen for 10 minutes and then you’ll finish with a quick release of pressure by turning that valve on top to release. Then go ahead and open up your pot, and with tongs, you can remove all of the pieces of pork. Again, I like to put them on a rimmed baking sheet because it collects any juice that seeps out from the pork.

There will be a good amount of liquid left over in your instant pot. You can use that to pour a little bit over your pork. You can discard it. You can save it for gravy, whatever you like to do with that liquid, but you don’t necessarily need it for the rest of the recipe. 

So now you can just shred up your pork. You can do it with two forks and it should fall apart really easily. Or if your pork is still warm, you can actually put it in a stand mixer and take a paddle attachment and run it just on low speed for about mm, like 30 seconds and it will shred it perfectly. 

Like we said at the beginning of the episode, you can use this pulled pork in so many different ways. So I’m not going to tell you how to use or serve your pulled pork. But if you are going to do barbecue pulled pork sandwiches, then pour on some of your favorite barbecue sauce and grab some buns and some coleslaw, and some pickles, and make yourself a delicious sandwich. 

So that does it for your Instant Pot pulled pork recipe. As always, I will link all of the recipes I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you. If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier. Anything is possible with pulled pork.

Intro: Hello, hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I am your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: All right, raise your hand if you love a sheet pan dinner. I absolutely love them. I feel like a couple of years ago, they were on a real trend and a craze. Everything was sheet pan dinners and it was a wonder. Well, during that time, I created a recipe that has gone bonkers on Pinterest. And this recipe is for sheet pan sausage and veggies with a twist. It has a smoked paprika vinaigrette that you drizzle over the entire dish that sets it apart, heads, and tails above other sheet pan dinners.

Tips and Tricks: So I don’t have a lot of tips or tricks or anything for you with this recipe. It’s pretty straightforward. The only thing I will say about this recipe and really any sheet pan recipe that you’re making, you want to make sure that you are using the largest sheet pan you can. So we’re talking like a half-sheet pan. If you have to use two sheet pans. What you want to avoid is overcrowding the pan because whatever you have on there will not roast. It will steam if it’s crowded. So make sure you have that nice large pan. I think we should just go ahead and get started with this recipe. 

Sheet Pan Sausage Recipe: What you’re going to want to do is preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Grab one or two really large rimmed sheet pans, and we’re going to prep a whole bunch of veggies. What you’re going to want to do is take one small red or yellow onion and chop it into about one-inch chunks. Take about 15 fresh brussels sprouts. I find that hard to say brussels sprouts, and actually, did you know it’s Brussels sprouts? There’s an S on the end of Brussels, which is really bizarre. Anyway, trim off the stem and cut them in half. Take one large sweet potato and peel it and cut it into about half to one-inch-sized pieces. Two really large carrots. Go ahead and peel those and cut those just into coins, which are just the rounds. Take half a head of broccoli and cut it into florets and half a head of cauliflower and cut it into florets.

So go ahead and put all of those veggies on your sheet pan or two sheet pans if you need to use two. Drizzle on one and a half tablespoons of olive oil and then sprinkle on one teaspoon of kosher salt and add pepper to taste. Give everything a toss so that you coat it really well with the olive oil and then pop it in the oven for 15 minutes.

While that’s baking, you’re going to cut your smoked beef sausage link into 20 pieces. Your beef sausage link will actually look like one really large link that’s kind of in a circle. So that’s what you’re looking for at the store. Cut that up into 20 pieces and as soon as the veggies are done roasting, pull those out and you’re going to give the veggies a little toss with a spatula and then place the sausage pieces in with the veggies. You’re going to pop it back in the oven for an additional 12 minutes. 

Now while that’s finishing in the oven, we’re going to make a smoked paprika vinaigrette. This stuff is so good. I am telling you, I could eat this on everything. I have had many comments on Pinterest that they double the smoked paprika vinaigrette because it’s so good. 

On here, I’m just going to go through one recipe, but if you think that this sounds really good, double the smoked paprika vinaigrette recipe when you make this. When I make vinaigrette, I like to just do it in a mason jar because you can put all the ingredients in there, screw the lid on, and just give it a really good shake.

So what you’re going to add is one and a half tablespoons of olive oil, one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, one teaspoon of dijon mustard, one and a half teaspoons of honey, and one minced garlic clove. Then a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika. Make sure you get smoked paprika, not just a regular paprika, not sweet paprika, not Hungarian paprika. It needs to be smoked paprika. It has a very distinct flavor. So screw the lid on your mason jar and give it a really good shake. 

At this time, your veggies and your beef should be ready to come out of the oven. Pull it out, take that vinegarette and drizzle it all over the veggies and the sausage and toss it to coat, and serve it right away. It is so delicious. You are absolutely going to love this, and it’s great for fall. It definitely has the colors and the flavors of fall. So as far as side dishes go, we really keep this simple. It has your veggies. It has the starch, it has the protein. So usually we’ll just add some really good, either garlic bread or some warm crusty ciabatta bread or sourdough or something like that, which goes perfectly with this dish.

That does it for this quick recipe today. Of course, I will link all of the recipes right in the show notes for you so you can find them when you’re ready to make this for dinner. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you rate and review the show in your preferred podcast player. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.