playing with your food: making meatwads

Have I mentioned yet that I'm a pretty handsy, tactile person? Gloves, while cozy, drive me nuts because I don't get to FEEL what I'm doing: playing in the dirt garden which will someday also hopefully be a vegetable garden (I hear these little seed things that I buried might actually turn into food someday), making things out of clay and glue and beads and other stuff, and, yes, making food. I like feeling food too, but I'm also necessarily big on WASHING my hands, so no worries. Going barefoot is pretty sweet too, but that's different. I am not one of those few, awesome people who have developed the foot dexterity to do all of life's tasks with no hands, so I keep my feet distinctly OUT of the food. My hands, however (I had to avoid a pun there), are different, which brings us to tonight's dinner. Meatwads. Yup. You read that correctly. It's not meatloaf, nor are they meatballs. These babies are way more fun and convenient than either of those things. We make wads in this house and let me tell you why.

Credit goes to a woman with whom I used to work who was raised in, and who also raised, a large farm family. One of her tricks to having pre-portioned meals for the throngs and that also freeze well was to make meatloaf in a muffin tin instead of a bread pan. Genius! Granted, she did not call it meatwads, but that's exactly what it looked like to me the first time I pulled it out of the oven, so the name stuck. Admittedly, we're also fans of Aqua Teen Hunger Force around here.

So here's tonight's version:

• Italian Sausage
• elk meat
• eggs (I've found these to be relatively optional, depending on other ingredients)
• diced Hatch Green Chiles
• chopped onion
• minced garlic
• chopped/riced cauliflower
• gluten-free soy
• Worcestershire sauce (hate having to spell that one)
• salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin 

Have your muffin tin ready to go and preheat your oven to 400.

Put all your ingredients in a big bowl and--are you ready? I recommend taking your rings off and rolling up your sleeves-- SQUISH. See isn't that nice? Use your hands to mix it all together, then form a meatwad for each space in the tin. You can go traditional and top with ketchup, as we have tonight, but depending on ingredients on hand and in the wads, I've also topped with marinara or enchilada sauce. Some clever people I've seen online even make meatloaf cupcakes, topping their wads with mashed potatoes! I LOVE that idea.

Anyway, bake your wads until they're cooked through, which will depend on how big you made them. Usually 30-45 minutes works for ours.

Tonight, we're enjoying ours with some deviled eggs and citrusy napa cabbage cole slaw. Happy eating, ya'll!