Chocolate Cake Pudding (Southern Living 1981)

 

The Hubs says this one should be served in a restaurant. He's really into flattery. Let's just hope it's not false flattery. I liked it...not restaurant quality in my book, but good nonetheless.

This is one I assigned to myself. Really...chocolate cake pudding!?! I couldn't pass that one up. I made it for dessert the night J-Boy ate his dinner as though I was serving poison for dinner. Might I note again, for nostalgia's sake, that EVERYONE ELSE loved that dinner. Needless to say, J-Boy was not dessert eligible that day, so I don't have his feedback. The Hubs and Junior loved this. It was easy enough, and certainly doable again in the future. Although, I would plan to have plain vanilla ice cream to serve with it. We had only happy tracks and cookies and cream. Both are GREAT ice cream choices...just super-over-the-top-way-too-chocolatey with this particular dessert. Not that I am, or would ever, complain about super-over-the-top-way-too-chocolatey-ness.

I didn't change a thing for this recipe. I wasn't feeling very daring and I wanted it to turn out. It was one of those kind of days. Y'all know what I'm talking about. I needed a success on this one!!

Fresh out of the oven it smelled SO good! It was major soupy, way more soupy than pudding-y. But it was good. Soupy doesn't matter if it's good. Plus, I served it up so The Hubs was none the wiser to the soupiness! :) Win!

 

~Audry 

Cheesy Pizza Meat Loaf (Southern Living 1981)

Pizza Meatloaf! How can you lose?

Like this. 

Wah! Someone help me! 

I cannot. CAN. NOT. MICROWAVE MY MEATLOAF! Surely there are laws...rules...something.

I couldn't bring myself to even try it. Now the cookbook did a great job of trying to convince me that microwaving a meatloaf is a great idea. It saves time! It saves clean-up! It saves animals! It saves the environment! It saves your sanity! Oh wait...never mind on the last few. I got carried away.  

So, pizza meatloaf! With a few changes.

I had to leave out mushrooms (of course...because mushrooms are an Evil Vegetable). 

The ingredients ready for the mix!

I mixed this up with one of my trusty assistants (J-Boy this time) during Baby Girl's morning nap. 

I had it ready in the fridge to pull out at baking time. I guessed on baking time - I did about an hour and a half at 350 then 375 at the end. I pulled it out about 15 minutes before it was done and added the rest of the tomato sauce and some cheese on top. After I sliced it I added a bit more cheese to each slice. 

The verdict?

The Hubs said it was too salty (and it was pretty salty)...I think it was the sausage. If I did it again I would try to find low sodium sausage. Junior liked it. But the surprising vote to me was J-Boy. He DID NOT like it. DID NOT. This is the boy who at 8 years old can eat half of an extra large pizza. This is the VERY first time he has ever, ever, ever NOT liked something that had pizza in the title. Seriously. He said it was "too hot" meaning too spicy. It was the sausage for him, I'm guessing. Although he said the tomato sauce was too hot and he didn't think it tasted one bit like pizza. We have a meatloaf recipe that everyone likes, so I'll probably just stick with that one in the future. 

~Audry