Musings on Fritos® Pie Meat-Muffins

The hardest part of this recipe is preparing the meat.  One could simply use two pounds of hamburger, if one desired.  However, I wanted this meat-muffin to have a different texture.  That is why I chose to use chunks of meat rather than ground meat.  For the initial experiment, I chose stew beef because it was about the same price as ground beef.  One could theoretically use any beef, provided is was cut properly.  The idea is to get the beef down to the kibble size in cat food, about 1/4" x 1/4". The best way to do this with stew beef or a steak is to partially freeze it.  The frozen beef can then be cut any way you want.  Now, this isn't a complete solid freezing.  The meat should be frozen just enough to keep it stiff under a knife.

The remainder of the recipe is very straightforward.

I got a little worried while mixing.  Not only did my hand freeze because of the frozen meat, but it took a long time for the meat to come together in something that resembled a muffinable mass.  As you can see in the above picture, everything turned out fine.

Except for the cheese sauce. It made way too much and took way too long.  I'm going to have to figure out a different way to add the cheese.

I wish I could adequately describe the smell coming from the oven.  It is cheesy Frito-y chili-y goodness.  I can't wait to taste.

Well, the first problem is the thing crumbles; it is not a muffin.  I'm going to have to figure that out.  I think it might be an overabundance of beans.  There were many of them left in the bottom of the mixing bowl.  Perhaps if I mash some of them next time.  Licking my fingers caused my tongue to burn, so I may need to decrease the spices.  The meat is a little touch, but what should one expect from Wal-Mart.  The Fritos® became soggy, of course, but their flavor is still there.  Next batch gets an increase in the Fritos®.  The tomatoes look like little red dustballs instead of tomatoes.  However, the chilies are definitely present in the taste and the heat.  That heat is blocking any of the other spices from showing up.

All in all, I think a good first test of the concept.

The pictures on the page appear smaller than they are.  To see them larger, simply double click on the picture.  Also, I always welcome your constructive criticism.  Click on the Comment link below next to the icon of a pencil; it may say “No” or have a number in front of it.

Frito Pie intro

I love Fritos®, and the thought of Frito pie just makes my mouth water.  In case you don't know what Frito pie is, here's the scoop.  Take a snack-size bag of Fritos®, cut open the long side, spoon in chili, sprinkle cheese on top.  It couldn't be simpler, could it?  Well, that is why I am going to make is more complex by turning this into a Frito pie meat-muffin recipe.

The first task, of course, is creating the chili that will be the basis for the meat-muffins.  Actually, that is the only real task.  Fritos® will provide the bread component, and nothing else really needs to be addressed.  Therefore, I concentrate on creating the chili.  It should be a little spicy, and it should have beans.  It should also have chilies, because a chili without chilies is just chilly.  It should not have odd spices, like cumin or oregano.  Any cheese involved should be pepper jack at the least.

After much tongue-burning experimentation, here is my recipe for Frito pie meat-muffins.

©2014 Karl Arthur Haefner

Cottage cheese meat-muffins result

While the recipe was cooking, my apartment smelled of onion soup dip.  Not really a bad smell, but very pervasive.

Well, here is the picture of them out of the oven.  I originally took them out at 40 minutes but did not know if it was cooked.  Using the toothpick test, it did not come out clean, so I decided another 5 minutes of cooking was in order.  The original recipe called for a 5-10 minute rest prior to "slicing."  When 10 minutes passed, I removed a few of the muffins and cut one open.

In spite of the non-stick cooking spray, the muffins were stuck to the side of the pan and difficult to remove intact.

On cutting one open, it does have quite the meaty appearance.  Since part of the idea behind this cookbook is to create meat-muffins, I had to see if they could be eating by hand.  The muffins had a very loose texture.  After one bite, one of them crumbled out of my hand.  Regarding taste, I would have thought all the onion would have permeated the dish; it did not.  There was a creaminess, if creaminess can be a taste, from the cottage cheese and a recognizable but subtle walnut note; but the onion, mostly in the form of the onion soup mix, was only present as an aftertaste.  Take it from a dedicated carnivore, this is not a satisfactory replacement for meatloaf.

So, how would I change it to make it more palatable?  Don't know yet.  I'm going to have to wait for cottage cheese to go on sale again.

The pictures on the page appear smaller than they are.  To see them larger, simply double click on the picture.  Also, I always welcome your constructive criticism.  Click on the Comment link below next to the icon of a pencil; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.

©2014 Karl Arthur Haefner

Cottage Cheese Meatloaf?

When I first came across a recipe for a meatloaf made out of cottage cheese, I was quite flabbergasted.  "How can anyone tamper with the sacredness of a meatloaf by taking out the meat?", I thought.  On further reading, this so-called meatloaf also contained corn flakes.  What?!?!  In spite of the superficial weirdness of the recipe, I had to give it a try to see what actually happened.  You can find the original recipe at Food.com (Connie K), and I will detail my first experiment with this recipe below.

Ingredients	What I used	Equipment
1 lb. cottage cheese	Kroger 4% milk fat large curd cottage cheese	Mixing bowl, scale, spoon
4 eggs, beaten	4 large eggs	Another mixing bowl, fork
¼ cup vegetable oil	All Natural Crisco Pure Vegetable oil	Measuring cup
1 oz dry onion soup mix	Kroger onion soup & dip mix	Scissors
1 cup finely chopped walnuts	4 ounces Kroger walnut pieces	Scale, Ninja® food chopper, measuring cup
1½ to 2½ cups corn flakes	55 grams Kroger corn flakes	Scale
¼ cup chopped onion	2¼ oz. yellow onion	Cutting board, chef knife, measuring cup
Cooking spray	Kroger vegetable oil cooking spray	Muffin pan

A comment about the corn flakes:  Because the flakes vary in size, it is impossible to always get the same amount of flakes from one cup to the next.  Therefore, I have converted the cups to grams based on the package nutrition label, stating 1 cup = 28 grams.  Also, a recipe that is vague about a portion by stating 1½ - 2½ cups is never going to be correctly duplicated.  If this recipe fails, then, it is their fault, not mine.  To have a starting point on which to base future tests of this recipe, I will use ≈2 cups, the weight being 55 grams.  {I shaved 1 gram off the calculation because the scale I am using goes in 5-gram increments.}

Another vagueness in this recipe is the term "chopped."  There are several degrees of chopping.  Which one did the originator of the recipe use to get to ¼ cup of volume?  For me, I took an onion and cut it in half, yielding a 2¼-ounce chunk of yellow onion.  I peeled this and did a ⅛–inch dice.  This resulted in 1¾ ounces of chopped onion, but only 1¼ ounces would fit into the ¼ cup.  Rather than wasting the remaining onion, I tossed it all in.

Next, I washed my hands with antibacterial soap and hand kneaded the mixture.

Here is what it looks like.  Not very appetizing, is it?  It is also very runny, so I was not able to make balls with my hands, as I did with the meat recipes.  Instead, I used a disher {When we were kids, we called this an ice cream scoop.} to scoop the mixture into my muffin tin.

Did I get them even?  The pan is waiting to go into the oven, which is being preheated to 350°F.  The original recipe does not give a temperature option.  Based on previous meat-muffin incarnations, I can reduce the cooking time by about one-third.  Hence, the cooking time for these cheese-muffins is going to be 40-46⅔ minutes.  I will post a results page when the cooking is done.

The pictures on the page appear smaller than they are.  To see them larger, simply double click on the picture.  Also, I always welcome your constructive criticism.  Click on the Comment link below next to the icon of a pencil; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.

References:
Connie K. "Cottage Cheese Roast Vegetarian Meatloaf." Food.com. Scripps Networks, LLC, 9 Apr. 2004. Web. 4 May 2014. <http://www.food.com/recipe/cottage-cheese-roast-vegetarian-meatloaf-88753>.

©2014 Karl Arthur Haefner