Recipe: Sausage Pizza Meatloaf

On the occasional food fest the family likes to chow down on this old favorite... it combines a hearty (and dense!) meatloaf that has very little bread crumbs (I hate a filler filled meatloaf!). You get that pizza sauce, oregano, sausage flavor! BooM!

Sausage Pizza Meat Loaf

Recipe & Notes:

3lbs Ground Beef 80%
2lbs Sweet Italian Sausage (if you like a stronger sausage, use 1lb mild and 1lb sweet)
3 eggs
Salt
Pepper
1/2 Cup of Breadcrumbs (Italian preferred)
1 cup shredded cheese (moz or a mixed blend is fine)

Glaze:
Ketchup, Pizza Sauce (not tomato paste, but PIZZA SAUCE) *if you want to experiment, hoisin sauce is an excellent addition just add to the ingredients (and finish with crunchy noodles!).
Mix 1/4 cup Ketchup and 1/4 cup Pizza Sauce w/ salt, pepper and your choice of herbs. Oregano is a great choice! Mix well. Let sit.

Herbs: Here's the thing folks, salt and pepper do not count as your herbs! Experiment, try different herbs and learn what you like.

For this: I like 3 nice pinches of dried Oregano, dried Rosemary & dried Thyme, also added to this, you should add garlic POWDER and black pepper to taste.

Cooking Instructions:
Bring the meat to room temperature before working with it.
Set the shredded cheese aside until later.
Mix all the ingredients for the loaf together in a large bowl and let rest for 10 minutes.
Mix the ingredients for the glaze together in a small bowl and let rest for 10 minutes.

(take this time to clean your station. Wipe it all down, wash your hands.)

Preheat your oven to 375

Form your loaf out of the 5lbs of meat you have in your bowl. Make it 4 fingers tall and approx the shape of a rectangle. push a 1 inch canyon in the meat for later and place on a cookie sheet and put in a ready oven.

after approx 45 minutes take the meatloaf out of the oven and use a spatula to take the meatloaf and put it on a baking cooling rack or elevated oven rack and place back onto the cookie sheet.
(Doing this allows the meat to cook on all sides and not have a soggy bottom!)
Sauce the top of the meatloaf with the glaze and until its thick and goopey and in the canyon we created on the meat... enough to cover everything, but not too much that its sliding all over the place!

Place back into the oven for 10 minutes - take out, add shredded cheese to the top of the meatloaf and then place back into the oven for 5 minutes, or until the cheese meets your desired done-ness.

Suggested Sides: Mashed Potatoes and Peas or Sauteed Greens.

Let the meatloaf sit for 10 minutes before cutting and enjoy :)
if you make it, leave me a message on how you liked it!

Mister G's Pizzeria & More Owns My Heart

Iowa. A place of not too much going on. The American Gothic House. The Field Of Dreams Farm. And one other thing that is simply, amazing. Fried Cauliflower. I have been to Iowa twice, and since my last visit I have searched high and low in Arizona to find this tasty appetizer. Every family owned mom and pop food place I visit the first thing I always look for is fried cauliflower. Trust me, I have searched high and low to find this, and at last, I have.

It took a 45 minute drive from my house to this place, but it was well worth it. Mister G's is the only place that I know of in Arizona that has the ever elusive fried cauliflower. If you have yet to have this, you must. Its well, fried cauliflower, but also has some cheddar cheese in it. It is simply amazing. Dip it in ranch and you will fly high on clouds of yum.

Now, among having fried cauliflower. Mister G's also offers up some pretty tasty pizza. And probably the best sandwich I have had in a long, long time. As many of you loyal readers know I love me a good sandwich. Ham and cheese, lettuce mayo mustard. Simple, but it takes some special toasting of the bread and warming of the ham and melting of the cheese to get it perfect. Mister G's does everything right.

The atmosphere in this place is pretty laid back and cool, the service is fantastic. Every night it seems like there is some type of event going on there. Trivia nights, Game nights, all kinds of other nights. My only gripe with this place is that is it located just too far. If a place like this opened up here in Anthem Arizona it would make a killing. There are only a very small handful of fast food places here and one BBQ place here that I will be reviewing later.

But, if you are in Tempe AZ and want some good food, and some fried cauliflower. Then head on over to Mister G's and tell them the Hungry Jerks sent you.

Visit the Mister G's website for more information!

Totino's Party Pizza

Party Pizza! This stuff is great. Look, we never said we were some high brow gourmet food elitists. The fact is, I would rather have a Totino's Party Pizza than some lame take and bake pie.

In the previous review of Papa Murphy's Take and Bake Pizza, our author said that when you want to cook your own pizza, a good frozen pizza is better. Ain't that the truth?

You know what else is better than a "Take and Bake" pizza? Not even a good frozen pizza. Even a very very bad frozen pizza is more enjoyable for me than a lame premade uncooked pizza. Which brings us to Totino's. This truly is a party in your mouth. The frozen Totino's Party Pizza is perfect for one person. And it's Cheap. My local Wal-Mart sells these frozen pizzas for $1.22, everyday low price. Kroger just had a sale- They were only $ 1 each. A buck for a perfect single serving pizza? Now that's good eating.

Look, I know these things don't even use real cheese. I don't know if they are technically even "pizza"- there might be some ongoing lawsuits over that. But you pop one of these bad boys in the oven at 450 degrees for 11 minutes ( here is your recipe/cooking instructions for this post), and you can plop the whole thing down on one standard sized dinner plate. It fits perfectly. Also, make sure you cook it directly on the rack. Some of the fake cheese will drip down to the bottom of the oven, but that's OK. it adds some quality smokey flavor to everything you cook. Sometimes the crust warps a little and gets stuck in spaces in the rack, but that is also good. It gives the crust a nice crunch.

Pair with a fine domestic beer and you have yourself a great Fourthmeal.

Papa Murphy's Pizza Review. Take & Bake??

Today, I wanted pizza. And I wanted it fast. So instead of just grabbing some Little Caesars. I saw Papa Murphys had opened up in the same shopping center. Never heard of it, never seen it, knew nothing about it.

So I stumble in there, as I was still half asleep. Just woke up, and it takes me a good couple hours to get my bearings on the day ahead. So I tell the girl I just want the large pepperoni. And she asked me to take a seat and it'd be right up. No problem.

I sit down, pop out the iPhone and start playing some Words With Friends when the man at the counter yells that it's done. As I walk to the counter I'm thinking "Wow! Fast just like Little Caesars, true its a bit more expensive but....wait a minute."

I saw an uncooked pizza in front of me. The man at the counter starts explaining the rules and regulations of going home and cooking the pizza. What the crap?! Go home and cook it myself?! Now I saw the "Take N Bake" sign but didn't realize that it was their only gimmick as they also had pictures of cooked pizzas all over the place.

What the hell kinda pizza place, or any food place for that matter other than a damn grocery store, only half way makes your food and then sends you home to cook it?! On top of that they asked if I had ever eaten there before and I said NO! So shouldn't they have given me a heads up?! Like a, "Hey bro you know you gotta cook this yourself right?"

Now I can KINDA understand the concept of this. Say you want some pizza for later on in the day and dont want to have it already made just to get cold. But isn't that what frozen pizza is for? Because Papa Murphys really isn't that much better than your good frozen pizza. Which is also better anyways. And even if you did want a pizza for later, why wouldn't you just wait for later to order it?

I really don't understand why a place like Papa Murphys exists. Its pretty much worthless and I won't ever return.

Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready? No Joke.

I am proclaiming Little Caesars as the fastest fast food around. Their big gimmick now is Hot-N-Ready. Meaning your food is hot and ready the second you order it. And they're not joking around.

I used to hit Little Caesars back when I was a kid when they had the Big! Big! pizza going on, but never went back until recently and I was pretty blown away. I think the only way they can possibly get your pizza to you faster is by having it loaded into a giant slingshot that is aimed at the door and have it release the moment you step inside. This is know exaggeration, I literally have never spent longer than ONE minute inside of a Little Caesars at a time. I walk in, tell them what I want, I pay for it and before I can get my wallet back into my pocket, my food is there on the counter waiting for me to grab and head out with.

Now on top of that, their prices are insanely low. Large pepperoni with a bag of crazy bread and sauce runs only 8 bucks. Now granted, Little Caesars isn't the best tasting pizza around, but for their price and the speed of it all, it is well worth it if you're in a hurry and just wanna grab something quick. You will get no quicker than Little Caesars.

Food Stuffs: Foods that are better cold.

I like cold food. Always have. I'd rather have a cold sub than a toasted one. I'd rather eat cereal in the morning than eggs. Gazpacho is my favorite soup! So I got to thinking about what some of my all time favorite cold foods are....

PIZZA! Obviously. Everyone knows cold pizza is delicious, but to me there's one pizza above all others that is best when cold, and that's Dominos Deep-dish Pepperoni pizza. It's delicious when it's hot & fresh... but there's something that happens during it's fridge nap that causes this pizza to be a delicious dish when you chow down the next morning! Unfortunately, there are also some pizzas that SUCK when cold... Papa Johns... Lil' Caesars... yuck. Lil' Caesars pizza the next day is practically cardboard. It's no wonder they only cost 5 bucks.

Fried chicken! Cold Fried chicken is amaaaazing. Sidenote: shred up some fried chicken for a really awesome chicken salad. Which also reminds me, a couple weeks ago I went to Burger King and they had Buy One, Get One free classic chicken sandwiches. Now, I get mine with extra pickles and cheese... but I could only put back one of them. So, I threw the other one in the fridge knowing I'd likely want a snack later on, and wouldn't you know it? That sonofabitch was delicious! I threw a little extra mayo and some mustard on it, but it was really awesome cold. I was shocked!

Meatloaf! Two thick slices of wheat toast, two generous slices of cold meatloaf, swiss cheese, and some mayo. Holy cow!

Egg rolls! This one I found kind of recently. I wanted a midnight snack and there was a leftover egg roll in the fridge, so I just munched on it, and it was pretty damn tasty. With it cold, the cabbage and carrots were a little bit crispier and it had more crunch. They can be a little plain, so I guess you could dip them in some soy sauce or something.

So that's a few I like... what about you, readers? Are there any foods that I didn't mention here that you like?

Review: Pizza Hut Big Italy

The new Pizza Hut Big Italy pizza brings back a lot of memories, for me and anyone else that was a fan of the legendary "Bigfoot pizza" from Pizza Hut that was a staple of pizza ordering in the 90's.  Basically we're talking about a giant sized oblong pizza here, that is cut into square pieces just like the old Bigfoot.  When you order you can order the same toppings on the whole thing, or split it up and have different toppings on each side.  I went with the classic sausage/pepperoni/mushroom combo on the whole thing since that combo is usually a winner.  The delivery took almost an hour, but we're here to review the actual food more than anything.  What I got from this is that it's exactly like the Bigfoot pizza, except the crust has a salty flavor to it.  There really isn't much else different that I noticed.  Personally when comparing the two, I feel like Domino's is usually the better pizza overall, even though it's fairly pricey.  I do like the fact that Pizza Hut offers a specialty type pizza that sometimes just fits a certain occasion.  Sometimes you're in the mood to just order a giant pizza to add to a good time vibe, and the Big Italy gets the job done in that department.

While it may not be a totally new concept or anything wildly different, the Big Italy is a good choice if you want a change of pace and want to order a big damn pizza once in awhile, and the $12 price isn't too horrible considering the size.  If your just wanting a quality pizza without the party vibe, and don't need to feed an army or anything, I'd stick with Domino's.  But if Pizza Hut really wants this one to work, I think they need a great commercial campaign like this to get the job done:

Food Kudos: Dominos Pizza

Dear Dominos Pizza,

As a long-time consumer of pizza and pizza-related products, I want to tell you how successful I think your latest ad campaign is. Not only is it great that a company is finally listening to it's customers with such enthusiasm, but really it's something awesome when you are being so proactive to turn around customer dissatisfaction to such a degree.

I'll be honest, Dominos was never my first choice when it came to delivery pizza. For years I gave my business to your competitors, but lately, as Dominos has been working hard to gain the trust of the American people, companies like Pizza Hut and Papa John's don't seem as concerned. Sure, they were both quick to jump on the $10.99 bandwagon that Dominos established with their new campaign, but what they didn't do, was start listening to their customers. As Dominos begins to turn around profits and pick business back up, Pizza Hut continued to be lazy and inconsistent. I can say that at least 3 out of my last 5 order from Pizza Hut were missing items. The pizza is usually cold and greasy. The people taking your order over the phone usually sound miserable and are rarely helpful.

When I call Dominos, I'm greeted always by a friendly voice, and made to feel respected. My pizza always shows up piping hot and looking delicious. The new recipe Dominos is using is also a big success. The pizza was never THAT bad, but now it's actually deserving of being called really good. The sauce is tangy and light. The pepperonis are crisp and spicy. The new garlic butter crust is finger-licking good. Don't even get me started on the oven baked subs. They're scrumptious!

So Dominos, I give you kudos. Your new way of doing things is definitely working from my perspective, and that being from a loyal customer, I expect, is what exactly what you want to hear.

Check out the new customer interactive website, showusyourpizza.com!