Turkey Meatloaf with Mashed Sweet Potatoes

(Please excuse the second post in a row without a picture; I just can't subject you to them!)

I really wanted to like this meatloaf. It is pretty healthy and seemed like a good meal for a Sunday night. Unfortunately, it was a huge disappointment. This recipe is out of Ellie Krieger's cookbook, The Food You Crave, but of course it is also available on Food Network.com. She calls it "Mom's Turkey Meatloaf," but my mom wouldn't make meatloaf out of turkey and her meatloaf was pretty damn good, so I can't bring myself to call this by Ellie Krieger's chosen name.

I am starting to think this dish failed because of user error because the reviews on foodnetwork.com are excellent. I think it needed a higher cooking temperature, because mine was not anywhere near the color brown and there wasn't enough moisture evaporation. And there needs to be less onions; I thought I was eating an onion loaf with some turkey thrown in. It could also use something green. Maybe some spinach? Or parsley? I think I would be more inclined to try a completely different recipe than to try to fix this one.

On to the sweet potatoes; they were superb! Normally, I would roast the orange cuties, but the meatloaf only required a 350 degree oven and you can't roast anything at that low a temperature. I was going to boil and mash them like normal potatoes, but then I found this recipe on food.com. I had never heard of cooking potatoes like that, but they were delicious! I used skim milk, because that is all I have on hand and honestly, I don't think the heavy cream would have made them any better, just more calorific!

Tuscan Roasted Chicken with Vegetables

Apologies for not having a photo - they were all so bad, I couldn't bear to subject you to any of them.

So this recipe is from Ellie Krieger's cookbook, The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life. Well, I can tell you I will not be craving this recipe anytime soon!  The vegetables called for in the recipe are: plum tomatoes, zucchini and fennel. I cannot stand zucchini, so I substituted carrots. The recipe also calls for 4 chicken breast halves with the ribs. I only used 3 and could just barely get everything into my huge Le Creuset oval baking dish.

The recipe calls for baking at 375 degrees for 50-60 minutes (or until the chicken is cooked), and I took mine out at 50 minutes. This resulted in perfectly cooked, moist, interior of the chicken and overcooked edges of the chicken. And don't even get me started on the vegetables. They were completely undercooked! (Well, except for the tomatoes, which were disintegrating at this point.) It was kind of a disappointment. I want roasted vegetables with my roasted chicken! Golden, tender, slightly crispy, sweet and flavorful! Mine were practically raw! I don't have to wait 50 minutes for raw vegetables!

If I were to make this again (and I may because the lemon on the chicken was great and it was nice to get everything together, stick it in the oven and forget about it for awhile), I think I would crank up the heat and cook the vegetables longer than the chicken.