Date Whirls

Date-Nut Filling

1 1/4 cups chopped dates

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Combine all ingredients in heavy saucepan over low heat.  Cook until dates are soft and filling is thickened.

Cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 recipe date-nut filling

Cream butter thoroughly.  Add sugars gradually and cream until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.  Sift dry ingredients and blend into creamed mixture.  Chill dough thoroughly.  Divide in half, roll each portion into rectangle on floured pastry cloth to a 1/4 inch thickness.  Spread with Date-Nut Filling.  Roll as for jelly roll and chill thoroughly.  Cut into thin slices, place on greased baking sheet, and bake in moderate oven (375 degrees) for 8 to 10 minutes.  Store in a tight container or wrap in foil and freeze.  Makes 4 dozen cookies.

Meat Loaf

This is a scaled-up version of Fanny Farmer's three-meats recipe.  I think the veal improves the texture, but if you can't find ground veal or feel sorry for the baby cows, by all means use  fewer meats.

For stuffings and some other foods that use bread crumbs, I like to still have sizable pieces of bread, pea-sized or even dice.  For this, I like them very fine.  If you want to use fine dried bread crumbs like panko or gluten-free substitutes like oatmeal, you may want to cut down the quantity a bit.

This is a recipe where you want the onions very finely diced.  Might even use a few seconds in a processor.

3 cups bread crumbs
2 medium onions, finely diced
3 eggs, beaten
1-1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 lb. ground veal
1/2 lb. ground pork
3 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2-1/4 tsp. dry mustard
2-1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 cup plus 1 oz. whole milk (I'm just scaling up ingredients here.  Put in however much you want.)

Preheat oven to 350°.  Find a huge bowl and mix everything together with your hands.  I generally go in this order: liquids, seasonings, crumbs, onions, meats.  Split it into two big loaves and freeze one.  Or put it into ramekins or muffin tins for individual servings.  (Shot glasses just don't do well in the oven.)  Bake it for an hour.  

You may notice I didn't mention any topping.  Most of America puts on some combination of catsup, brown sugar, barbecue sauce, and Sriracha to keep the top from browning.  But who doesn't like a browned top on a meat loaf?  It may have been my omission of that topping that made The Maman decide I was worth keeping on.  

Certainly wasn't my fashion sense.