I know I should be giving you an Easter recipe, but Easter is so early, and I’ve been so cold and in the mood for comfort food.
So here’s my meatloaf with tomato gravy!

Meatloaf
1 cup fresh mushrooms, diced
1 medium jalepino, minced (leave the seeds if you like it hot!)
1 poblano pepper, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1 on the small side of medium sized white onion, diced
2 big toes garlic, minced
1 bag of Premium saltine crackers, crumbled fine
1-1/2 lb ground chuck
1-1/2 lb 90% lean ground beef
Salt and Pepper to taste

Gently combine above ingredients, shape into 5 or 6 loaves and bake
at 375 for approximately 45 minutes or until cooked thru. If you are
roasting potato chunks, they can be oiled up and put in at the same time.
The potatoes will need tossing a few times, at this temp they brown on
the bottom more than the top. While meat loaves bake, make tomato gravy – recipe below.

Tomato Gravy
1/2 medium onion, diced
3 toes garlic, smashed
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbl olive oil
1 tbl butter
3 tbl tomato paste
1 small bay leaf
1 15-oz can low sodium chicken broth
1 15-oz can crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper

Cook onions, garlic and oregano in olive oil and butter in a large skillet or pot over medium-high heat until browned – about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and bay leaf, stirring until the paste darkens about 3 minutes. Add the broth and tomatoes and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to simmer and cook until slightly thickened about 5 more minutes.

Turn off heat, remove the bay leaf and set the gravy aside until ready to serve, at which time you will bring back up to a simmer, whisk in the parmesan, vinegar, salt and pepper. Serve hot over your meatloaf with a side of roasted potatoes and smashed minty lettuce and peas.

These small meat loaves are great to freeze, but you’ll want to make fresh tomato gravy – it probably freezes well, but there won’t be any left to freeze!

Send me an email if you would like this pecan sandies recipe!

And oh, yeah, getting back to Easter – have you seen our Easter Flower and Gift selections, there is still plenty of time to order for delivery, we are even open on Easter Sunday at our LaSalle location, so stop in, pick up a centerpiece or an easter arrangement or buy some wholesale bunches to arrange yourself! We have some gorgeous vase selections in lots of price ranges. And we have Easter Lilies. You know mom loves Easter Lilies. Don’t show up at the Easter Egg hunt without flowers!

Walter Knoll Florist designers show at St Louis Art Museums Art in bloom, See a video description of Bob Hauck’s Design

Makes about 10 dozen mints
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into slices
2 pounds powdered sugar (about 8 cups)
2 or 3 tablespoons ice water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon peppermint oil or 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
Red or blue food coloring

In a large bowl, cut butter into sugar with two knives or your fingers. Add salt and peppermint oil and 1 tablespoon at a time the ice water, tossing with a fork. If it seems crumbly, add more ice water – but it should be somewhat crumbly, it comes together and becomes more elastic as you knead it. Form the mixture into three balls. If it still seems too crumbly, add more ice water 1 teaspoon at a time, until dough presses together easily. Turn each dough ball out onto a work surface and knead until smooth and satiny, 3 to 4 minutes.

Leave one portion of the dough untinted, then tint the other two portions light blue or pink with food coloring (use sparingly – paler colors are prettier). Knead in the food coloring until it’s evenly distributed.

Divide each of the three dough balls in half and roll into a long snake about one-half inch in diameter. (Keep remaining dough covered with plastic wrap as you work so that it doesn’t dry out.) Roll the white dough first to avoid adding color from your work surface – which by the way should be impeccably clean as the dough will pick up anything on the counter. Cut the snakes into half-inch slices and spread out on cookie sheets to dry.

Toss them around on the cookie sheet until set (2 to 3 hours), uncovered, at room temperature. Then transfer them to a covered container and set in a cool place. (To improve flavor and for easier handling, let mints ripen for 2 days before serving.) Mints will keep at room temperature for 2 weeks or in the refrigerator for a month.

Notes: DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT, use your standing mixer for this – it just makes a big ol’ mess! I like the flavor of the peppermint oil better than the extract, but the oil is hard to find. Do not substitute spearmint for peppermint extract, it’s just not right!

Obviously I’m heading to a “boy” baby shower, and I’ll load white cupcake liners with the mints for each guest. If the baby gender is unknown you could do pink, white, yellow, green and blue. Keep the colors pastel, they’re prettier.

So you’re thinking making the mints is too much trouble? Well Walter Knoll Florist has lots of new baby gift ideas . Our New Baby Wreaths are especially popular and so appreciated.

If I could enter
The Sweetest Kiss photo contest I’d certainly have to enter this pic from Elephant Rock.

Order Flowers From DiGirl

Now you can have your roses delivered by a singing Elvis, Only from Walter Knoll Florist

A valentines day special – Walter Knoll Florist

NO, I didn’t get mugged – I had a little (!) dental procedure – you see I have (had) a tooth I put some bad Karma on back in my terrible teens (another blog story perhaps). After a root canal in high school, electro-surgery and a crown in dental school (I was married to a Wash U dental student once), losing that tooth during a cleaning in my late 30′s, 2 bridges and another root canal, it was time to get rid of a neighboring tooth. This meant dentures ( NO NO NO I’m way too young at any age!) or an implant (or 2). Unfortunately over the years I’ve had some bone loss in the area and needed donor bone grafting where two teeth once lived more or less happily side by side and also bone grafting in my lower sinus. This is where the OUCH comes in – my dearest friend and the greatest dentist in all the world, Dr Mary McClellan, (950 Francis Pl, 63117 314 726-6966 www.rmdentistry.com) referred me to an oral maxillofacial surgeon, Dr John Monterubio (1034 S Brentwood, 63117 314 721-1010 www.mhoms.com).

Implants are not an inexpensive procedure, but to me the alternative was unthinkable. I found Dr Monterubio very friendly at my consult with him, and one month later for the “procedure” found him to be exceptionally skilled and obviously respected by his staff. The surgery took a bit less than 2 hours (I was not sedated) and 5 days later I’m healing up nicely – still a bit swollen & bruised and beginning to be able to chew somewhat solid food again. (Goodbye sweet cool slippery jiggly Jello and pudding cups!)

My office mates had one of our floral designers (Louise) create this fantastic arrangement to be delivered to me – see the “teeth” in the carnations?

Well I can’t tell you how amused I was to receive the flowers and scare off our driver, Don. (He wasn’t expecting to see me wrapped in ice answering the door.)

You can have anything created at Walter Knoll Florist, from a wacky “International Year of the Potato” arrangement to memorial easel pieces, if you can describe it – our designers can make it!

Both of the above dentists are located near Brentwood and Clayton Rd – easy to get to even with the Highway 40 demolition – so if you need a dentist I hope you will call Dr McClellan and if you need more than a dentist Dr Monterubio is your man. Tell them A Musing Florist sent you.

Yes, I know, the Christmas holiday is now over, but you have just got to have my pie recipe – I’ve been making this pudding pie since 1979 when I bought a tin of Hershey’s Cocoa with a tiny cookbook attached – over the years I have increased ingredients slightly and learned to cook this pudding just a bit “tighter” so that it doesn’t run when the pie is sliced.

Here’s the recipe:

Hershey’s Cocoa Pudding/Pie Filling

1 cup sugar
3/8 cup Hershey’s Cocoa (I like the “Special Dark” now)
4 tbl cornstarch
½ tsp salt
3-3/8 cups milk
2 tbl butter
1 tsp vanilla
Baked and cooled 10″ pie crust

Combine sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt in medium saucepan; gradually whisk in milk. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until mixture boils; boil and stir one minute. Remove from heat and blend in butter and vanilla. Pour into cooled pie crust.

I went a little crazy this year with my crust, from my little tin of alphabet cutters I pulled out the letter J and grabbed a skewer too, ’cause it’s hard as %$#^!* to get the pie dough out of that J! Anyway, before baking the crust, I carefully placed the J’s to look like candy canes around the edge – here is a shot of the baked edge, beautiful isn’t it!

But I wasn’t happy with beautiful, I decided the candy canes needed to be colored like candy canes! (And oh, did I mention I did all this with a fever thanks to the flu / cold I was suffering?)

Well as you can see, the pie came out pretty darn cute and the family loved it. Chocolate Pudding Pie is their favorite.

Decoratively piped whipped cream made the candy canes pop and I was very happy with the look!

I’m sure by now you have learned that 2008 has been declared by the United Nations to be the International Year of the Potato – lets have some fun with potatoes and not lose sight of the reasoning of the United Nations of “the need to revive public awareness of the relationship that exists between poverty, food security, malnutrition and the potential contribution of the potato to defeating hunger.” Here is a link to the official International Year of the Potato website.

An instruction on how to build a wonderful small snow man from flowers

Pastry
4 cups Unbleached Flour
2 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoon salt
4 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pats
2 large egg
4 tablespoons milk
1 large egg, to brush on dough

Filling
3/4 cup raspberry jam
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water

Icing
1.5 cup confectioners’ sugar
5 to 7 teaspoons water

Make dough: Combine flour, sugar, and salt in food processor. Pulse in butter until mixture is crumbly but still has bean sized lumps of butter still visible. Mix egg and milk, and add it to the dough, mixing just until everything comes together – it should still be slightly crumbly, dump onto lightly floured surface and need into cohesive ball of dough. Divide into 4, shaping each portion into a rectangle, smoothing edges. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 1 hour, or for up to 2 days.

Make filling: In a small saucepan, mix jam with cornstarch/water. Bring mixture to boil, and simmer, stirring, for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Assemble tarts: Remove dough from the refrigerator, and if it’s been chilling for longer than 1 hour, allow it to soften and become workable, about 15 to 30 minutes. Place one piece on a lightly floured work surface, and roll it into a rectangle about 1/8″ thick, large enough that you can trim it to an even rectangle. Set it aside. Roll second piece of dough just as you did the first. Beat egg, and brush it over entire surface of one rectangle of dough. Use a ravoli sized scallop edged cookie/biscuit cutter or whatever shape you want your pop tarts to be to cut shapes into the egg brushed rectangle of dough. Place a heaping 1/2 teaspoon of jam into center of each rectangle. Place second rectangle of dough atop first, using your fingertips to press firmly around each pocket of jam, sealing the dough well on all sides. Gently place tarts on a lightly greased or parchment or silpat-lined baking sheet, and refrigerate, covered, for 30 minutes. Roll out other 2 rectangles the same way. Make cute little slices with a very sharp knife into the top of each tart just before putting into a preheated 350 oven – do not cut into the filling tho or you’ll get tarts that look like this:

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Remove from oven, and allow them to cool on pan on racks.

Combine confectioners’ sugar with 3 teaspoons of water, adding additional water if necessary to make a pourable glaze. Pour the glaze into a quart sized ziplock bag and snip the corner and squeeze decoratively onto the cooled tarts.

Makes about 60. This is a variation of a recipe I found at the King Arthur Flour website created by Joanne Chang of the Flour Bakery & Café in Boston, MA. Thank you Joanne, these are going to be a regular bake of mine!

Have you checked out our Holiday Fun photo contest submissions lately! Getting more photos every day Holiday Fun. We’d love to see your idea of holiday fun, and I’d personally like to see some “snowman” photos! But hurry, contest ends 12/22!