mini meatloaves

I mentioned in my last post that I got a new recipe in the mail from my Kroger store.  They attached a bunch of coupons to purchase the ingredients.  So nice.  I showed the picture on the recipe card to my kids and then asked if it was something they might be interested in.  They both agreed to try it...until it was on the table, of course.  They have a really difficult time trying something new for the first time and tonight was no exception.  When we introduce something new to our children, we usually have a couple of sides that we know they have eaten before, but don't necessarily like, and then let them choose to either eat all of one thing and one bite of the other, or half of both things.  This makes them more willing to try and eventually the newest recipe becomes a side to another new dish.  They feel a lot better about eating when they feel like they have a choice, even if that choice is corn or green beans or rice or broccoli.  If they choose to not eat dinner, then they choose to not eat until breakfast.  We don't offer them anything else if they don't at least TRY dinner.  Tonight was the mini meatloaves and corn.  My two daughters choose to eat about half a plate of corn and one bite of meat.  My son ate one meatloaf and one bite of corn.  He claimed that he was still hungry about half an hour later, so we let him make a peanut butter sandwich. 

Here's the recipe, we followed it exactly.  We had all of the ingredients on hand except the meat, so this ended up being really cheap for us :

1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup quick-cooking oatmeal
1 lb. lean ground beef
12 3/4 inch cubes of cheese
2/3 cup ketchup
1/4 brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350.  Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.  Combine the egg, milk and oatmeal.  Add the meat and mix it really well.  Separate the meat mixture into 12 pieces.  Take each piece, add a cube of cheese and then use your hands to form a ball around the meat.  Put each meat "ball" into the muffin tin.  In a small bowl, combine ketchup and brown sugar.  Top the meat with the ketchup mixture and bake for 30 minutes.  I'm not a big fan of meat, but these were actually pretty good.