What a Life!

I must confess, I’m in a rut.

But actually, it’s okay. Dr. Oz (on Oprah) said that it’s a good idea to automate two of your meals every day so you eat well without having to think about it. So same thing for breakfast, same thing for lunch, something different for supper. You get the picture…

At our house, most mornings (as in, those in which I am not ambitious), we have cereal. For lunch, I send Steve a lunchmeat sandwich complete with a slice of cheese on it, and then something else – like fruit or yogurt or something. Steve likes sandwiches. He says they were his default meal when he was a bachelor.

But for me? I don’t like sandwiches. If I never ate another sandwich, I really don’t think I would miss them. Especially lunch meat sandwiches like Steve has.

So what do I have for lunch every day? [Get ready to groan…]

Cottage Cheese Loaf.

Yes indeed. I make it every week. I love Cottage Cheese Loaf.

Now, if you’re not Adventist or haven’t been around Adventists much, you probably don’t know what Cottage Cheese Loaf is. It’s also called Special K Loaf, but Mom never bought Special K so that’s why perhaps I know it as Cottage Cheese Loaf. When I was a kid, we had a rotating list of entrees that we made on Friday to have for dinner after church on Sabbath. Cottage Cheese Loaf was one of them.

I don’t know when I started making it all the time. Steve doesn’t mind it, but he isn’t as fond of it as I am, so that’s why I started making it and eating it during the day while he’s at work, I think. He didn’t like the nuts in it – he said you had this soft loaf and with these hard things mixed in, and that didn’t sit well with him. So I started making it without the nuts called for in the commonly-known version of the recipe.

I’ve made a couple of other changes as well. Like the onions – I cook them with the melted butter in the microwave before putting them in the mix. I don’t like chomping into raw onions when I eat my Cottage Cheese Loaf. I put them in a dish with the butter for two minutes in my microwave – melts the butter and cooks the onion all in one handy swoop.

The secret ingredients?

Special K – we used either rice krispies or corn flakes when I was a kid since Mom didn’t buy Special K (I think it was something about being too expensive). For me, corn flakes definitely don’t taste right – they ruin it, in fact. Rice krispies are an okay substitute. But you haven’t really lived until you’ve had Cottage Cheese Loaf with Special K. I’m telling you, Special K is so worth the price!

George Washington Broth – I think I didn’t make Cottage Cheese Loaf very often in my former life because the only place I could find this stuff was at the Adventist Book Center (the Adventist book and vegetarian food store). But, in Lincoln, the Hyvee on 70th and Pioneers carries this stuff. It’s in the soup and cracker aisle, next to the chicken broth, right up at eye level at the very end of the aisle. They probably carry it because that’s the Hyvee closest to Union College and all the Adventists were asking for it. Maybe. We used to substitute dry chicken broth granules for the George Washington Broth when I was a kid, but it just isn’t quite as good.

Here is a picture of the Cottage Cheese Loaf I made yesterday, complete with a box of George Washington Broth [so you know what the box looks like…]

And here, my friends, is the recipe.

Cottage Cheese Loaf – Tana’s version

1/2 onion, chopped
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
2 lb. cottage cheese (I like Roberts small curd, in the navy blue containers)
3 envelopes George Washington Broth
5 eggs
5 cups Special K cereal

Melt the butter and cook the onions in the microwave. Combine all ingredients and place in casserole dish. (I think the skin that forms on the top is really good so I use a wide, shallow dish rather than a tall, deep one). Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Eat and enjoy!