I'd do anything for love (but really I wouldn't because I won't do "that")

I spent a fair amount of time in 1993 wondering exactly what Meatloaf wouldn't do for love. Also, I still don't know. I think I might not be deep enough. Have you seen Meatloaf? He is obviously not a shallow guy. I have discovered recently that "that" has nothing to do with going on celebrity apprentice. So we can rule it out. If you have figured out what "that" is, please let me know. It's been almost 20 years and I'm waiting with bated breath. So that's enough about Meatloaf, let's talk more about meatloaf.

See where we are going here?

I love meatloaf for various reasons. Most of them run along the same lines of why I love casseroles. You can eat them for more than one meal and the oven cooks them for you. Meatloaf also tastes great as a sandwich and I love it even more now because babies love meatloaf. At least mine does. Any recipe that can easily add people AND baby meals is like a triple shooting star life bonus. SO let's pretend that you are on a stay at home day and your husband says "can you get the meatloaf started?" and like a normal, sane person you reply "sure, where is the recipe?" Tips for life, people... there was no recipe. He had just purchased 2lbs of ground meat and figured "we had stuff." This instance works out well for everyone. We did indeed have the "stuff", but I won't do "that". Figure it out. 

So step one in my meatloaf adventure was to find a basic recipe. I went to my friend Internet and hollered at my BFF Google. Dear Google, Please send me an easy meatloaf recipe.....  My buddy G led me to allrecipes.com and gave me a recipe to work with. I had to make adjustments though, because the recipe I found called for 1.5lbs of ground meat and I had 2lbs that I wanted to use all of, but either way my kitchen scale has been dead for over three years. There. I confessed. We were going to have to use two pounds of meat. I assembled the ingredients. 

I found some panko bread crumbs in the pantry, we always have eggs since it's L's breakfast of choice, I keep a sack of white onions in the pantry as well becuase they take a while to spoil and can go in almost anything. With a baby we also always have milk. But I guess we always have milk regardless because S drinks it like a 16 year old boy. I also got out a couple of the fresh tomatoes we got in our Farmhouse Delivery, but I didn't end up using them. 

Onion chopping 101:

Cut a grid in the onion without cutting all of the way through. If you need more information on what a grid is, ask google. There is one pictured on the onion above. Then turn the onion on its side and begin to slice. Everything is already chopped for you. You could also use a slap chop, but I find it is sometimes inconsistent with chop size and it also hurts your hand after a while. Also, that guy is just really, really creepy. Slap chop guy. Moving on.

I preheated the oven to 350, let my ground meat come to room temp, and also let my milk come a little to room temp. I decided to add in some sliced garlic and took out the tomatoes. Then we ended up with this:

To compensate for the extra half pound of meat, I used a large onion, increased the milk from 1C to 1 and 1/3C, and increased the bread crumbs from 1 C to 1 1/3C. I thought about adding an extra egg, but in the end decided not to. 

So if you are a woman (or a man, I guess) who has longer fingernails, the best way to mix your ingredients together involves two hands and some latex gloves that don't have powder on them. Something like this. These gloves are just great to keep under your sink for cooking, especially if you cook with peppers often. Too many times I kind of forget I just held a jalapeno and rub my eye. The worst is when you do it and pick/"scratch" your nose. IT burns. Actually I've heard of worse things, but we are talking about meatloaf. Combine all of your ingredients in a bowl, and mix together with your hands. I didn't have gloves and I didn't want to pick ground meat out from under my fingernails so I used a potato masher. It was eh. It worked in a pinch. Gloves would be better or find someone who bites their nails (tell them to wash their hands) and have them do this.  Also, salt and pepper to taste. 

Mish Mash.

Next I made a little something something to go on top of the meatloaf. The recipe on allrecipes.com called for 2 tablespoons of mustard, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1/3 C of ketchup. I just eyeballed it, keeping in mind my meatloaf was going to be larger. I used dijon mustard. 

Top Sauce

I prefer to mold my meatloaf and cook it in a larger pan than to do it in a loaf pan. You take the meat and make sure there is room so only the base is touching something, and mold it into a loaf shape. 

Add the top sauce over the top.  That is why it's called "top sauce"

And place in oven. The original recipe had a cooking time of one hour. Because I used more meat and more ingredients overall, I checked on it at one hour, but ended up cooking it for an hour and fifteen minutes total. Here is the finished product:

At this point if I had extra liquid I would use a baster to get it out so it doesn't soak back in. Well I spent some time looking for a baster and couldn't find one. In Landon's kitchen play drawer there are all sorts of kitchen tools and random things that are safe for her. In that drawer I found this:

Hmmm. Handy kitchen tool?

Although I had a c-section I was still sent home from the hospital with one of these fancy things that was never used. It made a really great baster. It would have made an even better story if it had been used. If you are unsure of what exactly this bottle is used for you can view the product here. Then if you don't know your anatomy, ask our friend google. Fun times. Apparently I really will do anything for meatloaf... even "that".

We had our meatloaf with some grilled okra from our farm delivery. We put some olive oil and salt on the okra then cooked it in the grill wok. 

Served with a side of farm fresh cherry tomatoes. And lots of ketchup. Because while you shouldn't put ketchup on your steak, you can put it ALL OVER your meatloaf.

Meatloaf is a great recipe to play with on your own. You can add spinach, shaved carrots, mushrooms, or keep it simple and basic. It is also a sneaky way to get kids who don't eat their veggies to eat veggies without knowing it. No, ketchup is not a vegetable (even if the govt says so), I'm talking shaved and chopped up veggies cooked in there. 

Your final dish might also look something like this:

I ordered my Meatloaf rare.

Don't forget to order some kitchen gloves and a spare perineal cleanser for basting emergencies. Advice for life. 

-RT