What's cookin' ?

TWO meatloaves...

Why two you ask???

Well, dh is a pita with the food. I'm a very good cook but allowed him to terrorize the menus over the years.

I like dry well done, with a crusty baked top, sauce free, onions and garlic ground sirloin baked meat loaf. Served with a baked potato and salad yum...

He: Cheap burger, extra greasy, barely cooked, ok to garlic-suddenly off onions after 45 years (wth?) with ketchup or barbecue sauce.

So thus, I make one for the kids and I, and one that I add to the oven a while after ours.

This isn't a restaurant buddy!-but I'm sure he appreciates it-HA

Meat Loaf Recipe:

3 lbs Ground sirloin or better

2 eggs

1/2 C or so of instant oatmeal (so I can pretend I'm lowered cholesterol of something lol)

1/2 C or so of seasoned breadcrumbs

3 splashes of Onion Salt

3 splashes or more of Garlic salt (we like salt)

1 t of Italian seasoning

forgot to add pepper today
forgot to add a smidge of cayene pepper as well for zing

one medium onion cut in HUGE chunks so the PITA's can pick it out easily

2-3 t of jar o' minced garlic (the best convenience ever in my book for garlic lovers)

Heat oven til 375

Spray crap o' non stick on large lasagne type dish to hopefully make clean-up less of a nightmare

Measure by eye most of the dry goods into the bottom of the casserole pan (why dirty another dish and waste water/energy etc to clean up another bowl)

Add most of the burger, break eggs over and massage the ever so cold stuff together gently. Dish is usually too low to add all the meat at once and since I want to avoid extra dish dirtying, I suffer.

Bitch about the mega-cold meat silently as your hands freeze.

Add the rest of the burger to the mix, saving the styro dish from the meat package. Don't mix too much as it makes the finished masterpiece tough.

Pull out 1/3 of the meat mix, place on the styro tray.

Shape 2/3 of the meat into a loaf place to one side of the casserole pan.

Put in oven, set the timer(s) in the kitchen for 15-20 minutes

Add a 1/2 C of ketchup to the remaining meat mix on the tray and combine, shape into a loaf.

When the timer(s) go off place secondary dh loaf in the pan and cover with 1/4 C of ketchup.

Lower heat to 350 and set timer(s) for 30-40 minutes til juices are clear in the main loaf.

Sometimes I wait and add the ketchup topping a bit later so it doesn't carmelize so much, but since I don't eat that one and dh doesn't express a preference, I don't remember to wait. lol

Sometimes I serve with instant chemical laden brown gravy and mashed potatoes, but I prefer Baked...when rushed I scrub, microwave to start and then finish them off in the oven so they taste correct.

My family still approaches my meatloaf with trepidation. For a short while-I was trying to healthy them up by adding random crap like flax seed (just a bit and should have today lol), shreaded miniscule diced carrots, and that's when I started using oatmeal.

I have kept the oatmeal, as they have quit complaining about that...but too many days of Pierces eyeballing the slop like a Mash messhall episode have 'learnt me better'.