I prepared and we ate and enjoyed this meat loaf for our dinner last night. Whether or not you use my ingredients, there are within my recipe a couple of tips that will enhance your meat loaf. Mix the meat loaf in a stand mixer using the paddle attachment. You'll be surprised at how smooth and nice the finished product will be. Also, use a meat loaf mix of fresh ground beef, pork, and veal. At Whole Foods, you'll find it in the refrigerator case near the butcher's meat counter.
I wanted to update my tried and true meat loaf recipe to come up with a contemporary 2010 recipe. Use my ingredients, or do as I did and look in your refrigerator to see what might add flavor to the meat loaf.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
Ingredients:
- 1/3 pound ground chuck
- 1/3 pound ground pork
- 1/3 pound of ground veal
- 1/3 cup celery, sliced thin
- 1/3 cup onion, chopped (I like Vidalia or green pencil onions)
- 1/4 cup carrots, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes, (from a jar of sun dried tomatoes packed in olive oil)
- 3 eggs
- Dry bread crumbs, plain or 365 brand Italian style bread crumbs w/seasonings
- Thick Thomas Sauce (or barbecue sauce)
- Water, enough for a 1/2 inch collar to surround the meat loaf in the baking pan
- Ketchup (for the table)
- Salt (for the table)
- Pepper (for the table)
Instructions:
Put the meat loaf mix of ground meats in your mixing bowl. Add the celery, onion, carrots, and the olive-oil-softened sun-dried tomatoes to the bowl. Break the eggs, and add the egg whites and yolks to the mix. Use your mixmaster with the paddle attachment to mix the ingredients. Slowly add and mix in the bread crumbs until the mix clumps. Use your hands to mold the ingredients into a loaf, and place it in a baking dish. Use the side of your hand to make a lengthwise crease in the meat loaf. Fill the crease with a generous amount of thick barbecue or Thomas sauce to overflowing. Add the water to surround the meat with a 1/2 inch collar. Cover the meat with aluminum foil and put the baking dish in the 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Remove the cover and return the baking dish to the oven for 30 minutes to finish baking and brown the top of the meat.
Serve the meat loaf with mashed potatoes and a vegetable. I took the easy route last night and baked potatoes with the meat loaf. (Both will need to bake for 1 1/2 hours.) Have butter (or Brummel & Brown yogurt spread), sour cream, and chopped green onions on hand for potato toppings. If you want to make mashed potatoes, I use the microwavable Simply (brand) mashed potatoes that you'll only find at Harris Teeter (here in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area). The Bob Evans brand comes in 2nd and most stores sell them. You'll not find any at Whole Foods. I love to cook, but the prepared mashed potatoes are so good that I'd just as soon not go to the trouble to cook and mash potatoes. If you really want to make it an easy meal, bake white or sweet potatoes at the same time you bake the meat loaf. Be sure to use a fork to prick holes (steam vents) around the potatoes to keep them from exploding in your oven.
For dessert, I'd recommend serving my twice baked cherry pie! I'll post the recipe to my blog soon. Stay tuned to Grandpa's Home Cooking. And please forward the link for my blog to all of your friends. I'd love to have bunches of people tuning in and sending me their comments. I've recently heard from several people who tried my French Basil Eggs and reported them to be delicious! These comments add to the pleasure of my doing the blog.
A note about the sun-dried tomatoes: Pick of a jar of sun dried tomatoes packed in olive oil. This is a versatile ingredient that I often use in my cooking. For example, you might start thinking about home made bruschetta to serve as an appetizer with a glass of Italian wine. Oh yeah, this is a definite yum! Yeah, I'll post a recipe for this one of these days.
Here is a picture of grandpa (left) before I became a grandpa, pictured while working on site in Honolulu, Hawaii. The other fellow was a work colleague. This picture was taken on a day off and just before Nancy flew out to meet me. When Nancy arrived, we flew to Maui and were married before a district court judge in Wailuku. My how time passes.
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