Mmm, Mmm Meatloaf

Until my freshman year in college, I'd never eaten at The Cheesecake Factory, nor had I eaten meatloaf. The night before I went to The Cheesecake Factory for the first time (for Lindsay Wieczorek's birthday), I was hanging out with Chris Rooney in Irish (one of the Honors College dorms) when someone returned with Cheesecake Factory leftovers--- They smelled fantastic! I asked what the leftovers were... MEATLOAF. When I went to The Cheesecake Factory the next night, I ate meatloaf. It was delicious.

I know some people have a meatloaf-aversion due to some bad experiences. In fact, I think that's why we never ate meatloaf when I was a child. Meatloaf conjures all sorts of hideous conceptions of stale, fatty, dense, left over messes. But, since I never ate meatloaf unless it was conceived as meatloaf (not a leftovers dumping ground), I think meatloaf is fantastic!

I was looking for recipes to use some of the ground turkey I bought and found this recipe for "Autumn Turkey Loaf". I made it tonight and it's delicious. I used about double the amount of celery and onions; but, otherwise, I followed the recipe. Two thumbs up!


Autumn Turkey Loaf

Ingredients: 1 lb. ground turkey, completely thawed; 1/4 cup chopped green onions or celery (or mixture); 1 cup (about half box) of seasoned instant stuffing mix; 1 egg, beaten; Salt/pepper to taste (I only lightly, lightly salted it because the stuffing was pretty salty.); 1 can (jellied or whole-berry) cranberry sauce, divided (I used whole-berry)

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Begin by putting ground turkey into a bowl that’s large enough to knead in. Chop about 1/4 cup of green onions or celery (I used 2 green onions and about half a stalk of celery to achieve this amount). Add the chopped vegetables to the bowl along with about 1 cup (half of a regular-sized box) of instant stuffing mix (like StoveTop).

Pour a beaten egg over the mixture and sprinkle with salt & pepper. Add about 1/2 cup of the cranberry sauce (jellied or whole-berry) while reserving the rest of the can for later to be used as topping. Roll up both sleeves and start kneading the mixture until ingredients are generally distributed evenly.

Place the kneaded mixture in an ungreased (I put PAM on mine) loaf pan. Place uncovered loaf in oven and bake 45-60 minutes.

When loaf is done and removed from oven, take remaining cranberry sauce from can, place in covered, microwaveable bowl and microwave for about one minute and stir well. Slice the loaf and serve drizzled with melted cranberry sauce.

John and I had an errand to run... so I finished cooking the meatloaf before I left (actually it only took 45 minutes and I forgot to pre-heat the oven... I ended up covering it at about 30 minutes--so it wouldn't burn), and then put it back in the oven with the cranberry sauce (not microwave) on top and covered with foil for about 10 minutes. That worked really well.

If you like meatloaf, definitely try this recipe.

Ground Beef and Veggie Meatloaf

I (along with 2/3 of my class) have been battling a cold. So, John considerately and bravely faced Costco alone this past weekend. (He's really a trouper about running this errand, which I particularly loathe. Although we did make the mistake of scheduling a Costco run the Saturday before Superbowl Sunday.)

John and I have been trying to eat more nutritious food. So, he picked up lots of veggies--sweet peppers, broccoli, garlic, carrots, celery, spinach, and green beans. It's awesome to have all this food rich in vitamins... BUT, I've felt a bit intimidated about trying to use it all before it goes bad.

Since we also had ground beef, I decided to make meatloaf, which I love.

I wanted to use the slow cooker since we weren't eating it the same night. I found a recipe and used it as inspiration; but, since I didn't have all the ingredients, I sort of made my own recipe. It ended up being tasty and packed full of vegetables.

INGREDIENTS for the LOAF
(I'm estimating a cup to be about a handful and guessing on the spices... so this isn't too precise.)

2 c. chopped fresh broccoli
1 c. chopped fresh sweet peppers
1 clove diced garlic
1 c. cut or torn fresh spinach
1 c. cut baby carrots
2 lb. ground beef
2 slices bread (I used the heels of a sourdough wheat loaf)
3 eggs
1/2 T. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp. chile powder
2 T. Worcestershire sauce

In one bowl, I combined all the vegetables, the Worcestershire sauce, and pepper and mixed.

In another bowl, I combined the rest of the ingredients (meat, bread, eggs, salt, poultry seasoning, and chile powder) and mixed these with my hands. I then added the bowl of vegetables and continued mixing this with my hands.

I sprayed the slow cooker with non-stick spray and then pressed the meatloaf mixture into the slow cooker. I cooked the loaf on low for 4 hours. After 2 hours, I poured off all the liquid. I repeated this at 3 hours and 3 and a half hours. The nice thing about this recipe is that the vegetables release so much liquid when they cook, they take out a lot of the greasiness from the meat. There was not fat or grease sitting on the top or on the sides.

INGREDIENTS for the SAUCE

3/4 c. of ketchup
1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
2 T. apricot jam

I removed the loaf from the slow cooker and spread the sauce on top. I think there's probably a better topping AND a better way to do this, but I haven't figured that out yet.

We tried it tonight and it was delicious... and nutritious ;)