Meatloaf

I have had a mildly rough day. Hubby and I got into it over differences of opinion about parenting. I REALLY wanted to come online and gripe about it - I mean write a post about parenting from my perspective, but I realized that the post would probably come out sounding very anti-hubby. So, I put that on the back burner for now.

Instead, I decided that since I hadn't done a post of the simplicity and beauty of meatloaf yet, and that was what I decided to make for dinner, I'd do a post on making meat loaf.

To me, meatloaf is a beautiful thing. It is one of those dishes that can last a couple of days. There's the obvious of eating it as is for dinner the first night that it's made, and then the left overs can be sliced up for sandwiches for a week, or remade into a stew. The possibilities are tasty to think about!

We buy our hamburger as cheaply as possible by buying a 10 pound chub at Sam's club for about 20.00 - give or take. This is hamburger that probably no one should eat, but it's what we have to made do with, lol! Once we get this home, hubby divides it up into 1 1/2 or 2 pound packs depending on how long we need to make it stretch.

Also, it's usually pretty inexpensive to buy ground pork at the grocery store. It works out to between 2-3.00 a pound depending on whether or not it's on sale. When I have a bit extra in my food budget, I'll buy grassfed, hormone free ground pork from the health food store for between 3-5.00 a pound - 5.00 being more likely, sigh...

Now that I have my meat, I take 2 lbs of ground beef and 2 lbs of ground pork (THAWED!) and toss them in a bowl. Save yourself some hassle and use a fairly big bowl to begin with. I started with a... 4 quart bowl? 6? Probably 6... Something like that. Anyway, it was enough to mix the meat in, but once I added the rest of the ingredients, it turned out to be too small, so I switched to a bowl that I think probably holds 10 quarts.

I tossed the 2 pounds of beef in the bowl first and sprinkled it liberally with RealSalt, Organic All Seasons Salt, and Organic Garlic Powder. Next, I added one pound of pork - those came in separate packages - seasoned it, then added the 2nd pound of pork. After it too was seasoned, I cut up a medium organic onion, and 4 slices of bread.

When my mom taught me how to make meatloaf, she told me that for every pound of meat, use one egg to bind it and one slice of bread to soak up the grease. She used "regular" sized slices of bread, but i buy sourdough that is almost 2x the size of her bread. I forgot this fact as I merrily diced up 4 slices of bread, which then turned out to be too much, sigh...

Not about to waste them, I made plans to turn them into croutons, but they all disappeared shortly after the boys came inside, so problem solved :-)

Back to the meatloaf, lol! I've tossed all the meat, some seasoning, an onion, 4 eggs, and quite a bit of diced bread into this sufficiently large enough bowl. Here comes the fun part. Take off all your rings, stick your hands in the bowl, and squish it all together! Do a good job too :-)

After it's mixed together, spread the mix in a baking dish that is about... 12x8? 12x9? (Can you tell that I'm not in the habit of measuring things, lol!) Toss it in the oven at 350 for an hour - or if you're like me and forget that tidbit, 400 for about 45 minutes, lol! (Feel free to blog while you wait for it too cook, lol!)

ENJOY!