Marvelous Meatloaf

This meatloaf is always a hit! It was one of the last meals I was able to cook for my dear Father 2 weeks before he passed away. After spending several days in the hospital, he was ready for a hearty home cooked meal.  He had suffered a severe stroke, and speaking was difficult for him, but he took one bite of the meatloaf and commented, "That's brag-a-licious!"  ... One of my all time favorite memories. 

I consider this a 'crowd-pleaser', because you can easily adapt the recipe to feed as many people as needed.  It is great for potluck dinners or for making for a friend in need.  It freezes great (freeze before baking)! 

When I serve it on Sundays, I make it the night before and store it in the fridge overnight.  If your oven has a timer which will turn on the oven for you, you can pop the lasagna into the oven before leaving for church and set the timer to turn on 30-45 minutes before you will be returning home from from church.  This is what I do.  It is a fantastic Sunday meal with absolutely no Sunday prep!

Ingredients:

• 3 slices white bread
• 1 large carrot, finely chopped
• 1 rib celery, finely chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 large Tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard (can use prepared mustard)
• 1 ½ lbs ground beef (can use combination of beef, pork and veal if desired) 
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Tabasco Sauce, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

Glaze:

• Ketchup, to taste
• Brown sugar, to taste
• Mustard, to taste
• Chopped Rosemary, if desired (maybe ¼ tsp or so)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°. 

2. Remove crusts from bread, and place slices in the bowl of a food processor. Process until fine crumbs form, about 10 seconds. Transfer bread crumbs to a large mixing bowl. Do not substitute dried bread crumbs in this step, as they will make your meat loaf rubbery.

3. Chop carrot, celery, yellow onion, garlic, and parsley. You can chop them in a food processor until vegetables have been minced, about 30 seconds, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice. (Chopping vegetables this way saves time and ensures that vegetables will be small enough to cook through and not be crunchy). Transfer vegetables to bowl with the bread crumbs.

4. Add 1/2 cup ketchup, 2 teaspoons dry mustard, meat, eggs, salt, pepper, Tabasco, and rosemary. Using your hands, knead the ingredients until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute. The texture should be wet, but tight enough to hold a free-form shape. * Be careful not to over knead the meatloaf ingredients; doing so will result in a heavy and dense loaf.

5. Form meat loaf in an 11-by-17-inch baking pan. I usually form mini loaves by using the side of my hand to divide the large loaf into smaller ones. This will help to decrease the cooking time.

6. GLAZE: Place desired amount of ketchup, mustard and brown sugar in mixing bowl. (You can also add a little chopped Rosemary to the bowl if desired. Not too much, as a little goes a long way.) 

Starting out with about 1 cup of ketchup, 1 cup of brown sugar, and about 1 Tablespoon of mustard, mix together and taste. After tasting, add each of the same ingredients as desired to ‘tweak’ the glaze to your own taste. I like my glaze to be sweet, yet savory. And I actually make a LOT of glaze, because there is nothing worse than dry, tasteless meatloaf. Mix until smooth. Pour this mixture all over the top of the meatloaves. Cover them completely with the sauce and let the excess run over the sides into the pan.  

7. Lay strips of bacon over each of the loaves. If making mini loaves usually cut each strip of bacon into thirds to accommodate the size of the loaves. *You may choose to use only a few strips of bacon over each loaf, but I cover the loaves completely because my family loves the sweet caramelized bacon after it is cooked, and I want to make sure there is enough for everyone. NOTE:  As you can see, the pan is pretty full, so I ended up transferring some of it to another pan before baking to prevent spillover in the oven.

8. Bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf registers 160°, about 45 minutes or so. (A few times during baking time, I remove excess bacon grease from pan.) After removing pan from oven, let meat loaf cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

**This is wonderful with scalloped or buttered dill potatoes, glazed carrots and pea salad. (I’ll be posting recipes for these side dishes as well.) 

Enjoy!