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Today, I have played no practical jokes. I have engaged in no hoaxes. I have been responsible for no gags.
But I did engage in a nefarious scheme. In collusion with one of my roommates this morning, I plotted against my boyfriend. Knowing that he had stated an extreme dislike for a certain food, and an unwillingness to even try said food, we hatched a master plan against him: I would make the food for myself at a time when he was in the house and would be able to smell it cooking.
I did so early this evening. With the desired result: "Wow, that actually smells really good." "Would you like to try some after all?" "Sure!"
My boyfriend now likes MY meatloaf.
He says that doesn't count as an April Fools joke. I'm counting it anyway. :)
But I did engage in a nefarious scheme. In collusion with one of my roommates this morning, I plotted against my boyfriend. Knowing that he had stated an extreme dislike for a certain food, and an unwillingness to even try said food, we hatched a master plan against him: I would make the food for myself at a time when he was in the house and would be able to smell it cooking.
I did so early this evening. With the desired result: "Wow, that actually smells really good." "Would you like to try some after all?" "Sure!"
My boyfriend now likes MY meatloaf.
He says that doesn't count as an April Fools joke. I'm counting it anyway. :)
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Then I won't have to be sneaky about it. :)
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And now I have to wonder how your recipe compares with the one me and
I've never heard of using Parmesan cheese in meatloaf before, though--this sounds interesting and has me intrigued. :3
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2lbs ground beef (pref lean)
3 large eggs
1 and 1/2 cups fine dry Progresso Italian-Style breadcrumbs
1/2 cup dried minced onion (onion flakes)
Defrost the meat, crack the eggs, mix everything together. And I can't stress this part enough: use your hands to mix everything very VERY thoroughly. The goal is to get all of the ingredients distributed as homogeniously as possible throughout the meat. I have sat and done this for up to an hour before.
Now, to taste, add:
Ketchup (generally at least an amount equal to one egg)
Paprika
Celery Salt
Garlic Salt
Oregano
Dill Weed
Grated Parmesan Cheese (the dry kind that goes on spaghetti traditionally)
A lot of other spices can work here too. Don't go too overboard on how much you use, but remember you are making two whole pounds of meat.
Mix things together. You want the end result to be in a fine area between starting to become sticky and between being a little crunchy from the dry ingredients. You can add more ketchup to make it less dry, and more breadcrumbs or parmesan to make it more dry, until you find a good balance. Remember to thoroughly mix all of these seasonings in too... you want every one of them to permeate every part of the meat in an even distribution.
Take the meat and form it into a loaf or ring. A ring generally cooks better. Put it in a large pan or oven-safe casserole dish. Slather a light but thorough layer of ketchup over the surface of the meat, covering all areas of it (including between the pan and the meat). You're basically greasing it up with the ketchup to keep the surface from drying out while you cook it.
Bake in the oven on 350 for about 45 minutes. With the ketchup coating it has a tendency to stay looking pink even when it's done, so you'll have to cut into it to really see if it's done. You don't want to see any pink left inside the center of the cut.
And that's how I make meatloaf. :) You can also make it into patties instead of a ring and make VERY tasty hamburger this way. :)
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1.5 lb lean ground beef
1. lb pork
1 lb ground veal (use non tortured baby cow meat)
Cup of parm (large handful)
breadcrumbs
an egg
salt, pepper, garlic, finely chopped vidalia onion (use food processor), bit of ketchup
This is all sorta seasoned to taste and utilized to bind.
If you want to go a little extra, moisten your breadcrumbs with buttermilk beforehand. Then make the loaf.
Line your pan with day old bread, btw, beforehand. This absorbs all the grease and keeps your loaf nice and from being icky. Especially necessary when using pork and veal. You may also have to cook it longer than an hour at 375 to achieve doneness.
On the last 30 mins of cooking, you can also brush the top with a mixture of ketchup and bbq sauce. It's awesome.
I love meatloaf.
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I kinda want to try it with other ground meats, but I don't know a reasonably priced source for the meats I most want to try... venison and buffalo. At least not in the quantities necessary for meatloaf. Usually I'm lucky if I can find those in quantities sufficient for a couple of hamburgers.
Do you make yours into the traditional loaf or a ring? I find the ring cooks a lot faster and more evenly, plus it has less of a problem with the outside drying out before the inside is done. The loaf always seems to have that problem, though the ketchup layer I coat it with helps somewhat.
The very lean beef I normally get usually doesn't havea ton of grease as a problem, but that's a good idea for dealing with it if I use another type of meat. Heck, I could almost make a stuffing that way to go with it, instead of just plain bread. Stuffing and meatloaf would be an awesome combination...
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For good stuffing, fats to broth is the best bet, and not enough to make it mush or soggy, as this would do.
I have also found that even for the leanest meat, this will help make it a healthier meal and not dry it out. I'll have to try the ring idea.
Drying could be a temperature issue in your oven, methinks, or cooking it too high.
You can get 1lb of venison and 1lb buffalo, then cut it with 1lb of something else. I think that would work wonderfully, and buffalo is very lean. Do the bread trick. :)
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I also don't think that it's entirely raw meat grease. Generally there are just as much juices as grease in pan drippings, and pan drippings are quite commonly used in stuffing recipes. Some people specifically cook bacon to add the bacon drippings to their stuffing.
http://www.bigoven.com/86731-Fresh-Bread-Stuffing-recipe.html
http://chitterlings.com/turkey-and-dressing.html
http://www.slawek.com/news/article/rec.food.cooking/1561509
I'd be very surprised if the amount of drippings that came out of my 2lb meatloaf was more than the 3/4 cup of bacon drippings called for in the second recipe. The main issue I can see is that it may not absorb thoroughly during cooking the way the bacon drippings do when you mix them in before cooking. That'd be my main reservation with attempting the stuffing idea.
It may not be quite as healthy, but there's definitely a precedent for it. Enough so that some stuffing recipes today that are trying to be healthy but still want the taste of older recipes say to reserve between two and six tablespoons of pan drippings for use in stuffing and get rid of the rest, or even to wait for the fat to seperate from the pan drippings and use the "degreased" drippings while discarding the seperated fat. Adding the drippings to a broth and using it for stuffing would seem to fall into this category; basically trying to preserve the taste while reducing the amount of fat actually ingested. It seems based on older recipes that actually used the pan drippings directly.
Drying is an issue I've had in almost every oven I've cooked it in, and I always cook it at 350. This time I used the ring trick, and that seemed to really help with it rather than making it into one thick loaf.
I might go with the 1lb venison or buffalo and 1lb something else... dunno. Generally I don't go much for combining different types of meat. If I want a specific taste of meat, that's the only taste I want involved. But it does seem like the cost of venison and buffalo would make that prohibative.
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Could you post the recipe, please?
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I also hated steak as a kid, which I now love after discovering that it doesn't have to be cooked to the consistency of boot leather (I like it pretty rare) and there are other things I'll eat as an adult that I like more when I can cook them my way, but I can't think of any way to 'redeem' meatloaf. I just don't think it's my kind of food. (I still won't eat pork chops mainly because I dislike fatty meat, and the recipe Ken prefers I use is the least likely of the two I know to convince me to try it.)
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