For the Love of Cooking: Meatloaf

Oh boy, have I been remiss with recipe posting. I took a peek at the archives, and eesh. I used to be about even with restaurants and recipes; now I’m nearly double for restaurants! And I haven’t been eating out that much, really… it’s just I make the same stuff over and over again, quick stuff because I’m tired when I get home from work or I’m busy on the weekends…

No more excuses.

Enter: For the Love of Cooking.

I read about this on someone’s site at the beginning of the year, and she’s since stopped posting unfortunately, but I loved the idea so much, I’m borrowing it. (Now that I’ve moved, settled into my new kitchen, and am still learning my oven/burner and its strange temperaments, I can start!)

The idea (adapted slightly from hers): to attempt recipes that I’ve never before thought I would make, for whatever reason (didn’t think I’d be able to make, didn’t ever want to even try, or just never occurred to me to even try to make my own)- all solely for the love of cooking. I’ve been rolling this around in my head for a while, and I already know that this is the year I will attempt to make bread. (The infamous no-knead bread that has made all the blogger rounds, of course, will be my first attempt.) But I’m not quite ready for that yet, with my kitchen still being in a bit of disarray from the move!

Then…

A few days ago, while reading The Shameless Carnivore, I got to the part where he makes meatloaf. From buffalo. It didn’t really raise my interest, as I’m not a big fan of meatloaf, having had it only in TV dinners as a kid, maybe once or twice in a diner, and it’s always been, well, alright. So no big deal, right?

Then, in a twist that could only be described as loony, I asked my brother what I should make for dinner two nights ago. He responded very helpfully, “Food.”

That’s not the twist. The twist is receiving a random post the next day on my Facebook wall from someone with whom I haven’t spoken to in months, easily, reading very simply, “Make meatloaf.”

I jumped out of my chair when I saw the message and wrote back, “Are you psychic? Did you hear me talking to my brother? Is this message not for me? Did I ask you and not realize I asked you what I should make for dinner?”

The response was just that he felt like telling me to make meatloaf. While it’s true I’m slightly food obsessed, this was just weird.

So, armed with the idea of meatloaf, I went and picked up some ingredients and realized a few things.

I don’t know what’s in meatloaf. In fact, I don’t know what really differentiates it from meatballs except it’s in loaf form. Without the internet on my side (the guy’s coming to install it on Saturday!), I totally winged it. Also taking my cue from Cathy’s recent post using dumpling wrappers, plus Not Exactly Bento’s mini meatloafs (meatloaves?) post, I wanted to try making mini-ones, some with a dumpling wrapper and some just like mini-hamburgers.

(Seriously, what difference is there between meatloaf, meatballs, and hamburgers besides size? Ok, for hamburgers, usually you grill them, but if you bake them in an oven, aren’t they just meatloaf in patty form?!)

The very first picture is everything before I stuck my hands into the mixture…

1 egg
some – but not too many!- breadcrumbs (I somehow lost my Italian seasoned ones in the move, so I used panko)
tons of freshly grated cheese – I used both Pecorino Romano and Parmagiano-Reggiano
Italian seasoning
ground chuck (I used 1.5 lbs)
a dash of salt
minced onion
Secret weapon: homemade red sauce, lovingly jarred by BF’s dad months ago

Moosh everything together with your hands until it’s well combined. Push into the bottom of a loaf pan, or form small loaves/patties with hands and plop into muffin tin (optional: line muffin cups with dumpling wrapper before plopping meat mixture inside). Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Top meatloaf with spoonfuls of red sauce, then grate MORE cheese on top. Bake for 30-45 minutes, remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes, slice (or remove) and enjoy!

I admit some follies that came from my being really tired, not thinking, and just silly. I hadn’t considered that the mini loaves should have a shorter baking time. Also, I made them a skoosh too big and the meat patties kind of floated above empty space in the tins, which meant that all the fat dripped off (good) but that the remaining meat became a little dry, especially in light of my cooking them for the same amount of time as the entire loaf.

looks like giant meat shumai, no?

Also, I baked them with nothing, with cheese, and with sauce, and then each of those versions with and without a dumpling wrapper. Hands down, with sauce on top fared the best, and next time I’d make them smaller, put sauce AND cheese on top… pretty delicious, a good appetizer even, if I toned down the size a bit more.

Now for the loaf…

swimming in its own fat, I mean juices

The loaf fared much better. I covered this in a layer of sauce – not too thick – and tons of grated cheese, and though the meat mixture was enough that the entire loaf was about an inch to an inch and a half thick, cooking in its own fat as it were insured that the loaf would come out super juicy and moist. Yum.

It actually tasted exactly like the meatballs my BF’s father makes, though a different size and shape, so much so that I was tempted to boil off some spaghetti and plop more sauce on top to make, uh “meatsticks” and spaghetti. I was extremely pleased with this variation I’d created.

The cheese melted nicely on top, almost forming a crust (though I didn’t broil it, so it wasn’t actually crunchy or anything) to seal in the moisture. I really enjoyed this and am happy to report that leftovers taste just as yummy (ALL MY BENTO ARE BELONG TO ME can attest to this). This one is definitely going into my repertoire, and I’m glad that all these weird little quirks and factors led to my making meatloaf, something I probably never would have bothered to do otherwise.

So – tell me – what did I do “wrong” in terms of making “regular American meatloaf”??? *wink

I’m thrilled that my first For the Love of Cooking experiment came out well, and was great for a weekday meal, but I’ve got to ramp it up and do something slightly more complicated in a few weeks for my next one… any suggestions?

As always, HAPPY EATING!!!