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| It's been a while since we've had a gratuitous Corgi picture, hasn't it? |
Face it, even if you don't eat meat, you've seen dozens of recipes for "meat"loaf, right?
And we all have our tried and true favorite. The one our family always thinks of when we tell them we're having meatloaf for dinner.
BUT - when I tried this recipe Carrie came up with (or found - I'm not sure which), my meatloaf recipe world was instantly altered.
This might not be a new concept for some of you, but I had never heard of cooking the onions before mixing them with the meat!
So here's my new meatloaf recipe. Since I make it without breadcrumbs to keep it in the low-carb world, I listed them as optional. Feel free to make this either way!
Delicious Meatloaf
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 1 1/4 pounds ground beef or ground turkey
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (optional)
1 egg
1/4 cup ketchup
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Melt the butter in a skillet, and then cook the onions and garlic in the butter until they're soft and fragrant - about five minutes.
Put the onions/garlic/butter mixture in a mixing bowl and let it cool.
Add the other ingredients and mix well. I always use my hands for this step. Just remember to wash them well before and after.
Shape the mixture into a loaf shape, place in a baking dish (I line mine with foil), and bake at 350° for about 50-60 minutes.
I know you're asking yourself where the grease went! After all, part of cooking meatloaf is dealing with the tons of grease that cooks out of the meat.
Two things - one is that the meat I used is very low fat. Some of our good South Dakota grass fed beef :)
The other is that I cheated. I cooked the meatloaf, but then the family was eating at different times. So I transferred it to a different dish (to get it out of the grease that was there - yes, even with low fat meat), covered it tightly with foil, and put it back in the oven at 170° to keep it hot.
While we're enjoying the meatloaf, let's visit about what else is happening here in the Midwest.
The biggest thing is that spring is coming! Very slowly, of course, but surely. Winter never lasts forever, even if it seems that way.
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| This bull was a BIG guy. But do you notice that you can see his ribs? The bison aren't starving, but they can hardly wait for green grass. |
We had several beautiful days last week, so on Saturday we went to Custer State Park to enjoy the weather and sunshine.
We could hear the prairies calling out His name....
I promised Dave meatloaf this week, so if I actually do it, I'm using this recipe. I've never thought of pre-cooking them to soften them, but what a great idea! And I'll leave out the bread crumbs, too. I find if you use turkey or ground round adding bread/cracker/oatmeal crumbs dries it out too much because they're too lean.... and then we can have our low-carb meal!!!
ReplyDeleteI use ketchup, too... SECRET INGREDIENT LOVE SHARED!!!!! Ketchup flavors from the inside out!
ReplyDeleteGood morning, Ruthy! You made it over here on a busy Monday!
DeleteCooking the onions and garlic first is such a simple step, but it gives the meatloaf a WOW factor. So savory.
And ketchup. I'm not what it is about ketchup - maybe it's because that tomatoey flavor is distributed subtly through the whole loaf? I just know it adds to the goodness.
I know, I remembered to come over here FIRST!!!! I think that's the crux of the ketchup... that it blends the sweet tomato flavor from side to side, inside and out! But MUST TRY this!!!!
DeleteThanks for sharing, Jan! I love ketchup in and on top of meatloaf! I buy the 93% lean beef, so I usually have no grease to drain when cooking. I haven't made meatloaf in years, though. So I don't know whether the 93% would make grease/liquid or not.
ReplyDeleteThe grease in the pan is from the fat cooking out of the meat, so yes, you'd probably have the grease. But you can cook it on a rack to keep it out of the puddle, or I often set the meatloaf on a plate lined with a couple paper towels before serving it.
DeleteAnd have you ever made a "rack" by laying a couple rounds of sliced onion in the bottom of the baking dish, or some celery stalks? They work great and add flavor at the same time!