Meatloaf

Not to be confused with American rock legend, Meat Loaf.

I know what you are thinking, but I don't understand why meatloaf has such a bad rap.  I must be in the wrong generation, or maybe it's because I can't remember my mom ever making meatloaf, but I love it.  After making it, I can understand why moms of a generation before fast food made it all the time... it's so easy.  And it makes 1 lb of ground beef go a long way.  Anyway, this is my friend Miss Kelli's recipe.  She told me that it is a really good recipe, so what am I going to do?  Yep!  Try and ruin it with veggies.  It is also very simple and easy, which is good for experimenting...

 Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 12 oz bottle hunts chili sauce
1 package onion soup & dip mix
1 cup bread crumbs
1 egg

1/2 cup purple cabbage puree
1/4 cup kale puree

Mix all together, pour into bread pan and bake 375 for 45-60.  I did mine for 60 minutes total, taking it out of the bread pan and adding ketchup to the top for the last 15.

The purees:  purple cabbage and kale, I steamed them before blending, and added water as necessary to keep the blender going.  I honestly have no idea how much kale I started with, but I pureed 1/2 a cabbage head with about 1 cup water.

This was my first meal with pureed purple cabbage.  It was totally hidden.  I think I could easily have added 1 cup.  Next time!   The kale has some little stringys that are visible if you know what to look for... but otherwise the kale was hidden as well.  I was SO worried that it was going to turn the whole thing green, like the turnip greens did to my hamburgers, remember?

Here's the meatloaf picture:

Hee, my meat pictures never turn out very good, do they?  It wasn't burnt, but in the picture it looks sort of burnt.

It was good.  It had great flavor.  With the addition of the purees I think I needed another egg.  It was sort of... fallapartee if you know what I mean.  It was also a little salty for my taste, I don't know if it was the brand of onion soup mix, or the chili sauce, but I might try and do something about that next time... like add more veggies!

The Verdict:

The research team really liked it, but he said "this meatloaf is thirsty!"  Which I think is his way of saying it was a little salty.  So I'll try to figure that out for next time.


I'd say as a whole, this was a success.  A great way to make feel good home cookin' a little bit healthier.  So that makes it okay that along with the carrots I served it with, we also had tater tots, right?