All American Meatloaf

Food history is full of surprises. The history of an American staple, for example - meatloaf - offers more than a trip down culinary lane. It provides a glimpse into how advances in technology have shaped the way we eat and prepare food today. Back in the day meatloaf was made using that attach on the counter meat grinder. We can still use these things toady but we can go to our local grocery store and pick up a package of hamburger ready and wrapped to go.
Early meatloaf recipes called for veal, which was less expensive than beef at the time. The meat in one widely published version was first cooked then chopped, blended with other ingredients, molded, then cooked again into a loaf.

In many parts of the United States, meatloaf is a popular dish. In 2007, it was voted the 7th favorite dish in the United States according to the Good Housekeeping website.

During the Great Depression cooking meatloaf was a way to stretch the food budget for families, using an inexpensive type of meat and other ingredients as leftovers along with spices it was popular to add cereal grains to the meatloaf to stretch the meat; the tradition lives on with the merits of producing a lower-fat dish with superior binding and consistency. The meatloaf is typically eaten with some kind of sauce or relish . Many of these recipes call for pasta sauce or tomato sauce to be poured over the loaf to form a crust during baking. The tomato-based sauce may be replaced with simple brown gravy or onion gravy, but the meatloaf is prepared in a similar manner, barbecue sauce, tomato ketchup, or a mixture of both tomato ketchup and mustard may also be used. Another variety of meatloaf is prepared by frosting it with mashed potatoes, drizzling it with a small amount of butter and browning in the oven. The meatloaf is normally served warm as part of the main course, but can also be found sliced as a cold cut and can also be considered as a typical Midwestern comfort food , or even soul food.

This is my take on Meatloaf. I took a classic out of my Grandmas cook book Meatloaf and put my Sassy twist on it.

First start out with one and a half pounds ground hamburger. I usually get 7% or less fat. You don't want your meat loaf floating in a pool of fat the entire time it cooks. YUCK! I freeze my hamburger straight out of the package when I get home I buy in bulk to save money so no pretty picture of Hamburger. I am sure you can all live with that right???

First start off by chopping half of a yellow onion.

I chop it pretty fine so that you don't get a huge bite of just onion.

Next chop 4 garlic clovesAdd to mixing bowl, make sure it is a big mixing bowl.
Then comes the spices..

1tbls chives

1/4tsp. red pepper flakes.
2Tbls. Worcestershier sauce 1tbl spoons Cayenne pepper

2Tbls Dijon mustard

a couple shakes of Garlic salt

a couple shakes season salt..it says it's magic I don't know about that but it does the trick..hahaha I'm so funny or at least I try to be. Then add 2 eggs.. I am so excited our Chickens have started to lay eggs again. There is nothing like green and dark brown eggs! They make me get butterflies in my tummy.
add about 1 cup of bread crumbs I ended up adding a little more later. next add all your meat, you will want to remove your jewelry and work all the ingredients together, really well.

dump it in a large cooking dish and shape into a loaf next you will want to pat down the middle to make a nice little pool for your next ingredients. Sprinkle on some light brown sugar
top with Chile sauce, you can use tomato sauce, this just has a great sweet spicy flavor. We like it better then Ketchup and tomato sauce.

Bake at 375 for 55 minutes, you may need to get out your turkey baster and get some of the excess fat out of the pan.

I am serving it with roasted potatoes and green beans. I will show you how to do the roasted potatoes tomorrow. They are way easy and way yummy!!

Enjoy!

~Sassy~