chosen chaos

For me, the best part about a meat loaf is eat­ing the left­overs the next day, cold between two pieces of bread.  Cov­ered in ketchup and salt.  The actual meat­loaf is always good too — I’m just never very happy with how it turns out.  I’ve never been able to make a meat­loaf that cooks in the time it’s sup­posed to and stays together in a loaf shape with­out get­ting dry.I keep try­ing and was hope­ful this time around may be my lucky break!

Emily’s Meat­loaf

• 1.5 pounds ground lean beef, turkey, pork, veal, or a combination
• 1 cup Ital­ian bread crumbs
• 2 eggs whisked
• 1 cup tomato juice
• 1 small onion chopped
• 1 stalk cel­ery chopped
• 3–4 table­spoons of chopped bell pep­per, any color
• 2 table­spoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1 table­spoon fresh thyme leaves
• 1 table­spoon Worces­ter­shire sauce
• 1 tea­spoon salt
• 1 table­spoon ketchup
• 2 strips of smoky bacon

Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees.

Com­bine the first 11 ingre­di­ents thor­oughly.  Take your rings off and make sure your kids are ok before you start.  It never fails for me that as soon as I dig my hands into the gloppy mess some­one starts cry­ing or bleed­ing and I have to wash my hands to help and then get over the gloppy feel­ing once again.  You should know when I made this I didn’t chop enough, so chop smaller than you think.  I also did not use fresh pars­ley or thyme.  I’m a work in progress, remember?

Add the meat mix­ture to a loaf pan.  I knew a whole loaf would be too much for us so I made two loaves and froze one of them for a later date!  Bonus!  Spread ketchup on top.  Lay bacon strips on top of the ketchup and bake for one hour.  I will admit that the bacon never made it to the pre­sen­ta­tion.  Once it came out of the oven and I was cut­ting it for the plates… well the bacon didn’t cut well and it was just eas­ier to eat it myself.  I did it for the kids.  Or some­thing like that.

It was good.  It didn’t stay together great, but I think this is prob­a­bly some­thing that’s wrong with me not the recipe.  It’s against the law in my head to serve meat­loaf with any­thing other than mac’n’cheese.  Maybe fried pota­toes.  But mac is the safest.

 

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