There's something about meatloaf and guys. They just plain like it! Well, any guy that likes meat anyway.
A couple weeks ago I realized I had meatloaf just waiting for me in my freezer. I had ground lamb, ground pork, and ground red meat - in this case, my parents farm raised venison. All of this meat was from a local farmer, or a farmer I knew very well. So I went about determining what recipe to use for my meatloaf. I used Alton Brown's Good Eats Meatloaf as my base, but out of that base I actually made two very different meatloaves. One went in the oven that night for dinner and one went in the freezer for a future week. I could just as easily taken the second half and made meatballs to freeze for a future week.
While not a big issue, I also wanted to make my meatloaves gluten free, so that meant out with the croutons or bread crumbs. I used ground oats and that worked well.
Meat Base: For my meat base, I defrosted a pound each of ground lamb, ground pork, and ground venison and mixed it together. That mix I divided in half. Isn't half the fun of meatloaf the leftovers?
Meatloaf One
1/2 c. roughly ground oats (I used a clean coffee grinder.)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon thyme
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 whole cloves of garlic
1/2 green bell pepper
1 portion of ground meat base
1 egg
Glaze: For this one I did use Alton's glaze, with less cumin.
1/2 cup Ketchup
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Dash Worcestershire sauce
Dash hot sauce
1 Tablespoon honey
Directions:
- Combine onion, carrot, garlic, and green pepper in the food processor and pulse until chopped to desired texture.
- In large bowl combine, black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, thyme, salt, vegetables, roughly ground oats, meat, and 1 egg.
- Mix, hands seem to work best here so take of any rings, wash your hands well, and go for it.
- You could use a meatloaf pan, but I formed my meatloaf into a football like structure and cooked it in a square baking pan.
- Top with glaze, if desired.
- I cooked this at 325 for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, but check earlier and take out when it's reached 155 degrees.
Meatloaf two
1/2 cup roughly ground oats
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
1/2 green bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 portion of ground meat base
1 egg
Directions:
- Combine onion, carrot, sun dried tomatoes, garlic and green pepper in the food processor and pulse until chopped to desired texture.
- In large bowl combine, black pepper, thyme, oregano, paprika, salt, vegetables, roughly ground oats, meat, and 1 egg.
- Mix, hands seem to work best here so take of any rings, wash your hands well and go for it.
- You could use a meatloaf pan, but I formed my meatloaf into a football like structure and cooked it in a square baking pan.
- Top with glaze, if desired. See glaze tip under hints below.
- I cooked this at 325 for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, but check earlier and take out when it's reached 155 degrees.
- You could add more vegetables if needed or change it up, add red peppers instead of green if preferred. Zucchini would work great.
- The traditional glaze is a slice of bacon and ketchup. But pretty much anything will work. For my second meatloaf I was out of ketchup and I just topped the meatloaf with a slather of spicy mustard. It worked!
- Meatloaf leftovers: of course there are always meatloaf sandwiches. Meatloaf and Swiss cheese Panini's are my favorite, but with the second meatloaf I chopped up the meatloaf fine, mixed in some beef broth, chopped carrots, peas, and corn and topped it with some mashed sweet potatoes. After baking for a bout 1/2 hour at 350 that was my version of a Shepard's pie.
Trust me, you will have a happy guy at the table, if you serve him meatloaf.
