A meatloaf to pass the time...

So Serena is gone and has been for over a month now (she's off having her own adventures whether she wants them or not). She will be back in June and until then I have a few blog posts to catch up on. I decided that the best way to do this would be to space them out over the period she is gone so as not to leave our AVID readers with no adventures to read during her absence.

This is the first and it is about meatloaf. It is also John's wedding present*.

One of my favorite meals that my mom would make as a kid was meatloaf (I never understood the general distaste and running gag of meatloaf until I later tried school cafeteria meatloaf, which was horrible).  Her recipe is, in fact, the only meatloaf I have ever had that I actually liked. About 5 months ago I emailed her for the recipe and we did our best (ours was the healthier version I suppose, but it still turned out fine):

We took that and some other stuff and mixed it all together into a big LOAF OF MEAT and cooked it for a while until it looked like this:

 

Wouldn't you agree that that is indeed a loaf of meat if you've ever seen one? We sucked out the extra juices and then mixed the sauce together for a topping and put it on top:

Cook it a bit more and TADA! or something like that. Here is the actual recipe:

•  Meatloaf:
• 1 pound ground bison meat (or lean ground beef)
• Egg beaters egg whites equivalent to 1 egg, beaten (or 1 egg)
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1 hot dog or hamburger bun 

• Topping:
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup ketchup (as desired)

Place ground meat, egg, milk, and ketchup in large bowl and mix well. Add broken up hamburger or hot dog bun and mix in.

Put in loaf pan or casserole dish. Shape and pull away from sides of pan with spoon.

Bake at 350 degrees about 30 minutes (we originally did it at 400, but this led to it cooking too quickly so hopefully 350 work well).

While it bakes, mix topping ingredients together.

After the 30 minutes is up, syringe grease out of pan with a turkey baster (or some other type of suction-y device... a straw if you want. mmmm) and pour topping over meatloaf.

Cook an additional 15 to 30 minutes longer until no longer red in the middle.

*This post is dedicated to John and Rachel, may their marriage be like a loaf of meat covered in sweet, sweet ketchup.