Brielle's Avalon

Seems simple…and it is! But it’s also versatile and can be very upscale as well as scaled up or down depending on how many people you need to feed.

Ingredients: Ground meat, bread or cracker crumbs, chopped onion, 2 eggs, seasonings, wine/beer/milk, catsup for topping.

Start with 5 lb of ground meat. Usually beef, but if you want to add ground pork for richness or ground turkey to make it leaner or lamb for character, go ahead! It’s your creation! OK, you can just go with 1 lb of ground beef if that’s all you have, work with what you got. I usually go with 3 lb but tonight I had 1 lb.

 Put the meat in a large bowl, big enough for you to easily mix by hand and not make a huge mess. If you’re using 3 lb meat or less just use 1 egg. Add the egg, crumbs, seasonings, liquid and schmoosh it all together with your hands.

Seasonings are whatever you think will taste good, just remember that more is not necessarily better. Seasonings can include salt, pepper, garlic (fresh or dried) paprika, curry powder, 5-spice, chopped onions, chopped celery or celery seed, caraway, cumin, Worcestershire sauce, teriyaki, salsa…make it taste good for you. No, don’t taste it raw! Just remember that discretion is the better part of valour. Moderation is good. Next time you an add more if you want to and if it’s not flavourful enough there’s always steak sauces you can pour on after the fact at the table.

Put a bit of wine, water or beer in the bottom of the loaf pan then form the meatloaf into a loaf shape an put it in the loaf pan, too. Top with catsup and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes per pound or until it’s not pink in the middle anymore.

No, you don’t have to top with anything but catsup is traditional. No, you don’t have to use catsup, you can use BBQ sauce, sweet and sour sauce, Hoisin sauce, mustard, salsa or a mix of whatever sounds good to you. Have fun, it’s your meatloaf. I used one pound of ground beef here and fed 3 people. More poundage would have turned out a larger meatloaf and fed more people or the same people more meals.

If you’re preparing for a banquet or potluck you can make individual meat cupcakes in muffin tins. If you ‘ice/frost’ them with mashed potatoes and decorate with green beans, carrot sticks, peas and parsley the presentation can be spectacular! Or at least interesting and comment-worthy. You can even make appetizers by making them in mini-muffin tins.

Or you can just make it a normal shape and serve with whatever is in your pantry. Tonight we had a ton of fresh bread we made in a marathon baking spree. Mashed potatoes is traditional and rice or couscous is good, too. You can serve peas, green beans, corn, carrots, broccoli or any veg your heart desires along side.

This is also a good, basic meal to teach the kids.

If/when you have leftover meatloaf you can be boring and just reheat it with the leftover mashed potatoes and veg on the side…OR… you can make something else out of it. Like meatloaf sandwiches. Or strogonoff (cut the meatloaf into meatball-sized cubes), or tacos (slice to fit into tortillas), crumble it up into spaghetti sauce, slice it to use on home-made pizza, cut it up to fit inside stuffed grape leaves or cabbage leaves with rice, cut it up to use in fried rice, scramble it up to use in chili, use it in the casserole of your choice or invention…whatever you can dream up. Have fun with your meatloaf leftovers.