throw together meatloaf

What's for dinner? I've been wanting to make a meatloaf since last week. It's a little hard to want to make one though when the weather outside is so dang hot. I probably should have done it on Sunday when I already had the oven on for bread baking, but oh well, it didn't happen then. I don't have any exact measurements for this, but I'll give you the basics.

What you need for meatloaf, any meatloaf, is ground meat, a filler, a binder, and seasoning.

The meat: today, just 1 pound of 85/15 ground beef. I actually estimated the weight because our kitchen scale needs a new battery and a majority of the beef was still frozen although I had had it out on the counter to thaw all day; it was a 3 pound package that we hadn't separated before putting in the freezer.

The fillers: I started off making lardons (basically bits) from 3 slices of bacon. While they were frying, I julienned (you must get yourself a mandolin or v-slicer with one of these inserts) ½ a white onion, three stalks of celery, and 2 small carrots – the mirepoix. To boost the vegetable level, I also added about a ¼ up of broccoli slaw from the pack Jon bought for stir-fry the other night and a big handful of baby spinach leaves, diced. I cooked all that to soft in the bacon grease. We also needed breadcrumbs, but don't have enough bread, so I used the food processor to pulverize about a cup of butter & garlic flavored croutons.

Seasoning: The most basic seasoning is salt and don't you dare try to make any meat dish without it. Salt is the ingredient that makes meat taste meaty! I did not add any extra salt to the meat because I figured the croutons and the bacon grease were salty enough. Then I also added black pepper, a small amount of smoked paprika, and an even smaller amount of cumin (which I'm really not fond of). Oh, I also added some parsley flakes and some ketchup and yellow mustard.

The binder: one egg.

Mix it all together (by hand of course). Now here's the best tip. . . never cook your meatloaf in a loaf pan!!! The fat from the beef has nowhere to go and so the loaf essentially poaches in fat and you can't get a decent crust - possibly the bestest part of a meat loaf. Think about it. Do you really want to eat fat-poached ground meat? So I lined my loaf pan (I'd love another one for my birthday btw, hint hint) with foil and then packed the meat loaf into that. Then I lined a cookie sheet with foil and got the wire rack from our old toaster over out. (It also doubles as a great cooling rack when you're making just a couple of freezer cookies at a time.) Turned the loaf out onto the rack, peeled the foil away, and set in the oven at 325F; cook the thing until internally it reaches 160F and you won't get sick.

Sadly, we don't have any mashed 'taters to serve with the meatloaf. Oh well.