Meatloaf is an Easy Dish for a Winter Dinner

The roll of sausage was on sale for half price; so I decided to buy it and make a pan of meatloaf.

I like baking during the winter as the oven holds in the heat and helps keep the house warm.

I used to do my cooking by reading recipes from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. I've recently been watching Youtube videos and I realized that, for most recipes, technique matters more than the proportion of the ingredients.

The first picture shows the main ingredients I added to the loaf. The second shows the finished loaf and the final with a meal for two cut from the loaf.

Having watched a half dozen videos on meatloaf I realized that the main requirement is that one needs to cook the loaf until the internal temperature is over 165°. I cooked it at 350° for 50 minutes.

Many of the recipes wrapped the loaf in aluminum foil ... and then threw out the aluminum foil. Processing aluminum takes a great deal of energy and causes environmental damage. Even worse: aluminum is an extremely reactive element. Wrapping food in aluminum involves crinkling it up and some of it might get in the food. It can react as a free radical.

It is better to cook with reusable pans. The little glass pan is older than most of the readers on this forum and is likely to continue to serve as a cooking dish for decades to come.

As for the ingredients, I think people can add whatever they have on hand. Most recipes call for crumbled bread. I decided to use oatmeal instead since rolled oats are less processed than bread.

I like meatloaf sandwiches. Using oatmeal diversifies the grain in the sandwich.

The main ingredients was a pound of hamburger and a pound of sausage, an egg and a mess of veggies. In this case I used an onion, a carrot and part of a red pepper. I used a variety of spices including black pepper, sage. parsley and thyme. I also added some turmeric because I bought a large jar of turmeric when it was on sale awhile ago and have been turning all of the food I eat yellow with turmeric since.

There isn't a rule against adding hot pepper ... unless one of the people eating the dish doesn't like hot food.

The next time I make it, I think I will cut the saussage in half and use more vegetables. I suspect that one can use a variety of things such as beans, carrots, potatoes or whatever one has on hand.

I made a little glaze with some ketchup, brown sugar and mustard.
 

The final shot shows the dish after the first night. The dish is yellow because I added turmeric. I realized while making this dish that the process matters more than the proportion of ingredients. I suspect that one can add a variety of things to the dish. I think I will use less meat and more veggies the next time I make the recipe.

The only big modification I would make the the youtube recipes is that one should use reusable dishes and avoid the aluminum foil