Monday Morning Musings

Since I started working half time at a local accounting firm for the busy season, I don't have as much time as I would like to cook. But last week I started thinking about pot roast. I knew I had a roast chilling in my freezer, I had celery, I had carrots, I had garlic, I had almost everything I needed except potatoes. I knew I could rectify that easily with a quick trip to a local grocery store. In anticipation of a yummy pot roast dinner, I pulled out what I thought was my roast and set it in my fridge to thaw. Well, low and behold, was I shocked when I found not a pot roast in the fridge but 3 lbs of Laura's ground beef. Keep in mind that I still had the yummy aroma of pot roast swirling around in my head. Here is where I had to get my creative side going. I did some googling and found two excellent recipes. The first is called All-American Meatloaf and it comes from Martha Stewart's website:

All-American Meatloaf

Serves 6
3 slices white bread
1 large carrot, cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
1 celery, strings peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves, loosely packed
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons ketchup
4 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard
8 ounces ground pork
8 ounces ground veal
8 ounces ground round
2 large eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon Tabasco Sauce, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary, plus more needles for sprinkling
2 tablespoons dark-brown sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small red onion, cut into 1/4 inch-thick rings

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove crusts from bread, and place slices in the bowl of a food processor. Process until fine crumbs form, about 10 seconds. Transfer breadcrumbs to a large mixing bowl. Do not substitute dried breadcrumbs in this step, as they will make your meatloaf rubbery.

Place carrot, celery, yellow onion, garlic, and parsley in the bowl of the food processor. Process until vegetables have been minced, about 30 seconds, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice. (Chopping vegetables this way saves time and ensures that vegetables will be small enough to cook through and not be crunchy). Transfer vegetables to bowl with the breadcrumbs.

Add 1/2 cup ketchup, 2 teaspoons dry mustard, pork, veal, beef, eggs, salt, pepper, Tabasco, and rosemary. Using your hands, knead the ingredients until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute. The texture should be wet, but tight enough to hold a free-form shape.
Set a wire baking rack into an 11-by-17-inch baking pan. Cut a 5-by-11-inch piece of parchment paper, and place over center of rack to prevent meat loaf from falling through. Using your hands, form an elongated loaf covering the parchment.

Place the remaining 3 tablespoons ketchup, remaining 2 1/2 teaspoons mustard, and brown sugar in a bowl. Mix until smooth. Using a pastry brush, generously brush the glaze over loaf. Place oil in a medium saucepan set over high heat. When oil is smoking, add red onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft and golden in places. Add 3 tablespoons water, and cook, stirring, until most of the water has evaporated. Transfer onion to a bowl to cool slightly, then sprinkle onion over the meatloaf.

Bake 30 minutes, then sprinkle rosemary needles on top. Continue baking loaf until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf registers 160 degrees. about 25 minutes more. Let meatloaf cool on rack, 15 minutes. Remove crusts from bread, and place slices in the bowl of a food processor. Process until fine crumbs form, about 10 seconds. Transfer breadcrumbs to a large mixing bowl. Do not substitute dried breadcrumbs in this step, as they will make your meatloaf rubbery.

This recipe looks long but it is definitely worth the trouble. I have to tell you that Martha is absolutely right -- don't substitute the boxed breadcrumbs -- please use fresh. It is so worth it. I substituted ground turkey for the veal and I skipped the fresh rosemary and didn't make the carmelized onion topping (too lazy). The meatloaf was great anyway. My son enjoyed it so much he had it for dinner on Friday night and then again for lunch on Saturday.

I was going to post the 2nd recipe but this is getting long so I'll keep you in suspense until tomorrow!

Yours truly,
The Creative Cook