Baby, It Was Cold Outside Meatloaf

Those of you who were with me over the holidays know that I had "Baby, It's Cold Outside" stuck in my head for the whole week (one of the best and most creepy holiday songs ever). At the time, I was in Austin, and the temperature never approached anything close to cold, which made my constant singing of that song both annoying and untrue. I now realize that all my humming over the holidays was a harbinger for what was to come in the new year.

Snowy Tudor Cottage

As I complained about before, Denver greeted me with a frosty 6 degrees when I got back into town. As it is like to do here, the temperature fluctuated a whole bunch in the following few days, but then settled back into the 1-10 degree range for most of last week. Which is cold. Turn on your car 20 minutes beforehand, not only to get the windows to defrost, but also to make sure it will even turn on cold. For those couple days, all I wanted to eat was good old home cookin' food. And I did.

My first meal of the week was a Dullum family classic - meatloaf. I know a lot of people hold a grudge against meatloaf, but they are silly. Meatloaf is delicious when done right. I think a lot of time people end up making this dry cake type blob, and don't realize that adding a little bit more liquid turns that into one of the best feel-good meals you can have.

Here's the family recipe:

1 & 1/2 lbs ground beef mince (I use 97/3)
1 (8oz) can tomato sauce
1 egg
3/4 cups quick quaker oats
1/4 cup chopped onion (I replace with onion powder since Ian refuses to eat onion)
1-2 TBS worcestershire sauce
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp salt
thyme, garlic powder, mustard to taste
6 oz sliced mozzarella

The key to this recipe is the ground beef mince. This is not the ground beef you pick up in the store. It is ground beef you have picked up in the store and then made divine with anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours of effort. Mince is a reoccurring ingredient in Dullum cooking, and it turns out different for every dish (and pretty much every time you make it). First you brown the meat in a pan, and add in whatever ingredients that match what you are putting the meat into - here I'd use the worcestershire, mustard, oregano, garlic, onion, etc. Then you bring down the temperature, add some water and a torn up piece of white bread and simmer for however much time you have. It's not a huge deal, but it makes everything taste soo much better.

After you finish with the mince, combine all the ingredients except the cheese. Sometimes I add some water in at this point if I think it doesn't look juicy enough - but I have no idea how much. Then you layer it with the cheese in a pan, 1/3 the meat mix, 1/2 the cheese, next 1/3 of meat mix, second half cheese, then the rest of the meat mix. Pop it into the oven for an hour at 350. It may not be pretty, but it is really, really good.



To finish off the meal, I made some roasted potatoes and broccoli. While I had them in the same pan, I seasoned them differently to keep things interesting. On the broccoli I put salt, pepper and olive oil. This has become my new favorite way to cook my very favorite veggie. Jason, my brother in law, was the first to do this, and I think everyone in the fam now copies him. It is really easy, and gives a nice crunch to the meal.

Pre-cooked veggies

On the potatoes I used garlic salt, pepper, onion powder, rosemary and a little thyme. Then I put some tabs of butter on the potatoes so they wouldn't dry out. In the oven at 400 for 35-50 minutes (depending on how crunchy you want to broccoli) and enjoy.

4.5 out of 5 on Yum scale

It wasn't pretty, it wasn't all that healthy, but it hit the spot. Best of all, it has warmed up to a beautiful 50 degrees for the past few days and a lot of the snow has melted off. I might be inspired to make something as light as a salad...but I wouldn't count on it :)