Meatloaf

I remember the old days of making meatloaf.  Mix your ingredients together, press into a pan of your choosing, and bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes.  These days it's much easier thanks to my bean pot.  Yes, once again, I've found another reason to LOVE my bean pot.  I came home from work today and took a 2 hour nap.  When I finally woke up, the natives were hungry for dinner.  My meatloaf recipe came from a Kraft food magazine several years ago:

Ingredients

2 Lbs Ground beef

1 package Kraft stuffing mix

1 egg

1/4 cup water

1/4 barbecue sauce

Mix all ingredients together except barbecue sauce, top meatloaf with barbecue sauce & bake on 350 for 30-45 minutes until done.

Sometimes I make substitutions to this recipe, but the one constant is the stuffing mix.  This saves me time from having to cut onion, celery, spices, and crumbling bread crumbs or crackers.  The other way I save time is by mixing all of these ingredients in the bean pot I'm going to bake it in.  Also saves on having to wash a bunch of dishes in the end.  I have one bean pot to wash, & bowl or pan I've made a veggie in, everyone in my house washes their own plate & silverware.  

Ok, so this is the way it went.  I woke up from my nap, grabbed 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef from the fridge.  Crumbled it in the bean pot, added the stuffing mix, egg, and water, then mixed well with my (clean) hands.  When I was finished mixing, I pressed the mixture into the bottom of the pan as evenly as I could, put the lid on the bean pot and popped it in the microwave for 12 minutes.  When it was done, I checked the internal temperature with a meat thermometer...don't want to give my family food poisoning. It was just under 160 degrees.  Since I'm out of barbecue sauce & ketchup, I grabbed the shredded cheese out of the fridge and topped the meatloaf with that.  I put it back in the microwave for 3 minutes to melt the cheese, and when it came out, it was the perfect 160 degrees.  While this was going on, I put our veggie of choice in a pot on the stove, covered with a lid and let it simmer while the meatloaf was cooking.  That's it, meatloaf dinner for my family in 15 minutes flat.

Are you as excited as I am about having a bean pot? You can get one here.  Don't forget to comment and share if you found this interesting or helpful.