Not Your Mama’s Meatloaf! This version is filled with veggies and bursting with flavor, yet still keeping the comfort food style and taste.
Alright ya’ll, before I head out my trip to Blog Brulee I’m sharing a fun recipe with you because it’s Recipe ReDux time! Check out this month’s theme:
“Stir up some of your earliest culinary recollections. Did you stand at your grandmother’s elbow to learn to cook? Or did you learn by stumbling through a cookbook by yourself? Share a healthy recipe and the accompanying story about one of your first cooking memories.”
I actually had a really hard time coming up with a recipe this month. I don’t really recall any specific moments in my growing up years of learning to cook. I guess somewhere along the way I picked up a little here and a little there to get to where I am now, cooking-wise. We had dinner every night, most of the time home-cooked, but for the life of me I couldn’t come up for a specific memory of learning to cook with my mom. I do remember some of the meals she made us – homemade macaroni and cheese, stroganoff, spaghetti with homemade sauce, stir fry, tator tot casserole, tacos, swedish meatballs, and more! One in particular caught my mind while I was drifting through memory lane: meatloaf.
My mom makes a pretty good meatloaf. I know some people do not like meatloaf at all, but I never really understood that because my mom’s meatloaf was tasty! In fact, I had a friend who would ask to come eat at my house for dinner on meatloaf night. Thus, it was decided. I was going to make some meatloaf.
I called up my mom and asked for her meatloaf recipe. I guess I am like her in more ways than I think because she just listed off some ingredients with no exact measurements. She said she doesn’t really use a recipe, but just puts in however much she feels like it needs. But the thing is, for blogging a recipe I need exact measurements! So off to the test kitchen it was.
I made some additions to my mom’s meatloaf – mainly adding in some veggies! Fresh onions, carrots and green bell peppers to be exact. I used my food processor to shred my veggies and threw them into the mix. Next I changed the tomato soup to plain tomato sauce, then added in my own seasonings. To top things off, I added in 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese.…mmmm… Everything else is the base of my mom’s recipe. Oh, and my mom cooks hers in the microwave. Let me tell you, the microwave is a LOT faster than the oven!
Kicking it up a notch: Not Your Mama's (Veggie-Filled) Meatloaf
Click To Tweet
Since I changed things up a bit, I came up with the name Not Your Mama’s Meatloaf – because it’s not my mama’s. It’s more like an ode to my mama’s meatloaf.
Tell me in the comments below: What food or recipe takes you back to your early cooking memories?
- ½ medium onion, finely diced
- 1 medium green bell pepper, finely diced
- 1 carrot, peeled and shredded or finely diced
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 egg, beaten
- ½ cup rolled oats
- ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce, divided
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients, except ⅓ of the tomato sauce (reserving and setting it aside).
- Spoon the mixture into a greased 9 X 5 loaf pan, spreading evenly and lightly pressing down. Spread the remaining ⅓ of the tomato sauce on top of the loaf.
- Place in the oven for 40 minutes. Increase the temperature to 400 degrees F and cook an additional 15 minutes or until the loaf reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees F.
The post Not Your Mama’s (Veggie-Filled) Meatloaf appeared first on Your Choice Nutrition.