Not MY mother's meatloaf

Mom... I miss you!!! (and your meatloaf too)

I am not a great fan of meatloaf. Of course my mom made meatloaf and of course I ate it. (I was a really good kid) But lets be honest, I would not ask for meatloaf if I had a choice. Right? I was really excited to make this recipe. I want to LOVE meatloaf. I am not a big protein eater so I thought this would work out great. Secondly, I was hoping to learn how to hide veggies in the meatloaf to get some in for me and my kiddos. This started out like mosts meatloaf do.

Preheat to 350 degrees. Beat eggs.

Add raw onion, minced garlic, paprika, salt and pepper.

Add 2 slices of white sandwich bread sliced. (For the record, I do NOT eat white sandwich bread. It actually grosses me out and took everything not to buy whole wheat bread) I also did not eat another piece of the leftover loaf of white bread.

Then add parsley, ketchup, red wine vinegar, and worcestershire sauce.

Then add two pounds of ground beef chuck. (I just bought regular ground beef because I had my two kids with me and was not about to wait for the butcher to grind it for me) This also seemed like A LOT of meat to me.

Mix with hands lightly!!! Do not over mix!!!!!

At this point it suggests to create a small patty and cook it on the stove to adjust seasoning. My feeling at this point was...." Seriously? I payed for this book so I wouldn't have to do this and get ANOTHER pan dirty! " I therefore refused to do this part. LOL

I placed the mixture into a loaf pan and then placed the pan over a cookie sheet and then into the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

At this point I was thinking, I should have make the baked potatoes at the same time so I could could kill two birds with one stone. Of course I didn't. :)

After 1 hour and 15 minutes I took it out and it was really watery with lots of grease on the top. I just kept cooking it for about 20 minutes more but it was still watery? And it did NOT look like my mom's meatloaf at this point. I took it out because I was starving and let it rest in the pan for an additional 10-15 minutes. It wasn't even that yummy brown color. Gross!!!!

I then removed the meatloaf from the pan and then got rid of the rendered fat. When I took it out of the pan and placed it onto the cutting board to slice and it fell apart. After the panic passed, I cut and served with sweet potato fries and roasted broccoli.

Doesn't it look sad? I was not even looking forward to eating it.

After making this, I really missed my mom's meatloaf. Still not my favorite thing to eat but I am planning on making her recipe tonight instead of Alton Brown's. Stick to your mom's meatloaf. I think it may be the comfort factor that heightens the flavor. Of course ketchup does too. :)