I had a craving for meatloaf. Just one regular morning .... I woke up and my inner voice called to me and said "Meatloaf for dinner." I would have written this off as just another typical craving, but you see, I don't even like meatloaf. Never have. As a kid, my mom would make me a hamburger when the rest of the family was having meatloaf for dinner. It was just something about that thickness of ground beef that turned me off. And by all accounts, my mom makes a darn good one, don't get me wrong.
But as it was with mayo, mushrooms and fish, out of the blue the cells in my body did a 180 and my tastebuds suddenly became more ingratiating to a formerly distasteful food. So it is with meatloaf.
Since it had been so long (forever) since my tastebuds had even tasted meatloaf, I didn't want to spoil them right away with the beefy, porky, wrapped in bacon-type loaf. So I decided to try turkey meatloaf. For the record, there are nearly 292,000 turkey meatloaf recipes currently on the internet.
Ellie Krieger's meatloaf from her book The Food You Crave is where I started. She and her book have yet to disappoint. As far as I can tell, the unique thing about this recipe is that she uses quick oats for a binder instead of breadcrumbs. She promises they will be undetectable. This is true. There was no oat flavor in the meat at all. The meatloaf is also studded with flavorful vegetables, like onion and pepper, which add to the flavor and texture but is off-putting to children, both the 4 and 11 year old variety. But otherwise, dear husband and I really enjoyed it. It uses two pounds of meat which made it a little large. I would halve it next time, or maybe just reduce it to 1 1/2 lbs because the leftovers were great. There's a little ketchup mixed in but the top is sauced with tomato sauce and that gives it a saucy Italian flavor. I really thought the 4-year old meatball-eating champion was going to go for it.
I liked this recipe and wouldn't hesitate to make it again. But there are so many recipes out there that I think I'll try some different ones before I revisit this one. Barefoot Contessa has one that interests me. But it uses 5 lbs of turkey. Yikes! Maybe if you had a family of ten. If you have a recipe that you like, I'd love to know more about it.
4 comments:
Did Jack go for it? You should of just told him it was a gigantic meatball with sparkels in it... Looks good - could you tell it was turkey or did it taste like hamburger with all the ingredients mixed in?
I tried the gigantic meatball angle. And really, that was sort of what it tasted like. I even let him help me make it. He added all the other ingredients but stopped short of mixing them together with his hands. It didn't quite taste like hamburger. It was a little lighter but it tasted good and not bland at all. I like the pepper and onions in there. It needed them.
I have made Barefoot Contessa's turkey meatloaf several times. It is good and easy! As you saw, it makes a LOT so I have always made half a recipe which is still more than plenty for a family of 4.
I make turkey meatloaf for my girlfriends when they have a baby...almost every husband has begged me to give them my recipe. It is a mixture of two different recipes I found and part improv on my part...when I did not have mushrooms, I added my now 'secret ingredient.' If you want, I would be happy to pass my recipe along.....as it has evolved, I have 2 secret ingredients now.....
just made it today, in fact!
Post a Comment