July 10, 2021

HERITAGE RECIPE: Meat Loaf

Meatloaf is one of those foods that people seem to either love or hate--not much in-between. My family happens to love it. And when I saw this recipe in the heritage cookbook, along with a cute story, I just had to make it!

This recipe was submitted to the Rockwood, Michigan Area Historical Society by Tom and Diana Laura. Included with the recipe was this note:

"When I worked at the First Baptist Church in Monroe, Mike and Cathy would visit their daycare when they didn't have school. They would help Onalee (who was the cook). She took great care in preparing meals the children would eat. This meat loaf was one of the favorites of all the kids, especially Mike."

From this, I'm assuming that Mike and Cathy are Tom and Diana's children. I couldn't find any info about them--their names are all pretty common. I did find an Onalee in Monroe, but I have no idea if she's the person referred to in this note, so I won't mention her full name.

Anyway, I just thought it was a cute note about the recipe. If kids like a particular food, the chances are great that I will like it, too ;) I love that Onalee took the time to prepare actual meatloaf for the kids in daycare! Times have certainly changed.

As always, I am typing this out exactly as written in the book (it's even titled 'Meat Loaf'--I always spell it as one word, but maybe I'm wrong). And I prepared it without any modifications. In the printer-friendly version, I rewrote the recipe with any clarifications. See my notes after the recipe.

Here is a printer-friendly version!

Meat Loaf

Base:

3 lb. ground beef
1-1/2 c. wheat germ or cornflake crumbs
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. diced onions
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. sage
2 c. milk

Topping:

6 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 c. catsup
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Combine the base ingredients, blend well and press into a bread pan. In a separate bowl, mix together the topping ingredients, blend well and pour over the meat loaf. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour or until done.


My notes:

When I saw the amount of meat in this, I thought for sure it was going to be a huge loaf--or maybe it was supposed to be two loaves. But the recipe said "a bread pan" so I assumed it to be one large loaf.

I used cornflake crumbs, only because they were cheaper than the wheat germ.

I used 80/20 ground beef. Normally, I like 90/10, but I've noticed older recipes call for ground chuck (which is 80/20). So I use the 80/20 when making the heritage recipes.

After mixing the base ingredients, and putting them into a bread pan, I knew there was no way that it was going to be just one loaf. It wouldn't fit. So, I formed two loaves--I lined one with foil so that I could put it in the freezer (raw) and pull it out when I don't have anything planned for dinner. Each loaf was pretty big! (The purpose of the foil was to lift the loaf out of the pan after it was frozen, so that I could use my loaf pan in the meantime.)


I was really unsure about the nutmeg in the sauce--I'm not a fan of nutmeg--but as usual, I made it as-written. The sauce looked so good! And there was a LOT of it. (I put half on the loaf that I froze)


The meatloaf took longer than the 1 hour estimate in the recipe, but I used a glass loaf pan--I know that the metal ones cook differently. I believe it took mine about 1 hour 15 minutes.

I pulled it out of the dish to slice it (80/20 meat has a lot of fat in it and since the loaf is in a pan, the fat sits in there instead of draining out). When I pulled it out of the pan, the fat stayed in the pan.



This was delicious! It was very moist (I'm kind of notorious for drying out meat because I'm so worried I'll undercook it) and flavorful. The only thing I would do differently is leave out the nutmeg in the sauce. I ended up scraping the sauce off of mine (and using ketchup--I love ketchup with meatloaf!). But the meatloaf was so good that I'll definitely use that recipe again. I can see why it's kid-friendly. My family really liked it, too!

3 comments:

  1. My mouth is watering! I never thought about using sage in meatloaf or nutmeg in the topping. I'm a fan of both, so I'm definitely going to try this recipe. Big question: How were the meatloaf sandwiches the next day? (That's my favorite part of meatloaf!) ;)

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  2. I love that you follow a recipe exactly the first time even if you don’t prefer an ingredient. Nutmeg isn’t a favorite here either. We like exactly one meatloaf recipe in our house. I always double it to get 3 lbs of meat so that I can freeze 1/2 for later. I make ours into balls so that they bake a little faster and there is more browning than a loaf.

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  3. nutmeg isn't my favorite either and i would have left it out. i've never heard of nutmeg with meatloaf. we grew up eating meatloaf and then meatloaf sandwiches with the leftovers growing up.

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