Mighty Meatloaf

This post is a part of the Pennywise Platter Thursday carnival at the Nourishing Gourmet.

A few months ago I made a very bad loaf of bread- epic fail!  Did I throw it out?  Nooo!  I sliced it & put in the freezer & have used it in my meatloaf!  The bread gets "assimilated" into the meatloaf & gets a new life!  When I was making my menu plan this week I knew I still had a few slices left, some shredded carrots (from the garden last summer- they've been sitting in the freezer waiting for a use) and ground beef.  Meatloaf was the easy answer to all that- but I could not find my meatloaf recipe... ugh!

It was in a blog, but I couldn't find it in my bookmarks... so of course I spent hours googling, to no avail.  Finally I just looked over several recipes at allrecipes.com and combined everything to make my Frankenstein meatloaf!  Actually, I'm calling it mighty meatloaf because it's a great way to get more veggies into dinner and to stretch a pound of ground beef.  So it's frugal too!  [note: I didn't want to dirty up my loaf pan, I might need to make bread soon, so I pressed it into a pie pan.  This also served to shorten the bake time for me.  So, mine was "meat pie" not loaf.]

My daughter (age 11) did say, "This is veggie loaf, not meat loaf!" but she had no problem cleaning her plate, except the little onion pieces she managed to fish out.  My husband said, "This is very good!"  I served it with mashed potatoes (boil 1 c. cauliflower, puree in blender, and add to mashed potatoes= nutrient bonus that nobody notices).

Mighty Meatloaf
8 servings

1 lb. ground beef
2 eggs
2 slices bread, cut in small pieces
1/2 c. milk or cream
1/2 c. diced onion
1/2 c. shredded carrot
1/2 c. diced celery
1/4 c. shredded parmesan
1 clove garlic
1 Tablespoon mustard
2 Tablespoons parsley (dried)
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon sage
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl & stir well.  Spread in loaf pan.
Spread 2 Tablespoons ketchup on top.
Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.  Optional: sprinkle additional cheese on top during last 5 minutes.

Blessings!
Lisa