I would do anything for meat loaf?

Well, I spent the entire day today feeling sorry for myself. It's cold season and I'm coming down with a bad cold or a mild version of the flu..either way, I'm hoping I'll feel better soon.

Anyhow, while my diet is on hold today, let me tell you about some of the delicious things I've been eating of late. As mentioned before, I asked the Chowhound folks, for some cookbook recommendations. One of the ones that came up, was Sally Schneider's A New Way to Cook. The book itself is a great read. Not only does she have a ton of recipes, she also has great descriptions on ingredients and cooking methods, which I found very helpful. Through the use of various flavorful ingredients, she makes a standard dish like meat loaf become something healthy and also flavorful. For my "test run" of the book, I decided to try the meat loaf recipe. Not only did it look good, it also produced 8 servings, which made it very easy to use as my dinner and lunch for the week.

I will be honest. It is a PAIN to prep the materials and it's not a quick meal to make. If you have a food processor, it probably cuts down on the prep time, but if you use manual labor, like me, it's a long process to cut-up all the mushrooms and onions. Also, it'll seem like way too much onions and mushrooms, but make sure you use the full amount. Once everything cooks down, it'll be 1/3 of the amount it previous was.

All in all, it was a GREAT recipe. I loved it hot out of the oven, and I even liked it cold when I ate it at work. The flavors really come together and you can't even tell it's full of mushrooms. I think the addition of mushrooms make the meat loaf taste less meaty (if that makes any sense) and the addition of something made it sweet. You'd think that after eating this for 4-5 days straight, I would get sick of it, but I was actually dreading when I'd run out of it. I enjoyed every last piece of this. Since the portions were rather large, I ended up eating it in an open-face sandwich way and it worked great with some spinach on the side.

Although the recipe recommends serving this with some ketchup, I decided to forego the ketchup with all that sugar, and made a ketchup of my own from the leftover tomato paste.

Meat Loaf with Wild Mushrooms - 8 servings
From A New Way to Cook, by Sally Schneider
1/2 cup dried porcini mushrooms (I just used fresh shiitake)
1/2 cup hot water
12 oz. fresh wild mushrooms, such as shiitake, cremini, oyster, and/or portobello (I used baby bellas)
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 medium onions, finely chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 cup dry white wine (since I only had Mirin, I used that)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon finely ground Lapsang Souchong tea, optional (I used Earl Grey tea)
5 slices (about 4 ¾ oz.) white sandwich bread, crusts removed, and torn into large pieces
1/3 cup nonfat milk
3 large egg whites
1.5 lbs. lean ground beef
12 oz. lean ground pork
3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
2 to 3 teaspoons kosher salt
1.5 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup tomato ketchup (I didn't use any ketchup, but used the remaining tomato paste)

If using dried mushrooms:
Place them in a bowl and cover them with the hot water. Soak for 25 minutes. Remove and wash the mushrooms, but keep the soaking liquid. Finely chop mushrooms.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1. In a large skillet or pot (I found it easier to do this in my dutch oven), add olive oil and onions and cook on medium heat. Cover the pot until the onions have let out some liquid, about 5-7 minutes.
2. Add garlic and cook for about 1 more minute.
3. Add mushrooms to the mixture and cover pot. Remove cover when mushrooms have released liquid.
4. Continue cooking until all liquid is gone and all the vegetables are caramelized, about 15 minutes.
5. Add the wine, tomato paste, tea powder and the mushroom liquid (if you used dried mushrooms).
6. Keep cooking until all liquid is gone, about 8 minutes.
7. Take pot off flame and let rest until cool enough to handle.
8. In a large bowl, combine the bread and milk and smoosh with a fork until it forms a sort of paste.
9. Mix in the egg whites.
10. Add all the meat (pork and beef), cheese and mix (by hand is the best)
11. Add the mushroom/onion mixture and the seasonings (I used salt, pepper, cayenne and smoked paprika)
12. On a large baking sheet (make sure it has sides as lots of fat will come out), line with foil and/or parchment paper.
13. Plop the meat loaf mixture onto the pan into a loaf-like shape.
14. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.
15. Increase the temperature to 400 degrees and bake for about 30-40 minutes longer (I went a bit long to make sure it was baked through). Just make sure the meat reads about 165 or above. For something like this, it's better to be on the safe side.
16. Once you take the meat loaf out of the oven, let it rest for about 5 minutes.
17. Blot away the fat (very gross..but be glad you're not eating it) cover with ketchup and serve-away!

Tomato Paste Ketchup
Sally Schneider recommends serving the meat loaf with some ancho-ketchup. Taking that idea, I used the leftover tomato paste, added some vinegar, tabasco sauce and some cayenne. It actually ended up being very good! Give it a try! It's better than letting that can of tomato paste rot away in the fridge.

Categories: Healthy, LowFat, MeatLoaf, Dinner, Recipe, SallySchneider, ANewWayToCook