Mmm Meatloaf – Family Recipe

While Winter can bring freezing temperatures and shoveling can be miserable, Winter does bring some of the most cozy meals.  Today’s meal is meatloaf, a recipe my mom made often when I was growing up.  I of course have put my own spin on the recipe by making mini-meatloaves instead  of one large meatloaf because I typically bring them to work and it is easier to have them pre-portioned.  And, the cook time is way lower when they are smaller.

Before we get started, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and gather your ingredients.

For the loaf, you will need:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/8 cup milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• onion powder and garlic powder to taste

For the glaze, you will need:

• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

I began by adding all of the ingredients for the loaf into my mixing bowl.  As I was done with each item, I put the item away.  I always clean as I go when cooking because there is nothing worse then feeling accomplished in your cooking endeavors just to turn around and see a big mess.  Don’t forget to leave out the ketchup since it will be used for the glaze too.

After mixing the ingredients together, I turned my attention to the glaze and simply added all of the glaze ingredients into a smaller bowl then mixed them together.

Before rolling the loaves, I prepped my cookie sheet by lining the sheet with foil, placing a cooling rack on top, and greasing with a cooking spray to avoid the loaves sticking to the sheet.

Finally, I rolled the meat into six mini-meatloaves and put on a coat of glaze.  Save the extra glaze as you will need to re-coat the loaves a few minutes before they are finished cooking.  Each loaf is quite small which is perfect for my lunch at work.  If you are making this for dinner, I suggest you make at most four loaves from this recipe.

Here’s the finished product!  These taste great side with mashed potatoes or baked potatoes and a salad on the side.  I hope you enjoy!