Meatloaf

"This kitchen smells like my childhood."  - Garrad Lee

The very best comfort foods are family recipes that take me back to my childhood, and help me remember the people in my life who care for me.  When my father left home for graduate school his mother filled a small metal box with 3”x5” index cards detailing recipes for all of his favorites foods (an almost exact duplicate of her own).  He carried that recipe box with him for the rest of his life, and I remember him opening it up to make many things, but especially her meatloaf recipe.  I think most kids dread meatloaf night, but I always enjoyed helping to make it, and eating it with my father’s boiled new potatoes covered in butter and dried parsley.  I’ve updated this dinner just a bit (I usually use ground turkey instead of beef), but it still always brings me back to the kitchens of my past full of great old school southern recipes:

Moore Family Meatloaf

1.5 lbs. ground turkey (or beef)

1 large can of whole tomatoes, drained

1 small onion, finely diced

1 sleeve of saltine crackers, crushed

1 egg, beaten

1 tbsp Worcestershire

1 tsp garlic powder

Salt and Pepper

Add all of the ingredients to a large bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands (hand mixing is the most important and fun part of the whole process).  Be sure to break up the tomatoes as you squish.  Form into a loaf shaped like half of football on a sheet pan covered with aluminum foil.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes until dark brown on the outside, baste with runoff liquids 2-3 times while baking.   Let it sit for about 10 minutes before cutting.

Mashed Potatoes

6 medium red new potatoes

4 garlic cloves, roasted

¼ cup ricotta cheese

2 tbsp. Smart Balance spread

1/4-1/3 cup milk

Salt and Pepper

Quarter the potatoes and boil them in salty water until they are fork tender.  Drain them and return them to your hot pot.  Leave the skins on and mash them, and then…

Ever decide to make mashed potatoes and open your fridge to discover in horror that you don’t have butter or cream? I definitely had to get creative.  We had some left over ricotta from a lasagna we made the previous week and a little bit of Smart Balance (fake butter).  Ricotta is very calcium rich, so I accidentally made a somewhat nutritional version of mashed potatoes.  I thought some freshly roasted garlic would enrich the flavor, so I threw some cloves on the edge of the sheet pan with the biscuits (450 degrees, 8-10 minutes).  Add the milk as needed to get the texture you want.  I like mine on the chunky side, so I don’t put in much milk.  My preferred garnish? Green peas of course!