OK, time for one of my favorites that I just have to have every few months. Homemade old-fashioned meatloaf. Beaver Cleaver used to complain about it. So did Richie Cunningham. But they both ate it—begrudgingly. Their perfect Moms made imperfect meatloaf.
And then there’s Randy. Who’s Randy? He’s Ralphie’s little brother in “A Christmas Story”, one of the greatest ever mirrors of the mid-20th century. Right before his Mom teased him into eating his meatloaf and mashed potatoes by eating like the “little piggies do” Randy said—“meatloaf, smeatloaf..double beatloaf. I hate meatloaf.”
From “A Christmas Story” on YouTube
Hey! At my house in the mid 1950’s, such a comment would have merited the classic “eat it, there’s millions starving in India”. There wouldn’t have been any “eat like the little piggies do”—not at our kitchen table.
But, I get that occasional “Jones” for meatloaf. The fun thing about meatloaf is that you can actually customize it quite a bit with different flavors ranging from traditional to “cheeseburger meatloaf” to incorporating a couple of hard-boiled eggs buried in the meat to barbecue flavor. And it’s pretty inexpensive to make too. You can make a dinner and left-overs for about $5 or so.
Here’s my Cheap Bastid version of homemade old-fashioned meatloaf:
Recipe: Homemade Old-Fashioned Meatloaf
Summary: Everybody loves meatloaf, right? Well, when it’s juicy and flavorful they do. Here’s an easy version of this classic.
Ingredients
- 2 lb ground beef (85% lean)
- ¾ cup bread or cracker crumbs
- ½ cup diced onion
- 1 diced jalapeno
- 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
- 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese (I use dollar store parmesan)
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp fennel
- Salt, crushed red pepper flakes and cumin to taste (substitute black pepper for the crushed red if you prefer)
Instructions
- Get out a mixing bowl, cutting board, chef’s knife and 9 x 13” pan. Turn oven on to 375.
- Dice the onion and jalapeno.
- Put the meat, onion, jalapeno and egg in the bowl.
- Add bread/cracker crumbs to bowl. (See note at bottom)
- Add about ½ the can of tomato sauce, the Worcestershire, garlic, salt, crushed red pepper, cumin, fennel and parmesan.
- Mix everything together with your fingers. Then taste a pinch and adjust seasoning if needed.
- Pick up the lump of meatloaf from the bowl and transfer to the 9 x 13 pan (if you want, squirt a little cooking spray on the bottom of the pan first).
- Form the meat into a loaf about 10” long by 4” wide.
- Press a groove down the middle of the top of the loaf and drizzle most of the the rest of the tomato sauce along it letting it ooze out and over the sides.
- Liberally sprinkle the top with more parmesan.
- Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes or until done.
- Wrap some potatoes in foil and toss them in with the meatloaf to do baked potatoes (You’ve got the oven going anyway and might as well make some easy to do spuds).
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 45 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 6
Note: About the crumbs—if you don’t want to use panko or prepared crumbs, that’s great. I don’t. I make my own. Either put a ½ stack of saltines in a plastic bag and break them into crumbs with a meat tenderizer or rolling pin or put 3-4 slices of bread into a 200 degree oven for ½ hour then pound them into crumbs in a plastic bag. Cheap and easy!
This makes more than enough to feed 4 for dinner and there’ll still be leftovers for sandwiches or other uses (I’ll do a post in a day or 2 about a great way to use leftover meatloaf with eggs for breakfast of brunch). It’ll come out of the oven moist and tasty (that’s the key—don’t bake it to death!).
The Cheap Bastid Test: 80% lean ground beef was on special at Fresh and Easy for $1.99/lb so that’s $4 in meat. A half stack of saltines is about $.18 (I buy the cheap kind not name brand). The onion and jalapeno set me back $.20. I buy 8 oz. cans of tomato sauce at 3 for $1 so that’s $.33. Parmesan costs about $.25 (That’s from the dollar store—if you want to spend $1 or more for the same amount, go ahead (and yes, I do know that the “real thing” is better—but it’s something like $8 lb. and I just can’t afford it). So the total for this dinner was $4.96. And I got 4 dinners, 2 sandwiches and a breakfast for 2 out of it.
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
Our 1950’s version always included an egg. I like your take with the jalapeno and fennel. Will try that someday. I also like that you used straight 85% ground beef, not the lean stuff that’s recommended these days along with pork and other ground meats. BTW, found you on FoodBlogs.com.
Kathleen, thank you so very much. The leaner 95% ground beef is fine IF it is augmented with something like sausage (which I’ve done). However there are 2 things against using the really lean ground beef–1) it costs about $5 or more per pound and I won’t pay that much for ground beef and 2) in something like meatloaf or meatballs it dries out and tastes horrible. The fennel is to give it a bit of a “sausage” taste. The jalapeno is for a hint of heat (if the seeds and membrane is removed from the inside it’s quite mild. And I use cumin for 2 reasons 1) it smells great cooking and 2) we like cumin. Thanks again, and I hope you subscribed via Feedburner or RSS. It’s nice to know that some folks are finding me on FoodBlogs especially now that FoodBuzz has become all but unuseable.
Looks yummy Walt!!
HUGGGGGGGGGGG