Oh, lordy lordy! Trouble in paradise! What do you do when a happily married couple don't agree on a dish? And, in this case it's meatloaf. Well, what you do is convince your husband that this 'ain't your old childhood meatloaf'! This is grandma's cajun meatloaf! Tender, juicy, spicy and full of flavor, it's a meatloaf that you'll keep going back for that second slice.
On a Mission
OK, so I've put off making meatloaf for years. And, I absolutely love love love meatloaf. But, I never made it because, well, I knew Ben had sort of an 'aversion' to it. He said that he'd grown up on meatloaf dinners once weekly as a kid. And, that he'd had a lifetime of meatloaf never wanting to eat it again. Of course, this made me want to totally shift his mind because I knew my meatloaf was not gonna be anything like he remembered as a kid. In reality, Mama Helen, Ben's Mama, was a fabulous cook. And, I know her meatloaf was probably fabulous, but he had this kinky idea in his head that he didn't like meatloaf. I started thinking, dang, he loves my meatballs. Eats them like crazy. Asks for them. I make a lot of meatballs. Just check out some of the recipes. So I thought, hummmm, meatloaf is nothing more that a big ol' meatball that you slice!
Convincing Him
I decided to gussy up my Grandma's meatloaf recipe. While I'd never had Grandma Cook's recipe written down, I do remember as a kid her making it in her kitchen a couple of times a month. Now, I would go to my Grandma's house nearly every afternoon after school (she lived around the corner, lucky me!), and she was always in the kitchen. I mean where else would you be. Oh, yeah, her other place was in the dark dank basement washing clothes on the old wringer washer. Hey, with eleven kids, all grown by this time, but three still living and adulting at home, you do a lot of cooking and washing. (And, yes, she hung everything on the clothesline in the backyard. That's another story!). Annnneeeehooo, I knew with a few tweaks, I could change Ben's mind on meatloaf.
So this recipe, you see, is a game changer. I'm telling you I wish I'd videoed his reaction to his first bites of his slice of meatloaf! He LOVED it! Said it was nothing like he remembered as a child. Now this goes to show you that you can teach an old dog new tricks. You just have to have the right recipe! xox ~ally
Ingredients
- Preheat oven to 375
- 1 lb. ground beef, grassfed
- 1 lb. sweet Italian sausage
- 1 Tbl. garlic puree
- 1 Tbl. Nutritional Yeast
- 3 tsp. cajun seasoning mixture
- 1/3 cup vegetable cream cheese
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup worcestershire sauce
- 1 ¼ cups breadcrumbs
- ½ cup ketchup
- 2 Tbl. gochujang, can substitute sriracha or hot sauce, reduce amount to taste
- ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
Instructions
Notes
