Meatloaf: A Choose your own Cooking Adventure

Back in January, we received our latest issue of Fine Cooking Magazine, and on the cover was a great picture (as always) of a tasty looking meatloaf. Jerome snapped it up and read the article which was for a choose your own ingredient meatloaf recipe which gave suggestions for various combinations of meats, spices, vegetables, and a general structure for making great meatloaf. This seemed fun, so we got cooking that weekend as we had some guests coming for dinner. We opted for a southwest style meatloaf with a chipotle glaze. A variation on this recipe they had given as a suggestion

 Jerome wearing one of the chefs hats we got for Christmas to make sure I knew he was head chef and I was just the sous chef. 

 For our meat selection we chose beef. The Sirloin steak we got was on sale and actually cheaper than buying ground beef, who knew! 

 We began with the meat. And just to add to the fun, we decided to try out the meat grinding attachment for our KitchenAid Stand Mixer which we had yet to try. 

 We ground the beef once and then added chorizo to it and ground it a second time. 

 The vegetables cut and waiting to be added: onion, green pepper, jalepenos. 

 We also got a digital scale for Christmas and used it to ensure we had exactly 4 ounces of bread. 

 The vegetables then got cooked and the milk soaked bread was added.

 Then the meat, and cheese were combined while trying to keep as much air into the mixture as possible. 

 The suggestions for forming the loaf said that you should actually try and pack it as loosely as possible so that it stays light and fluffy which made it turn out really nicely. The chipotle glaze was then applied. 

The final loaf when cooked. Delicious!

It was so good, that the next day we tried it again, but with meatballs and using a different set of spices and veggies.