Meatloaf minis

One of my all time favorite meals has always been meatloaf, mashed potatoes, with peas. my mom always made her meatloaf in a large loaf in the microwave, and since moving in with my fiancé has always made fun of me and called me a heathen for making it in the microwave. but I refuse to use the oven so Ryan always had to put it in oven for me so if he wasn’t here than I couldn’t make it or would have to wait for him to get home. he always said the meatloaf was never cooked all the way so I decided that maybe just maybe if I made them into smaller loaves it would work. so today we made mini meatloafs with mashed potatoes, and peas. todays recipe I used was my Mamaw’s recipe that she handed to my mother and I will share today as well as the changes I make.

ingredients:  1.5 pound ground beef (I use 2 pounds), 1 cup oats, 1 egg, onion salt, parsley, salt, pepper, 1 sm. can tomato paste, 1 sm. can tomato sauce, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tbsp mustard, worscheshire sauce, 1 tbsp vinegar.

this was AFTER the four fist loafs were made

process: mix beef, oats, eggs, salt, pepper, onion salt, and parsley in a bowl. in a separate bowl mix tomato paste, tomato sauce, brown sugar, mustard, worcheshire sauce, and vinegar. mix half of the tomato mixture into the meat mixture. next we’re going to form seven (apprx) little mini loafs and put them on your “tray” and I use tray lightly because I use a nordic bakeware microwave bacon platter thing for mine. once on the tray pour tomato mixture on top, and you’ll probably have to do batches of the mini loaves so make sure you leave enough for all the loaves. cook in the microwave about ten minutes. and today we learned the best way to cook this was to do four small ones one in each corner, don’t put one in the middle even if it fits because it won’t cook completely.

of course you can’t just have meatloaf so we made mashed potatoes. simple process you know boil potatoes in salt water, drain water mash potatoes, mix milk and butter and salt and pepper to taste. but pro tip make sure the potatoes cook all the way through before you try to mash them because ummmmmm they are hard to mash uncooked sooooo let the potatoes cook. and because Ryan is lactose intolerant, we use lactose free milk and plant based butter. but most important part of mashed potatoes is cooked potatoes, first lesson of the blog, COOK POTATOES.

and made peas, literally just a can of peas in a saucepan. I am only trying to learn a few new skills at a time.