What's for Dinner? Stuffed Meatloaf

I don't make meatloaf a lot around here.  Only because it is a wonder to me.   But I have decided that I would give it a try, but if I am going to make this, it just can't be the ole log of meat and ketchup.

NOPE! Not for me I want to experiment with this.

So we start with meat.

We have been buying our meat from Circle V Meats through a friend of ours.  I love it and the price is right.  Just in my experience with them, the meat is super lean, so you actually get meat and not fat.  The other plus is that the ground beef meat comes from 1cow, not the usual 5-6 you find in a package at the grocery store. But hey, I also say use what you can get your hands on.

I really don't have to force my kids to each veggies for the most part, but I still,  in my meatloaf I like to get as many veggies in it as I can. 

It is so important to me anyway that my kids try new things often. So my meatloaf is just never meat and bread crumbs.  These are just some ingredients you can have in a meatloaf.  There are so many more varieties, so I just say let the imagination go wild.

One of the many ways that I make a meal (which just so happens to be usually the way I make a meal), is I allow most of my senses to get involved with the process of making whatever it is I am cooking.

Sight- Color is so important.  If is is bland looking and not interesting it does nothing to excite the desire to eat it.  In this particular meatloaf, we have the bright orange of the carrots, the rich red of the sweet bell pepper and the vibrant green of the spinach.  Next we have smell. 

Smell- I try really hard not to add any additional salt to my cooking.  So what that means, is I have to spice it up.  And I don't mean hot!  Here we had garlic, Mrs. Dash Salt-Free Tomato Basil Garlic seasoning,  Egg Beaters Southwest Style egg substitute and steak sauce as well as Italian seasoned bread crumbs.

Touch- I love to touch my food when I am cooking.  It is truly a hands on event for me.  I mixed the meat and all of the spices, eggs, bell peppers, carrots together. Mushing it all together with my hands for about 3-5 minutes. 

I then rolled out the meat on freezer paper and shaped it into a rectangle and layered with mashed potatoes, carrots, & spinach.  With the help of the freezer paper I rolled it into a log.  Topped with some ketchup and bake for an hour and a half.  And I let mine cool for about 30 minutes before cutting.  If you don't your filling will fall all over the place.

I made this last night for my family and there were no leftovers.  Luckily I made enough mixture to have two loaves and  great meatloaf sandwiches today.