Sunday Bread

One—okay two—staples that went with every meal when I was growing up was bread and butter or gravy bread. And how I loved both, especially gravy bread. I’m not sure if that was to help fill us up due to budget restrictions or if it was just something my mom made because she liked it or to please my dad.

Boiled potatoes seemed to be another thing one could count on. I liked mashed potatoes and would whine when boiled potatoes were set on the table. I was told, “Just mash them with your fork and put some butter on them.”—as if that really did the trick.

My mom was the best home-made bread maker. We’d come home from school and that was our snack sometimes – fresh out of the oven, butter melting all over it.

My younger sister, Ruthie runs a close second in making bread. I’ve failed miserably at it so many times, I gave up until Ruthie found a new way of making bread and shared it with me. Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day was something Ruthie didn’t think was possible, but she swears by it and won’t go back to the traditional way of making bread with kneading, rising, punching, and more rising.

Before the bread is baked...

Fresh out of the oven...

Okay, bread isn’t a dinner, but I’ll bet there’s a lot of us out there who could make a meal on bread—especially home made—still warm with melted butter.

And if you’re really not into healthy eating, whip up some gravy and feel the comfort just ooze into the arteries of your soul.

Ingredients:
Bread
Butter
Gravy

Rating & Type: EE or NSE/V

Meatloaf

One of the first meatloaf recipes I recall making was when I was pregnant with my first born. It came out of a microwavable recipe book, but I can’t remember the name. The book is long gone as this was over 28 years ago.

My sister lived with us then. I invited her boyfriend (who eventually became her first husband, he has since passed away) over for dinner. Russ was very polite and ate what was served, probably not knowing meatloaf was on the menu as he hated meatloaf – that is until he ate mine. (Yeah, I’m patting myself on the shoulder.)

He wanted to know what I did to make it taste so good saying that he didn’t like other meatloaf’s that he had eaten. I rattled off the recipe thinking I didn’t do anything special - just followed the recipe.

Since then I’ve tried other recipes, but I always go back to this one that I know from heart, although I change it a bit by throwing other things in when I feel like it, like cheddar cheese, which was not in the original recipe. I’m not sure if I have the original recipe exact, but here’s what I recall:

1 pound ground beef
1 small onion cut up or onion flakes
some Worcestershire sauce
1 – eight ounce can tomato sauce
1 piece of bread crumbled up
1 egg
¼ tsp savory leaves, crushed a little
salt/pepper

Topping: Mix catsup and Worcestershire sauce (can’t remember the portions, maybe ¼ cup catsup to 1 Tablespoon W sauce). Most of the time I just use catsup, but the original recipe called for this.

Mix all the ingredients up and place in loaf pan and bake for about an hour at 350 degrees. Since this was a microwavable cook book, you were to cook this on high in the microwave for about 10 minutes. If I’m in a hurry, I’ll precook the meatloaf and then put it in the oven because I think everything tastes better in the oven versus the microwave. You can either put the topping on right away or wait until the last portion of the cooking process. Different variations of mine have been to add some shredded cheese; one time I didn’t have any bread and used bread crumbs; one time crushed up crackers; sometimes I sprinkle in garlic; or if I don’t have tomato sauce, I’ll squirt in some catsup or tomato juice; you could probably crush up a whole tomato or puree the tomato.

I don’t know about you, but I like the ends of the meatloaf where it’s a little more well done and kind of crunchy. Trying to make meatloaf a little more appetizing, I've used DeMarle’s decorative bundt type pan, which I discovered makes the entire top crunchy. The pan creates a nice shape. You can decorate it with catsup and it looks pretty cute. The only down fall is the crunchy part is on top when it comes out of the oven and when you flip it out of the mold, the part that shows is unbrowned and looks unattractive, so I have to put it back in the oven (with some catsup on top) and cook it until it becomes more brown. Or just flip it back again, but then the top isn’t going to be as decorative, but will be crunchy - if that matters.

One time I made a meatloaf that had boiled eggs and olives shaped inside of it so that when you sliced the meatloaf you could see the circle of eggs and olives. My brother-in-law squawked when my sister made it after I had told her about it. He said he didn’t like his meat staring at him when he ate. Guess it looked too much like a face.

I usually make mashed potatoes with my meatloaf, but scalloped potatoes work well and a vegetable and voila, complete dinner.

Maybe we could all share our favorite meatloaf recipe and take a vote on whose taste the best? Any takers?

Ingredients:
Ground beef
egg
bread or bread/cracker crumbs
onion
spices
tomato sauce/juice or catsup

Rating & Type: FE/B