Mom's Meatloaf - Take Two

Meatloaf is one of my favorite foods…to me it says comfort as much, if not more, than pot roast. I don’t believe I’ve ever met a meatloaf that I didn’t like, some I’ve liked better than others, but still think my mom’s was the best.

Mom didn’t have a recipe for her meatloaf, she may have at one time but by the time I remember watching and helping her make this, she didn’t use one. So I took what I could remember, along with some recipes that I found on the internet and came up with one that is very close to hers. I still don’t think it tastes quite like hers, but I’m in the ball park.

One of my first blog posts was about Mom’s meatloaf recipe…back then all I did was post the recipe along with a picture (my first didn’t even have a picture). Below is the recipe along with a few revisions.

Print Recipe
1 pound lean ground beef
1 pound ground pork sausage
½  cup onion, chopped
2 eggs
1/2 cup saltine crackers (approx. 1/2 sleeve) crushed
1 can tomato soup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Sauté onion until soft
Combine beef, pork sausage, onion, eggs, tomato soup and crackers and mix well
Place in 9x5 loaf pan or a baking pan and shape into a loaf
Bake for 45 minutes - 1 1/2 hours. Internal temperature should reach 160 degrees F.
Remove from oven and let rest for at least 15 minutes before slicing

Mom didn't measure out the crackers....she just used a package or two from the box. Back then, the crackers didn't come in a sleeve like they do now, so I'm not really sure how much she used. A food processor or rolling pin can be used to crush the crackers, but since I was cooking at Michael's I had neither, so used a bottle of garlic oil.

I place butter in a frying pan and then saute the onions ....Mom never did this, she just chopped the onions and placed them in the meatloaf mixture. This may be one of the reasons our meatloaf doesn't taste exactly the same.

Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. This is where my mom let me help…mixing the meatloaf. I had to put my hands in the bowl and squish it through my fingers. I didn't care for it then and I don't like it now. I usually use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for this process…use the dough hook, set the mixer on 1 and it does a fine job. Since I was at Michael’s, I was forced to use my hands….yuck! Did I already tell you that I hate this part?

I normally use a large loaf pan but since I had made an unplanned trip to Michael's, I didn't pack my loaf pan, so just used a 9x13 pan and tried to shape it into a loaf. It is kind of loafish...... Now that this is done, I can wash my hands....yeah!

Ok....I do like ketchup....mom used it to top her meatloaf and so do I....I also spread some on my serving when getting ready to eat.

Michael couldn't wait to cut into the meatloaf.

Normally Michael doesn't get it when I take pictures of my food, but this time he actually brought his plate back into the kitchen and asked me to take a photo. He said, "Here take a picture of my plate so they can see it." It does look better than mine...especially since he put more cheese on the garlic and cheddar mashed potatoes and his ketchup was already on his plate. By the way, this was his first serving...he went back for seconds.