Mom’s Meatloaf

I love my mom’s cooking.

She grew up on a farm in Ohio and learned how to cook from my grandma. I remember my mom cooking for us almost every meal for the first 11 years of my life and pretty regularly after that. I remember she had shelves of cookbooks and recipes written down everywhere. I loved most everything she made, except spaghetti and that’s only because we ate it too often when I was younger and we were pretty poor.

A couple weeks ago I had a strong urge to ask my mom for her recipes. I wanted to start learning how to cook the things she has made and loves to make. It’s something I can do now that keeps me connected to her learning to cook the recipes she sends me via email.

The first I tried was her new recipe for meatloaf.

I love meatloaf a lot. It’s something I always order at Southern cooking/home cooking restaurants. It’s something I love to make a healthier version of, usually with turkey and added vegetables. I will eat almost any kind of meatloaf as long as I have some ketchup handy.

I decided to cook my mom’s recipe exactly even though I immediately wanted to make it healthier. Here’s her recipe:

Mom’s Meatloaf

Ingredients:

• About 2 lb ground beef drained
• 1 can rotel chili tomatoes
• 1 egg
• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 taco seasoning
• Black pepper
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Cayenne powder (to taste, not too much)
• A little cinnamon and sugar
• Paprika and ketchup over the top smooth it on after you make the loaf
• And to make it even better you can add some cheese, like the taco cheese mix, in the bag…only if you want I did not do it (Mary’s note: I find it funny that my mom doesn’t remember I am lactose intolerant now and try to avoid cheese).

Directions:

Mix everything really good, it will not be mushy like ours sometimes is, but as it cooks it will have plenty of juice.  I put the oven on 325 and cooked it about an hour, then turned off the heat and left it in the oven while we went shopping and when I took it out it was just right, I hope it turns out good for you.

(I wanted to call it Mom Thompson’s meatloaf because that’s what my mom signs her comments as but I realize her name is different since she just got remarried… I don’t even know what to call me mom other than mom!)

This turned out so great! We ate it with roasted sweet potato and roasted cauliflower with paprika. Altogether it was a very hearty meal.

I’m definitely glad I decided to make this and do it exactly as the recipe. When I ate it the flavors reminded me of my mom and meatloaf and other food she has made before. I was surprised by that but I loved that I didn’t mess it up and those feelings came through the food.

I’m making this again in the future, but I will add some more vegetables to the meatloaf and cut back on the meat and possible use a leaner ground beef if I can find it. Or maybe if I’m missing my mom I’ll just go ahead and make it the way she does. :)