Not Your Mom's Meatloaf

Where have the last 10 days gone?!?!  OOPS!  No fear, I am back now!  My husband requested meatloaf for dinner the other night...I'm pretty sure he didn't have the same idea as I had when he asked for that, but this is what he got!  And I think it turned out well...

This actually IS my mom's meatloaf recipe that I spruced up a bit.  It was a total experiment - I might make some changes next time...keep reading for that.  By "spruced up" I mean that I added lots of veggies to my meatloaf, mostly in an effort to clean out my fridge and not have to throw things away, but also to make this more delicious and nutritious...obviously!  So any veggies you have would work I'm sure...but this is what I used.

On a side note, I made 2 meatloafs out of this  - it cooks faster that way and 1 meatloaf is enough to feed both of us plus lunch the next day - so I stuck the other in the freezer.

I apologize for my exceptionally terrible photography on this one.  Roll your sleeves up and prepare to get your hands dirty!

2 cups fresh spinach

1/2 white onion

1 cup baby carrots

1 can no salt added diced tomatoes

2 lbs extra lean ground beef (would probably be good with lean ground turkey too)

1 packet onion soup mix

1/2 cup ketchup

1/4 cup brown sugar

Start by spraying a small saute pan with cooking spray and sauteing spinach.  I know it doesn't look like it, but this really was about 2 cups of spinach before I cooked it.

Transfer to a large mixing bow.  Next, chop up the onion and carrots.  I used my mini food processor so it took about .8 seconds.  Then add the tomatoes (drained).

Next add the ground beef and onion soup mix to the bowl.  This is the messy part...mix it all together, divide into 2 "loafs" and place in a loaf pan.  You could make one giant meatloaf I suppose, but it would probably take forever to cook so I wouldn't recommend it!

Now for the "glaze" - this sounds weird and I thought my mom was nuts when she told me how to make this but it really is good!  Mix the ketchup and brown sugar in a small bowl and pour over the loafs.

Bake at 350 for about 45 min - 1 hour.  Its done when the meat is no longer pink...obviously, just felt like I needed to clarify for some reason!

Next time I make this I might shred the carrots or leave them out all together, not sure I was in love with the crunch in my meatloaf, you can't really taste the veggies though.  Other than that it was a pretty successful experiment!

ENJOY!