Homemade meatloaf and mashed potatoes

I have several comfort foods and meatloaf is one of them. I like to go to the market and buy meat in bulk then prep it for easier mealtimes in the future. My meatloaf is one of those things. Because some stores add artificial food coloring to their meats to make them look more appealing to people I asked my local market if they added any to theirs, it got me a strange look from the butcher but he said that they didn't. I guess I was the first person to actually ask that question. I then happily placed my order for 10 lbs of the ground sirloin and about 30 lbs of other meats then went home to spend the next hour prepping it all for later use. The chicken and pork get the remaining fat trimmed off and put into separate 1 lb bags (some whole breasts some cut into strips), and the ground sirloin gets formed into some patty's for hamburgers, cooked up with onions and spices for recipes that call for ground beef (then put into 1 lb bags) and the rest get turned into meatloaf. Just chop up some onions and green peppers, add some breadcrumbs (toast the leftover bread into the oven then crumble into homemade breadcrumbs and add some dried herbs to flavor) and egg then mix until well blended. I then pop it into the pans I cook it in and pop in in the freezer for about 30 min then transfer it to a freezer bag. It then goes into the freezer until I get a craving for some meatloaf and just about all my work is done.


Most of the time I'm a bit lazy so I don't actually defrost the meatloaf before popping it in the oven. Instead I transfer it into the pan, add some diced tomatoes* on top then pop it in the oven (which I preheated to 350F) and let it cook for about 3 hours, or until the internal temp reaches 170 with my meat thermometer.

When I have the feeling it's got about 30 min left to cook I start on my potatoes. I bounce between redskin potatoes and Idaho, and leave the skins on if I'm using the redskin ones. Other that that it's pretty easy prep work for them, just dice them up into fairly small and uniform pieces and toss them into a pot of water and boil until cooked.  I normally drain them then put them back into the pot and grab some butter and one of my 3 potato mashers and start mashing away until they are creamy. It's a really good form of stress relief, as I found out one Thanksgiving years ago. Last time though John convinced me to try using my new mixer to do it.  Normally I'm not a huge fan of that seeing how they end up tough and kind of rubbery but they turned out wonderful.  Guess the trick is only having butter and the potatoes in there, if you add milk that's when they turn out like rubber.

Take the cooked meatloaf out of the oven, let set for a minute then serve with the potatoes and wait for the compliments to roll in, lol.

* I haven't had an opportunity to make my own stewed diced tomatoes so until I get around to it I've been using Hunt's no salt added diced tomatoes. They don't use any chemical or preservatives and even the no salt added ones taste great, especially if you are trying to limit your sodium intake.  If I fail to mention that fact to John he doesn't even notice when I end up not using any salt in my meals.

I decided to be nice to John and made him some gravy to go along with his potatoes using the juice from the meatloaf pan. It was mostly tomato juice but had little chunks of the tomatoes, peppers and bits of meat in it as well.  Heated it up in a saucepan and added flour in a teaspoon at a time, whisking it so it wouldn't clump until I reached the desired consistency.

I made the rolls using my homemade bread recipe and just rolled them into little balls and put them in a small baking dish with a little bit of garlic and parsley sprinkled on the top. Based on his eating most of the pan I have a feeling that I'm going to be making them more often.

Hope you enjoy this as much as we did,

Jessa