Home Cooking – Simply Delicious

This week’s recipe came by request from one of my best lifelong friends, Debbie Kerr Downey. She says she remembers my mom’s meatloaf and used to have the recipe, but says, “I had it once but lost it.”

Since my mother’s meatloaf recipe is a favorite around my house as well, I’m happy to share this incredibly simple, yet delicious recipe. We’ve tried others, adding all sorts of veggies, juices, and who-knows-what to the mixture, but this one still wins the “we-can’t-get-enough” Olympics when it comes to my boys and food.

Here’s what you need:
        2 pounds fresh ground beef (I’ve tried this with meat that has been frozen and thawed and it just doesn’t work as well.)
       Crackers (my mom used saltines; I use Ritz, my favorite!)
       Eggs
       ketchup
       milk
       salt

Set the oven to preheat to 350. Place the ground beef into a large mixing bowl. Crush a tube of crackers into fine pieces and mix into the meat by hand. Add two whole eggs and continue to fold the mixture. Add a splash of milk and a good-sized pinch of salt. Cover the meat with ketchup and mix again throughly.

Put the mixture into a 9x12 baking dish and form it into a loaf. Squirt a ketchup design over the top of the loaf and place in hot oven. Bake for an hour, or until inside of meat is completely cooked.

As a meal, I often toss in potatoes to bake at the same time, and once the meatloaf goes in I’ll prepare macaroni and cheese to bake at the same time, only for 45 minutes instead of the full hour.

It takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to make the whole thing, and the boys devour it in less than five minutes, but I guess that’s a good sign. And the best part for me is that the whole meal is so simple!