Dinner tonight

We had some pretty yummy meat loaf tonight for dinner and thought I'd share that recipe today.  This is probably about the 4th time I've made this meat loaf, and it never dissappoints.  Even when most of the ingredients I used tonight weren't fresh (mostly dried, like onions, garlic, etc).  I also forgot that it only calls for 6-8 bacon slices, but I put the whole package of bacon (oops) so it took forever to cook because it was covered.  Still pretty good though.  This recipe is one we found at 8Legged.com.

Tako's 3-Meat Loaf

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup green bell pepper, finely chopped
1/4 cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
3 tbsp scallions, chopped
2 pounds meat loaf mix:  (1lb. ground chuck, 1lb. ground pork)
6-8 bacon slices
Prepared Meat Loaf Glaze
2 large eggs
2 tbsp chives, chopped
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp spicy red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup half & half (or whole milk)
3/4 cup fresh, toasted breadcrumbs (or piece of toast broken up is what I usually do)

Meat loaf glaze:

1/2 cup ketchup
4 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp white vinegar

Instructions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Melt butter in saute pan over medium heat.  Add onion, garlic, celery, red and green bell peppers, and scallions, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Allow cooling before adding to mix.  (Or, if you are like me and have less of these ingredients on hand you can just used dried onions, garlic, skip the saute and just throw the red and green bell pepers, and leave out the scallions, ha ha).  2.  Combine eggs, chives, mustard, salt, pepper, nutmeg, red pepper flakes, cumin, basil, oregano, and half & half.  Add egg mixture to meat in a large bowl along with breadcrumbs and sauteed veggies.  Mix with fingers until evenly blended and not sticking to bowl.  (If sticky, add a little more liquid.)
3.  Place meat mix on a shallow, foil-lined baking pan, and forma  loaf approximately 16 inches long, 5 inches wide and 1.5 inches high.  Brush on half of glaze (reserve rest for dipping or additional glazing during last 15 minutes) and add bacon strips, crosswise, tucking ends beneath the loaf.
4.  Bake loaf until internal temp. reaches 160 degrees F (about 40 minutes).  Drain off fat with a baster as necessary.  Cool at least 10 minutes.  Serve with extra glaze dipping sauce.

One of my goals it to get my recipes more organized, so to help me do that I have decided to start posting recipes that I like the most here on my blog more often.  Look forward to a recipe on Monday's if I can keep up with it!