Me Me Me Me Meat-loaf

With school, work, and extracurricular projects sapping most of my free time, I am forever in search of simple meals that taste wonderful. My mother is the queen of simple meals and until lately I had avoided cooking meals of convenience from my childhood. My mom was always a busy lady so i figured if it worked for her, it could work for me. But I'd have to do some major tweaking. (My mother has a fear of spice and a fondness for "just add water or milk" type side dishes). I started out with pork chops and burgers, adding my own inspiration and changing things to suit my taste. Since dipping into these recipes from my past, Collin and I have had some great meals many of which have been posted in the blog.

Last night we decided to go for meat-loaf. Meat-loaf is another favorite quick-meal of my mother and something I have shied away from because of not so fond memories from my childhood (ground beef, ketchup, mushrooms and thats about it. Ack.) Last night we were staring into a freezer, whose contents have become quite monotonous, trying to decide what to do for dinner. We had some ground turkey, and inspiration stuck.

[Begin wistful, overly philosophic, day dreamy ramble] It is a beautiful thing when you become one with your kitchen and ingredients, when inspiration strikes and you can only keep coming up with ways to make the meal you are preparing more and more perfect. Anyway, thats what happened last night at least. Every ingredient used was something we had just lying around. Not a cookbook was cracked for ideas on preparation or sides. The entire meal came from our inner recipe calculators which become more fine tuned every-time we are in the kitchen. [/and end wistful ramble]

Anyway, the meat-loaf was superb, and Collin made a morrel/shalot risotto that went beautifully with everything.

MEAT-LOAF
1/4 cup onion diced
1/4 cup zucchini diced
1/4 cup portabella diced
salt an pepper to taste
thyme to taste

1/2 pound ground turkey
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 cup bread crumbs
worcestershire sauce to taste
1-2 oz. diced brie
SAUCE
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup red wine
1/2 cup canned tomatoes
-Pre-heat oven to 350* F
-Sauté first 5 ingredients in olive oil until vegetables are fork tender. Sit aside and let cool.
-Start all ingredients for sauce in a small sauce pan over medium high heat. simmer until reduced by half.
-When sauteed vegetables are cooled, mix all ingredients for burgers together. Place in four individual 4 oz soufflé cups that have been sprayed with cooking spray or olive oil. Top with some sauce, but save some for the finished dish. Bake for 30 minutes.
-When the meat-loaf is done, turn out onto a plate and serve with remaining sauce.

It also makes for killer leftover sandwiches. Slice and sauté leftover loaf in a little olive oil. Serve on toasted onion roll with mayo, deli mustard, sliced red onion and arugula.

Ahhhhhhh. Dee-Lish.