Basic Meatloaf

Meatloaf is probably one of Steve's all time favorite meals. Only thing is I hate making it. I am really weird about raw meat and I don't like to mess with it. I can put a steak in a pan, a roast in the oven, etc but I don't like to DO stuff with it. I don't want to cut it, pound it, roll it, stuff it, or in the case of meatloaf, mix it. In the past it was even more of a chore because the recipe I had had to be made in loaf pans and they are such a pain to clean. I was using these low fat two piece pans and even if I lined them with foil, I had to poke holes for the grease to drain out and it would end up getting under the foil and making a mess anyway. And lining both parts and then putting them together was like nails on a chalkboard for me. Foil rubbing against foil is not good. Another thing is that the recipe needed 1-1/2 lbs of ground beef and our beef is only in 1 lb packages-we get it frozen from the processor and have no choice, and I wasn't about to 'save' a half pound of beef in my fridge. So I'd use 3 lbs and make two meatloaves, which doubled the cleaning and required a 2 gallon freezer bag to mix it, which is not easy to find sometimes. So anyway I decided to find a recipe that didn't call for loaf pans and that I could use 2 lbs of ground beef instead of 3. I found one on allrecipes.com that called for 1-1/2 lbs but I converted it to use 2. It's very similar to my old recipe and honestly, I probably could have just altered my recipe to work but I didn't think about that until after I found this one. So I made it tonight (used a freezer bag to mix up the ingredients of course-I am not mushing raw ground beef through my fingers. eww.) and it turned out perfect. I did have to add some cooking time.

Basic Meatloaf

2 lbs ground beef
1 egg
1-1/4 cups milk
1-1/4 cups crushed crackers (one sleeve of townhouse crackers was just about the right amt)
1 onion chopped, or 4 tbs dried minced onions
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste (I don't even own pepper so I didn't add this)
ketchup

Preheat oven to 350°. Mix all of the ingredients together, whatever way makes you comfortable. Form into a loaf-like shape in a 13 x 9 baking dish. Mine was probably about 2" tall but it actually got taller in the middle during baking. Squirt ketchup all over the top. I didn't make a picture with it but I might next time. Bake for one hour and twenty minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 165° or so (original recipe said to bake for one hour). Mine was hotter than 165 (which actually makes me happy) but still very moist and not dry or tough. It was perfect and Steve's eyes actually rolled back in his head at one point. For maximum impact I may make fried potatoes with it next time. He loves those too.