Meatloaf

I am getting more energy, so I am trying new foods. Really, really odd new foods, but necessity is the mother of invention, isn't it?

And didn't that just make me sound like my Nana, eh?

So today I made...meatloaf! Not for the kids, but meatloaf for ME. Which was rather like figuring out how to make ice cream when all you can eat is milk and snow peas.


It's not pretty, but wow was it awesome to eat. This sucker is gluten free, tomato free, sugarcane free, and egg free, but I imagine the flavor is mild unless you've been on a limited diet for a while like myself.

GF, tomato free, sugarcane free, egg free Meatloaf
What you need:
2 pounds ground meat (I used buffalo)
1 large sweet potato or yam, cooked and puréed (I baked mine like a baked potato)
1/2 cup uncooked, or 1 cup cooked, whole grain (I used quinoa and amaranth)
sea salt to taste

What you do:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Get out a loaf pan. You can oil the bottom of it or not, your choice. I didn't bother since I have limited oil I can use.
2. Mix the meat, the salt, and the puréed sweet potato together. If you have any other seasonings you can use, this would be the time to add them in.
3. If you prefer to use uncooked whole grain, pour them into the bottom of the pan and spread them out until they evenly covers the bottom. If you prefer to used already cooked grains, mix them into the meat mixture.
4. Press the meat mixture into the pan and pop that sucker into the oven. Depending on the grains used, the size of the sweet potato, and your altitude, it can take from 45 - 70 minutes to cook. Mine was done about 50 minutes.

The texture is soft, and the flavor was like an extremely mild BBQ sauce added to the meat. Some grains go better with the meat than others. Rice does very well, quinoa does all right, but amaranth doesn't blend well, flavor-wise, with certain meats.


Rotation Diet Tip
It's not perfect, but you can use this while you are on a rotation diet, as well. I have only one meat, but two grains, so I put one grain in half the meatloaf, and one grain in the other half. Then I could eat it more than one day in a row, and it really cut down on cooking. Of course, there will be a little mixing of the food in the juices, but I was willing to cheat a bit on that.

I think it could be made so that the juices didn't mix, however, if you put a little tinfoil barrier in between the two different grains, or perhaps use two different grains and meats both and enclose each half in tinfoil and put them in the same pan together. Always nice to cook once and eat twice.

7/3/10 - An additional tip. Use the red sweet potatoes as opposed to the pale fleshed ones. The taste is much better!