Weirder by the day

Mom was having some kind of bags-under-her-eyes issue recently, so she took to Google to find a cure, which is always a solid idea (just ask Dylan). What she came up with involved sticking grated potatoes over her eyes for 10 minutes a day for a week. This is what Mom looks like while the treatment is in progress:

I texted this picture to Cassie without explaining what was going on. Cass wrote back, "What the" and "She gets weirder every day." You're telling me!

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Your vegetarian ways leave me hankering for a good slab of meat once in a while, so I dug a pack of ground beef out of the freezer and threw this together yesterday. Meatloaf was never Mom's favorite, but the two of us happily wolfed this entire thing down by ourselves. It's just hard to beat anything made with a decent amount of ketchup, especially if you add some Worcestershire to the mix, too. And the meatloaf would only be that much better if you gild the lily and wrap it, in a loving porcine embrace, in bacon, like the original recipe calls for. 

Dylan's meatloaf

Glazed Meatloaf

Adapted from The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook (2011)

The original recipe uses twice the ingredients to make a larger loaf serving 6 to 8 (allegedly). It calls for the classic meatloaf mixture of 1 pound ground chuck, ½ pound ground pork, and ½ pound ground veal. There is no question you will get a tastier, more tender meatloaf if you use ground pork and/or ground veal. I went for convenience, using one 1-pound pack of ground beef from my friends at Free Union Grass Farm, but if you want to substitute pork and/or veal for up to half of the ground beef, by all means go for it.

The original recipe also calls for wrapping the loaf with slices of bacon—overlapping them slightly and tucking the tips under the loaf—before placing the loaf in the oven. I left that step out of the recipe, also for the sake of convenience, but I’ve had this meatloaf with the bacon, and it’s certainly a welcome addition, as bacon always is.  

Glaze
¼ cup (68 grams) ketchup
2 tablespoons (25 grams) brown sugar 
2 teaspoons cider or white vinegar 

Meatloaf
2 teaspoons sunflower or canola oil 
1 small onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced or pressed
¼ cup (60 grams) whole milk or plain yogurt
1 large egg
1 teaspoon (5 grams) Dijon mustard 
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce 
slightly rounded ½ teaspoon fine sea salt 
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 
a few dashes of hot pepper sauce, such as Sriracha
1 pound grass-fed ground beef (see note)
⅓ cup (30 grams) quick oats or crushed Saltine crackers; or ⅔ cup fresh bread crumbs
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves 

    1. For the glaze: Whisk the glaze ingredients together in a small bowl.
    2. For the meat loaf: Place a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 350 degrees. Spray a small baking dish (mine is about 10-by-6 inches) lightly with nonstick cooking spray.
    3. Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until softened but not browned, about 5–6 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Remove from the heat.
    4. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk or yogurt, egg, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Add the beef, oats (or other binding agent), parsley, and the sauteed onion mixture, and mix gently with a fork (a pastry fork works well here if you have one) until everything is evenly blended. If the mixture seems too wet and isn’t coming together, work in another tablespoon of your binding agent.
    5. Pat and gently work the mixture into a 9-by-5-inch loaf shape. Place into the prepared baking dish. Spoon half of the glaze (about 3 tablespoons) evenly over the loaf.
    6. Bake until the center of the loaf registers 160 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, about 50 minutes. Cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before serving. (If you can’t wait, the loaf will fall apart when you slice it.) Serve with a little of the remaining glaze spooned over each slice. Serves 2–4.