Meatloaf

We're all clear on the plan? Just mash you guys together and

hope something good happens? Alright, cool. 

Every now and again, it's important to make some ridiculous comfort food, leave whatever diet you're muddling through behind, and remind yourself just how comparatively terrible your normal food is. And few things say comfort like crazy awesome meatloaf. Seriously, why do we even eat normal food? It's not like we don't know it's worse. Foods like meatloaf, pot-pie, or mac and cheese wouldn't comfort us if they weren't better than the crap we normally shove into our collective faces. I blame divisive politics and celebrity dance shows.

Ingredients:

1 pound, ground Beef Chuck

1 Egg

1/3 cup, Seasoned Bread Crumbs

1 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 Carrots

1 Onion

2 Ribs of Celery (For a detailed rambling tangent about celery nomenclature, check out my Vegetable Stock recipe)

1 clove Garlic

1 tsp Hot Sauce

2 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar

1 cup Ketchup

An unspecified amount of salt

Right foot...blue! Carrot, could you...
just move your...this is gonna suuuck.

The first thing to do is to chop your onion, carrots, celery and garlic into small chunks. They don't need to be ridiculously tiny, but none of them should be larger than a 1/4 inch or so. Most people prefer a finer chop on the garlic, but whatever floats your boat (water floats boats. That phrase makes no sense). Put your oil in a pan, crank it to medium-high heat, and then toss in your chopped onion, carrot, and celery corpses. Sauté them for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally to appease the Mayan spoon deity. If placated, she will keep your vegetables from burning.

Once your vegetables are tender (i.e. you can stick a fork through them without splashing oil all over your face and going through life with an unfortunate nickname) throw in your garlic, and sauté for another 40 seconds or so. Turn off the heat, and let all the veggies cool to room temperature. Take a large bowl, and add your ground beef, egg, bread crumbs, cooked veggie conglomerate, 1/2 of your hot sauce, and 1/2 of your balsamic vinegar. If you're using kosher meat, it's probably got enough salt in it already. If not, you'll want to add about 1/2 a teaspoon. 

Not pictured: the shame of eating a whole meatloaf alone

Take your hands and mush that glop together until you've lost any desire to eat this, or anything else. Take your meat goop, and dump it on to a baking pan. Form it into a loaf using your skills of the artist. Combine your ketchup with the rest of your vinegar and hot sauce. Use that mixture to glaze your fledgling loaf. Then bake it at 350 for an hour. Once it's out of the oven, spend no less than 5 minutes in existential turmoil, deciding whether to cut into it to check for done-ness or not. And remember: no matter what you decide, you'll always be wrong.