Not Just Meatloaf

 One thing I really like to do is to take a regular boring meal and turning it into a restaurant quality dish.  That's what I did with this dinner.  Individual meatloaves wrapped in bacon sitting on garlic cheese toast and floating in rich, dark gravy.  It's topped with wonderful mashed potatoes and creamed spinach.  And for The Blog Tech, it always has to have roasted carrots.

 My Poblano peppers, which I grew from seed, are wonderful this year.

 The meatloaf is a mixture of 1-1/2 lb. of ground beef, 1 lb. ground pork and 1 lb. of sage sausage.  Add the minced peppers and 1/2 pound of bacon cooked and diced small.

 This is a mixture of 1 diced onion which I sauteed with 4 minced garlic cloves, salt and pepper to taste, 2 anchovies and 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce.  I added a few splashes of fish sauce as well.  This might sound strange but these additions created the yummy umami flavor that everyone loves when they eat in good restaurants. Once the onions soften, add some fresh minced thyme, sage, rosemary and parsley.

Add 1 cup of bread crumbs, 4 eggs, 1 cup of buttermilk, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and mix thoroughly.  Cook a small piece, taste it and adjust the seasoning if needed. Form small meatloaves and wrap them tightly in thin bacon.

 Place them on a foil covered cookie sheet and bake them in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes until they have an internal temp of  165 degrees.

You can see that they release grease while cooking.

Transfer them to another pan while wiping the bottoms clean.

For the creamed spinach, melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan and whisk in 3 tablespoons of flour.  Cook this for a couple minutes and then stir in 3 cups of milk, S & P and a couple pinches of nutmeg.  Add 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. Whisk until it thickens and then add in 1 lb. of spinach.

Turn the spinach over until it has wilted in the sauce.

 Roast the carrots in a bit of olive oil in a 400 degree oven.

 This group was going to The Blog Tech and his wife so I placed them in a rectangular pan.  Normally I would just place each one on their own plate like in the top pic. Place a garlic toast on the plate, add a scoop of mashed potatoes and top with a meatloaf.

 Surround these with the roasted carrots.

 Top with creamed spinach.

 Drizzle gravy over the top and pool it around the bottom.

Not a boring meatloaf meal.