One of the foods my husband and I can make, deliciously, with just about anything in our fridge, is meatloaf. We don't eat it very often, but it's basically Mikey's favorite food. He's obsessed. The meatloaf that he is drawn to (like Riverbend Cafe's Blue Plate Special) tend to be more of the dense, somewhat plain, comfort food style meatloaf. Probably very similar to how his mother used to make. I prefer my meatloaf in muffin form with plenty of garlic and herbs, and chock full of vegetables. We usually meet in the middle and make a meatloaf with carrots, celery, kale, and onion.
When Mikey requested meatloaf muffins this week, after I decided to finally go to our butcher to restock on meat, I knew I wanted something more suiting to the warm weather we've (kind of) been having lately (okay, for a few days there). As we started the usual meat mixing party, I started pulling things out of the fridge and just throwing them in. We had tons of greens left to use from our Full Circle Farms CSA box, along with two huge yellow zucchinis from Hazel and Brand's garden, and I love the color and texture that comes from tons of vegetables in a meatloaf. What came out of the oven was more of a vegetable loaf with meat added, than a meatloaf with vegetables added...and that was perfectly okay by me. In fact, this was my favorite meatloaf we've ever made, by leaps and bounds. It obviously helped that we ate it with steamed artichokes:)
Summer Vegetable Meatloaf Muffins
based on nothing but a desire to consume mass quantities of summer produce
10-12 muffins, depending on your fill level
for the loaf:
1.2 lb ground turkey
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk, water for paleo
1/2 cup breadcrumbs, divided*
1 t granulated garlic
1/2 t montreal steak seasoning
1 T worcestershire sauce
3 T garlic, minced
1 t onion salt
1/2 t sea salt
1-2 cups kale, chopped
1 cup spinach leaves, chopped
1 cup yellow zucchini, diced
2 large carrots, shredded
1 large stalk celery, diced
1/2 cup tomatoes, diced
for the glaze:
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup barbeque sauce
1 t sriracha, or hot sauce
1 T worcestershire sauce
Basically:
Throw all of the meatloaf ingredients into a bowl and mix 'em up. Fill a prepped pan, top with mixed glaze ingredients, put it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Eat.
Details:
Turn your oven to 350 degrees.
Combine the meat with the binding agents: eggs, milk, and breadcrumbs (*start off with 1/4 cup, then wait to see if you need the rest). Add all your spices and flavorings: garlics, steak seasoning, worcestershire, onion salt, sea salt. Mix with your hands, just until combined and the flavorings are evenly distributed.
Add in all of your vegetables: kale, spinach, zucchini, carrots, celery, and tomatoes. Mix until the vegetables are evenly distributed, and everything becomes sticky enough to hold shape. At this point, adjust your dry/wet binding agents to suit your preferred texture. You may also let the mixture rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, as some of the vegetables will release some of their liquids. You may then pour this off, or redistribute, depending, again, on your preferred texture.
Prep your muffin tin by spraying with oil. Form mounds of meatloaf mixture, and place into the muffin tins. We filled to slightly above the top of the pan, and got 10 muffins. If you fill just to below the lip, with room for glaze, you'll get 12.
Mix your glaze together, and top each muffin with about a teaspoon of it, smearing it around to coat the top fairly evenly.
Bake for about 30 minutes (less if you do 12 muffins). Broil if you like the glaze to caramelize slightly. Enjoy:)
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| ready to go in the oven // sorry no after shots, we gobbled them up // crappy cell phone shot |
