Brown Sugar Meatloaf

One of Aaron's favorite meals is meat loaf. This weekend I had high hopes to try out some new exciting recipes like stromboli or stuffed peppers but when I asked him what he thought about those all he said was, "I really would love some meatloaf."

I figured I could at least try out a new meatloaf recipe. As I always do, I went to allrecipes.com and searched for "meatloaf." One of the top rated recipes, Rempel Family Meatloaf, is one of my favorites, but we were really in the mood for a traditional meatloaf. I saw that Brown Sugar Meatloaf was the only one that was rated above the Rempel Family Meatloaf so I decided I would give it a shot.
The meatloaf turned out great. I served it with mashed redskin potatoes and roasted asparagus. The bonus is we have a lot of leftovers for some great meatloaf sandwiches.


Brown Sugar Meatloaf (adapted from a recipe on allrecipes.com)

Ingredients* 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
* 1/2 cup ketchup
* 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
* 3/4 cup milk
* 2 eggs
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1 small onion, chopped
* 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger * 3/4 cup finely crushed saltine cracker crumbs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Mix together the ketchup and brown sugar and set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix thoroughly all remaining ingredients and shape into a loaf. Put in a loaf pan or meatloaf pan and cover with the brown sugar and ketchup mixture.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 50 minutes or until the meatloaf is 165 degrees.

I figured I can also introduce you to one of my favorite kitchen items. With meatloaf being one of my husband's favorite foods, when I saw this meatloaf pan at Williams Sonoma, I had to register for it. One of our friends from our old job at Calvin, Jennie, got it for us and we have certainly gotten a lot of use out of it. It has two layers. The top part has holes in it so as the meatloaf is cooking, the fat from the meat drains to the bottom. It makes a much nicer meatloaf than any other pan. If you are interested in your own meatloaf pan, you can get them here. The insert can also be removed and it can be used as a normal loaf pan.