Sauced

What exactly did you think you were going to find when you saw the title of my post? Sorry, no fun stories of a drunken weekend in Wisconsin with my family-our family gathering was postponed due to possible inclement weather.

I stayed home all weekend and did all of the laundry, washed many dishes and never got out of my PJ's until I went to a movie on Sunday with a friend. If you get the chance, go see "The Fighter". It was a wonderful movie, and let's face it-seeing Mark Wahlberg without a shirt in many of the scenes is just icing on the cake...

The only way to get Drama Queen to eat meatloaf is to make it in mini form and put a ketchup sauce on top. Having only learned this about a month ago, I put it on the menu for this weekend. Dude had expressed early in our marriage about no sauce on his meatloaf. I grew up with sauce so it took me many attempts to make a loaf that was moist and tasty.

Then we go to his parents and she served mini loaves....with sauce! I nearly threw mine at him.

Sauced Mini Meatloaves

2 pounds ground beef

3 pieces white bread, crusts removed

1/2 to 2/3 cup milk

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. thyme

small pinch of nutmeg

small pinch of salt

Sauce:

3/4 cup ketchup

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

squeeze of lemon juice (1 wedge)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Soak bread in milk for 10 minutes. Squeeze excess milk out of bread and tear into small pieces and place in medium size bowl. Add rest of meatloaf ingredients. Squish with hands just until bread is absorbed into meat. Shape into 8 small oval loaves. Place on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. While loaves are cooking, mix up sauce mixture. After the 20 minutes, spoon a good amount of sauce on top of each loaf. Bake another 10 minutes.

Serve with your favorite side dish. I usually make mashed potatoes or baked potatoes like his Mom.