Meatloaf and Roasted Root Veggies with Broccoli and Cauliflower.

For some reason, I started craving meatloaf today.  Now, those of you that know me know that this is a strange thing for me to crave, since I don't eat a lot of meat, and I chose the one thing that has the most amount of meat in it! I've never made my own meatloaf before, at least not one where I came up with the recipe myself, so I thought that this might be more of a challenge than it was, given my previous experiences with actually cooking meat. However, I have redeemed myself in the meat cooking department and managed to make quite a delicious, moist loaf of meat.

I stopped at Whole Foods Market today and picked up some ground beef and ground pork, this was a mix suggested by the nice gentleman at the meat counter (he also suggested that I use ground veal, however they were out of this just as I got there, but it apparently takes it to a whole other level).  When I got home I put the meat into a bowl, added fresh bread crumbs, two eggs, chopped onion, minced garlic, a little Worcestershire Sauce, a bit of flour, salt and pepper.  I mixed this up really well, squished it into the loaf pan, topped it with a mixture of ketchup, chopped onion, salt and pepper and finished it off with some very yummy looking dry rub applewood smoked bacon (also from Whole Foods).  This was then baked in the oven for about an hour.

While the meatloaf was cooking, I chopped up sweet potatoes, yukon gold potatoes, red onion, celery root and carrot and placed these into a big bowl.  I poured some olive oil over the vegetables, added some minced garlic and fresh ginger, chopped fresh rosemary, salt and pepper, mixed it to coat and dumped it on a foil lined baking dish.  This baked for about 25 minutes. I finished this off with some sour cream (which I think is my favorite way to top root veggies).

Once the meatloaf was taken out of the oven and resting, I boiled some cauliflower and broccoli.  I drained these, added some garlic salt and butter and covered them in some Seastack aged cheddar (the guy at the cheese counter recommended this).

Thanks to the guys at Whole Foods, I was able to take these comfort foods and add a whole new dimension of flavor to make them even tastier.  I also managed to walk out of there with about 5 other cheeses, some smoked pork and a wonderful fig dip. All of which I can't wait to have later during my late night movie.  I figure if I'm going to do the comfort food thing today, then I may as well go all the way and enjoy every minute of it that I can!