Beaglebea's Blog: meatloaf

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Bacon Mushroom Mooseloaf

Or how about just a Bacon Mushroom Meatloaf… named this way as I substituted moose meat for ground beef. I’m pretty lucky to have a family that hunts and shares their freezer full of meat with me.

Ingredients

2 lbs. ground meat
1 lb. nitrate-free bacon, chopped (I used Maple Leaf Naturals)
1 onion, chopped
8 oz. mushrooms of any kind, chopped
1 cup almond flour
2 eggs, beaten
pinch of Himalayan sea salt
pinch of black pepper
1 – 3 Tbsp. hot sauce and 1/2 cup Ketchup

How to put it all together

Preheat your oven to 350F and grease a medium sized casserole dish
In a frying pan, sauté the bacon until crisp. At this point you will want to drain some of the fat as there is a fair amount. Then add the onions and mushrooms and continue to cook until they are translucent.
While the bacon mixture is cooking, crumble the beef in a bowl, then add the eggs and flour and mix with your hands until well combined.
Drain the rest of the fat from the bacon mixture. Then add the bacon/onions/mushrooms to the beef. It will be hot, so you may want to use a spatula to fold in. Also add the salt and pepper.
Transfer everything to the greased casserole dish. Round the top off a bit.
Pour the ketchup/hot sauce over the top and spread it evenly.
Place on the middle rack in the oven, but put a baking sheet under it in case of spillage.
It should cook in about 45 minutes, but use a thermometer to be certain to have the proper internal temperature.
Serve along side a side salad.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. The weather sure has changed in this neck of the woods. Bye bye summer, hello Fall. I do love the fall for it’s crisp morning air and all of the changing colors. I especially love the morning dog walks on days like these:

It also means the start of pumpkin time and I love anything pumpkin, especially pumpkin pie.

I made some pumpkin tarts with my class this year right before the Canadian Thanksgiving Holiday. The kids were so stoked…they each got to take home 4 tarts…some didn’t quite make it home as they ate some before going home. (And I didn’t take any pics…woops).

This week I also stepped up my fitness regime to another level. I joined a local gym and signed up for 1 month of unlimited Crossfit. For those who may not be familiar with Crossfit, the definition is as follows:

Constantly varied, functional movements at high intensity.

I did a bit of Crossfit over the summer while visiting family in Vancouver and was hooked from day 1, but this was the first week back at it since coming home. Crossfit is relatively new in my city..and I am so happy that the gym is offering it. My goal is to get in the best shape of my life, to tone down, get strong and leaner and I know that this is the way for me to get there. I can’t wait to explore the next part of my fitness journey and see where it takes me.

Now the title of this post is “Sunday Cooking Marathon”. That’s right. I spent about 3 hours today cooking meals for the week. I am limited in time during the week and sometimes my nutrition lacks when I don’t have the time I’d like to cook the meals I’d like during the week. So my trainer gave the a tip: spend a few hours on Sunday cooking your meals for the week. They are easy to freeze and heat up in the microwave or stovetop during the week. How smart is she? Thanks Kaiya!

After figuring out the final details to my meal plan for the upcoming week, I took off to the store to grab the necessities. And I even found something for the dog today, which he loved instantly.

As I sit here typing this, my house is beginning to smell of chocolate goodness from the yummy no-grain cocoa granola. So what is on the menu this week? Voila! Take a look and let me know what you think Smile I think this week is going to rock.