I have never eaten a meatloaf before.

I always hear them talking about meatloaf on the television and I always hear how they complain about how bad meat loaf is and they also seem to crumble when they hear that meatloaf is for dinner.

Meatloaf is not something I ever heard of being made in our family. I asked my mother if granny grey made it and she never made it either, it wasn’t even in her recipe books.

So it is safe to assume that I am the first in the family to make it.

Before my world was rocked, shaken and turned upside down, I went shopping to buy mince to try out all Ree Drummonds mince recipes and when my world got turned right side up again, I just lost the urge to try out those recipes.

Since then, the mince has been relaxing in the freezer waiting for me to use it.

While reading Tiffany’s recipe book, I came across a recipe for meatloaf and it looked delicious and I thought why not, what have I got to loose? So I made it.

I didn’t hold my breath when my dad dished up because I really did think it wasn’t going to taste nice. But surprise surprise, he loved it.

It was still moist inside and not dry and even my mother said it looked yummy.

The fun part of making this dish was I finally got to use my thermometer to check the middle of the loaf to ensure that it was at the correct temperature which would make sure that the middle was cooked and not raw.

During the baking I had to run out and leave my dad in charge of keeping an eye on the meat loaf in the oven, I tried explaining how to check with the thermometer but he kept complaining the readings were too small.

I eventually gave up on my quick errand run and to be on the safe side waited till the meat loaf was cooked.

While I was getting the camera reading to take a picture, my father cut him a slice, and boy oh boy how did I complain, I tried to make him put the slice back so that I could take the picture, but he was not hearing any of it.

I did keep the surprise ingredient until it was bed time, I did mention to him that he could eat meat loaf for breakfast after all I used his oats in the loaf to which he was wide awake all of a sudden and when he kept asking what oats I went lala land.

After all my mother says a women without mystery is like a flower without a sent, so I have to have some mystery ingredients as well lol.

Ingredients:

• 2 x tbsp. oil.
• 1 x onion, finely chopped.
• 1kg x mince.
• 1 ½ x cups rolled oats.
• 2 x eggs.
• ¼ x cup Worcestershire sauce.
• ½ x cup toamtoe sauce and more for spreading over the top.
• A few dashes tobasco sauce.
• 2 x tsp salt.
• Pinch black pepper.

Method:

• Heat oil in a pan.
• Add the onions and saute till soft.
• Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
• In a bowl, mix the mince with all the remaining ingredients.
• Mix in the onions.
• Transfer to a greased loaf pan.
• Spread some more tomatoe sauce over the top.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 60 minutes or until the thermometer stuck in the middle of the meat loaf reads 74 degrees Celsius