Jodi Lea Stewart’s Meatloaf
- One pound hamburger
- One pound ground sausage (or use ALL hamburger meat)
- 1 lg. egg slightly beaten w/fork
- 1 small or ½ large onion, chopped
- 1 jalapeño pepper, chopped fine
- 1 med. stalk celery with leaves, chopped fine
- 1 can Rotel diced tomatoes & green chilies, original
- 1 small can chopped tomatoes
- Few dashes Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp. garlic powder, opt.
- 1 tsp. onion power, opt.
- Black pepper to taste
- 2 tsp. salt, or to taste
- Old-fashioned, uncooked oats
- 2-4 strips bacon
in a large bowl, combine hamburger, ground sausage, and egg. Add chopped onion, jalapeño, celery, Rotel tomatoes & green chilies, a small can of tomatoes and seasonings. Use hands to mix well. Add uncooked oats until mixture holds together but isn’t soupy.
Turn mixture out into a roasting pan. I prefer a SpatterWare roaster sprayed with non-stick spray. The mixture will be rounded from the shape of the bowl. Keep that shape. Round and pat until you have a loaf not touching any sides of the pan. Don’t make it too flat. Never push it to the sides of the pan. Who started that? It’s yucky and makes for odd edges!
Add the strips of bacon to the top and squirt a little ketchup over the top to decorate if desired. Bake at 350-degrees, uncovered, for approximately 1-1/2 hours. Test for doneness. Promptly remove from the pan onto a platter to prevent grease absorption. Wait about 10-15 minutes before slicing.
Comment: We’ve been making this meatloaf with slight variations in my family for as long as I can remember. When people say they hate meatloaf, I’m astounded. This meatloaf is delicious enough to serve to your snootiest company!
Comment: Bell pepper instead of jalapeno pepper is fine. How many seeds you leave in the jalapeno has a lot to do with the heat you can expect.
Comment: Our favorite accompaniments for this dinner are: Mashed potatoes, gravy, hot rolls or biscuits, salad and a few side dishes like fiesta corn or country-style squash.
Comment: I use latex gloves when I stir the mixture. No way am I getting raw meat under my fingernails!
Author Jodi Lea Stewart ~ Laughing Makes it All Worthwhile ~
Jodi Lea Stewart is a fiction author who believes in and writes about the triumph of the human spirit through overcoming adversity. With an Okie mom and a Texas stepdad, her writing reflects her life beginning in Texas and Oklahoma, later moving as a youngster to an Arizona cattle ranch next door to the Navajo Nation, and, as a young adult, resuming in her native Texas. Growing up, she climbed petroglyph-etched boulders, bounced two feet in the air in the backend of pickups wrestling through washed-out terracotta roads, and rode horseback on the winds of her imagination through the arroyos and mountains of the Arizona high country.
Her lifetime friendship with all races, cowpunchers, and the southern gentry allows Jodi to write comfortably about all aspects related to the Southwest and the South. P.S. She enjoys cooking when the mood hits.
Her sixth novel, TRIUMPH, a Novel of the Human Spirit, launched in September 2020. If you want a dramatic, sometimes humorous version of New Orleans life, St. Louis, and Texas in the early to mid-century 1900s, read TRIUMPH, a Novel of the Human Spirit by Jodi Lea Stewart.
TRIUMPH will take you places you didn’t expect to go!
Check out Jodi’s news and her latest everything.
What’s next from Jodi? Another dynamic historical fiction catapulting the reader out of Texas into Mexico, Argentina, and China and into the epicenter of another intriguing human drama. Look for it in 2021/2022.
