Tastes like Home

     Jason and I had a quiet evening at home by ourselves tonight. We spent most of the evening doing very exciting things like cleaning and cooking...and we watched a Johnny Depp vampire movie.

     Growing up, we lived on 6 acres with most of my family. My grandparents were across the field in one direction, my aunt and uncle in another direction and for quite a while, various cousins lived in the little house at the back of the property. One of my moms childhood friends lived across the street and is still known as Aunt Nita, so still more family all around. My mom and dad always cooked dinner, It was a really special occasion when we went out to eat. We have definitely not succeeded in making this the expectation for Jonah, but we are changing that slowly but surely. Even though mom or dad always cooked, there were always at least 2 or 3 other meals to pick from for dinner if I wanted to run around and scope out the options (There are advantages to being the youngest in the neighborhood, with cute curly hair :-) ). My favorite childhood foods come from all sorts of houses, but they all taste like home. The most popular thing that my mom cooked that drew everyone else over to our house was the meatloaf. My mom makes a mean meatloaf :-). As we get closer and closer to time to go home, the more that I start craving the recipes that taste like home...We're heading home for Thanksgiving in about 3 weeks so hopefully the home food craving doesn't get tooo out of control in the mean time. I didn't make the same recipe that my mom does because hers has wheat in it, but a few easy modifications and we were good to go :-)

2 lbs ground beef (The beef came from our cow, so it wasn't labeled by weight, probably closer to 2 1/2 lbs)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup apple sauce
1 cup gf bread crumbs
1/2 medium chopped onion
1/4 chopped bell pepper
2 tsp gf Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup homemade barbeque sauce
1 cup ketchup

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray 2 loaf pans (9x5x3) with olive oil. Mix all ingredients (except ketchup) into a large bowl together and then form into loaf pans. Cook for 30 minutes, top the top of the meatloaf with ketchup and then continue cooking for 30 more minutes. Let cool for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving. 

I also made an aluminum foil pouch and threw in some sliced squash and zucchini in with come coconut oil and lemon juice and pepper and put it in the oven to cook while the meat loaf was cooking and steamed some green beans. We had a full meal leftover, plus lunches which is awesome since tomorrow night is Halloween and Jonah will be ready to go make new friends with anyone he can find as soon as we get home, and dinner will already be ready to go. Success!