Layered Meat Loaf

Whew! I’m happy to be back to bb and  you. For a couple of weeks before the holidays, there was a whole lot o’ cleaning, cooking and bakin’ goin’ on. It’s catching up now  (nap demanded high-priority status today) – I have new post on my To-Do list – and you should have seen the LISTS these past couple of weeks – it works for me so long as I agree with myself that some items will just casually stroll on over to the next list. Looks like new post was one of the strollers.

So without further ado, I present to you, drum roll, please, The Layered Meat Loaf. At dinner at my sister’s house some time back, she mentioned that she’d eaten at the home of a great cook and one of the things served looked like a marble meat loaf. Marble cake, okay. But meat loaf? Do you take a knife and swirl it through? That may work for cake batter but I had trouble visualizing the application of this concept to meat. Maybe clumps of different mixtures placed in the pan? Hmmm.

So I tried a layered concept, using ground turkey and lean ground beef.

Veggies for light and lively loaves

Side by Side by Meat Loaf

I added different ingredients in each, emphasizing color contrast. Shredded carrots for the turkey, chopped parsley for the beef. Onion and garlic into both.

But I had another idea and wanted to experiment with something egg eye-catching for the buffet table.

Peek-a-boo, we see you

When I was little, my mom would sometimes make a meat loaf with a hard-boiled egg hiding inside. Wow, did I love to get a slice with a  surprise perfectly beautiful sunny yellow center, surrounded by snowy white. I watched her put it together, but it always felt like a great prize to get one of those slices.

Gentlemen, start the oven

Little golden meat loaf with the glaze on the top!

Serving layered meat loaf

LAYERED MEAT LOAF

Ingredients:

Optional: can substitute 1 T. of flax seed meal for part of the oatmeal (disregard this note for Passover)

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 375°. Spray a 9″ loaf pan with light cooking spray.

Shred or grate veggies and chop fresh herbs. Place turkey and beef in 2 separate bowls. Mix turkey with 1/2 the onion, 1/2 the garlic, one egg,  oatmeal or matzoh meal,  1 T. ketchup, 1 t. cumin,  salt & pepper, and all the shredded carrot. Mix beef with the remainder of the onion and garlic, shredded (or grated) potato, chopped parsley, 1 egg, ketchup, 1 t. cumin, ginger, cayenne, salt & pepper.

Take half the beef mixture and spread over the greased loaf pan. Next, spread half the turkey mixture. Place the two hard-boiled eggs, lengthwise in loaf pan, allowing a little room between the two, and nestle them a bit into the meat (forget to hard-boil the eggs? go now!). Repeat the layering with the remaining beef and then the remaining turkey.

Using the back of a spoon, coat the whole surface with a very thin layer of ketchup and sprinkle a bit of maple flakes (or brown sugar) over the top.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until browned and firm to the touch. Remove and loosely tent with foil (I do this all the time). Let rest at least 15 minutes before slicing.

serves 10

Option: For the holiday, I made 3 Double-Decker Meat Loaves in mini-loaf pans (served 12). Here’s how:

• I used 3 hard-boiled eggs
• put the whole beef mixture in the bottom of each loaf pan
• nestled an egg in each
• topped it with the turkey mixture
• spread a little ketchup over the top
• baked them in a pre-heated 375° oven for 50 minutes or until firm
• called it a day

Going Double-Decker