Meat Loaf

Yes, you read that right, Meat Loaf.  Last week I started a new job rotation at a lubricants plant 20 miles outside of Houston in the heavily industrialized town of Galena Park, TX.  With limited options and time for lunch, I thought it was time to start bringing my lunch again, so I thought it fitting to go old school and break out my mom's meat loaf recipe to create the base for cold meat loaf and mustard sandwiches for lunch!

Meat loaf is incredibly simple to make, and for this recipe you'll need:

• 1 pound ground beef (we used 93/7 lean)
• 1 egg
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup of milk
• Salt & Pepper, to taste
• 1 cup of Rice Krispies*

*Note-the Rice Krispies can be substituted for bread crumbs, saltine crackers, or any other grain binder that you'd like.  But for me, it's Rice Krispies all the way!

The first step is to pre-heat your oven to the standard temperature of 350 degrees.

All of the above ingredients go into a large mixing bowl, and are to be well combined with a wood spoon.  The mix then goes into a loaf pan & is smoothed out.

The meat loaf bakes for approx. 1 hour.  At 15 minute intervals, I recommend pulling the meat loaf from the oven and draining of the liquid fat that pools on the top & sides of the pan.

We ended up using a meat thermometer to ensure the meat had a hit a final temperature of 170 degrees before calling it done and letting it cool in the pan before we transferred it to a plate by placing a plate on top of the loaf pan & flipping the pan over before flipping the meat loaf right side up.

Admittedly, the meat loaf is not much to look at, but give it 24 hours in the refrigerator, a healthy dose of mustard, and 2 slices of white bread, and you've got the ultimate down home sandwich!