Cabbie’s Cooking

Here’s a great recipe for delicious meatloaf - and it’s enough to make three meals. One to enjoy now, and two to freeze for later.

Cabbie’s Meat Loaf

Cabbie’s Meatloaf
3 1/2 lbs lean ground beef (I use no more than 4% fat)
1 large onion, finely diced
1/2 cup finely diced peppers (any combination of red, yellow and green peppers)
3 tablespoons finely diced parsley
2 stalks celery, finely diced
4 eggs
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
bread crumbs (approximately 3 cups - I save hamburger buns, rolls and the heels from loaves of bread in the freezer - and then take them out to use when I make meatloaf. If you use commercially prepared bread crumbs, use less since commercial crumbs are so fine. I prefer larger pieces of bread crumbs in my meatloaf.)

Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Diced vegetables ready to be mixed with the other ingredients

Mix well - using your hands. (I always put gloves on for this step).

Put those hands to work! Using a spoon just doesn’t work as well!

Form the mixture into three meatloaves. To bake, cook for each loaf for approximately 1 hour in a 350 degree oven.

This recipe makes three meatloaves. Each loaf will provide 4 generous servings.

If you’re freezing the loaves, wrap them in aluminum foil and mark with the date. I keep a Sharpie in a kitchen drawer for this purpose.

This is a great meal to free for make ahead meals. Take one out of the freezer in the morning, place in the refrigerator to defrost while you’re at work. Then when you get home, just pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for approximately an hour.

I usually make a tomato sauce to serve over the meatloaf. Here’s the recipe for my tomoto sauce:

Tomato Sauce for Meatloaf

1 large can petite diced tomotoes
1 Tablespoon dried onion flakes
1 Tablespoon dried parsley flakes
salt/pepper to taste
1 small can tomato sauce

Mix all ingredients well. Bring to a boil in a small saucepans. Simmer for 15 minutes. Spoon over meatloaf before serving.

A few years ago some friends and I made a trip to Memphis, Tennessee.  We only had two days for our trip, and so we wanted to make sure we used our time wisely and saw plenty of the Memphis sites of interest, and we wanted to make sure we tried some real Memphis barbecue ribs while we were there.  If you ever plan a similar trip to Memphis, check out Trusted Tours and Attractions.  Better yet, sign up for the Trusted Tours newsletter. That way you’ll get information on siteseeing and tours in not only Memphis, but all the cities where Trusted Tours provide service.  The newsletters are full of family vacation ideas, too.  For example, if you ever visit New York City, you could take their tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  And by the way, when you sign up for the newsletter you can enter to win an IPOD Nano!

Back to our trip to Memphis.  We saw most of the tourist sites, and we stopped by the Rendezvous to try their world-famous ribs.  In Memphis, ribs are traditionally served up dry.  “Dry” doesn’t mean dried out.  It simply means they don’t serve barbecue sauce with them.   So when you visit Memphis, make sure to see all the sites via Trust Tours, and then finish up your trip with the best barbecue ribs around at the Rendezvous.

I don’t have the Rendezvous recipe for their barbecue rib rub, but I came up with this one that comes pretty darn close.   

MEMPHIS STYLE RIB RUB

5 teaspoons paprika
3 teaspoons salt
2 and 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
2 and 1/2 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1 and 1/2 teaspoons cayenne (or to taste)

Mix ingredients together. Spread evenly on prepared ribs that have been patted dry with a paper towel. Smoke until tender and delicious. I actually cook mine in a low oven (275 degrees) for a couple hours before putting them in the smoker. That seems to make them extra tender.