“What would you like for dinner?”
*Shrug.* “I don’t know.”

This, my friends, is the typical answer I get from my hubby. Which is why, when he asked me for a meatloaf a week ago, I immediately jumped on the opportunity to skip a day of meal planning and just opted for his choice. The result was a great amount of tasty – and definitely not dry – meatloaf, half of which I just froze for one of those “I’m too lazy to cook” nights.

Note: Although I chose to make this meatloaf exclusively out of ground beef, you can choose any other kind of ground meat (for instance ground turkey), or combination of ground meat (beef and pork?).

Cajun Beef Meat Loaf (adapted from The All New Good Housekeeping Cook Book by Susan Westmoreland)

Ingredients:

(Enough for 2 pans of 8.5×4.5 inches: about 6-8 servings in total.)

2 pounds ground beef
2 tablespoons butter
2 toasted slices of bread, crumbled
2 large eggs

2 large carrots, peeled & chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2-3 celery ribs, halved vertically and then chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced

½ cup tomato sauce + some for serving
¼ cup milk
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp dried thyme,
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1/t tsp ground red (cayenne) pepper
½ tsp black pepper

Directions:

1. Once all the vegetables have been chopped, preheat the oven to 375˚F.
2. Over medium heat, melt the butter in a saucepot. Add the chopped veggies (carrots, onion, celery ribs, pepper) and cover partially with lid. Stir from time to time for about 10-15 minutes, until tender. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.
3. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, eggs, the crumbled toast, the tomato sauce, the Worcestershire sauce, the milk, and the spices.
4. Add the cooked vegetables, mixing well, but carefully: the veggies should not end up mashed 
5. Take your two small pans (or a single larger one if you prefer) and pour the mixture in them. Press slightly with a spoon to give a nice loaf shape.
6. Bake for about an hour.