Hickory Smoked Portobello & Porcini Meatloaf

Meatloaf. If you think "mundane" when you hear the word, you may want to think about kicking up your meatloaf game. As you peruse recipes in this blog, you may discover that meatloaf is a favorite meal around here. Many Dinner Plan-it twists on this family classic have made the cut over the years: BBQ Cranberry Meatloaf, Turkey-With-All-The-Trimmings Meatloaf (still an all time favorite!), Old Fashioned Pineapple Maple Ham Loaf...to name just a few of the meatloaf recipes you'll find within these pages. 

Yet another one has been in the works - and in my smoker - being tweaked to perfection over the last couple of months and is ready to make the scene. The definition of umami dances on your palate with this combo of smoked portobello mushrooms, dried porcini mushrooms, tender beef, and black fermented garlic via my Hickory Smoked Portobello & Porcini Meatloaf. Have you noticed mushrooms seem to make beef even beefier? Smoking the mushrooms first magnifies the flavors even more. Then you smoke the mushroom-y meatloaves for an ultimate meaty, beefy BOOM! 

Hickory Smoked Portobello & Porcini Meatloaf

Makes 4 medium-sized meatloaves

• 1 lb smoked portobello mushrooms (smoked a day or two before making the meatloaf), finely minced in food processor
• 2 T butter
• 1 T canola oil
• 1 large onion, finely diced
• 1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced
• 4 cloves black fermented garlic (I buy mine at Trader Joe's), finely minced
• 3/4 oz dried porcini mushrooms, ground in a spice grinder (I get mine at Whole Foods) 
• 1 T porcini salt (found at Gourmet Delights online)
• lots of freshly ground black pepper
• 2 1/2 lbs ground beef (80/20 for flavor!)
• 2 eggs, beaten

In a large skillet, melt butter and canola oil over medium heat. Saute onions, garlic, and red bell pepper until soft, stirring frequently. When the veggies are soft, add minced smoked portobellos and ground dried porcinis. Combine well with the rest of the veggies, season with porcini salt and black pepper. Set aside to cool.

When the veggies are room temp, put ground beef and beaten eggs into a large bowl, add cooled veggies. Mix lightly, but thoroughly, with veggies evenly distributed throughout the mix. Divide into four portions and make four meatloaves.

Preheat smoker to 225 degrees, using soaked hickory chips. Only you know your smoker and the type you have. I have an electric chest-type smoker. I smoke meatloaf about five hours. Your time and temp may vary. I also cut squares of parchment paper to place the meatloaves on in the smoker - makes taking them out a cinch.

Why 4 meatloaves at once? One to eat, one to share, two to freeze for later!

Notice there is no bread in the recipe? That makes it naturally gluten-free and paleo friendly!

NOTE: Don't have a smoker? Roast the portobellos in the oven, cool, and proceed as above. Bake the loaves in the oven at 375 degrees for 1 1/2 hours or until done.

Simple South-of-the-Border Meatloaf

Time for a Quickie. A few basic ingredients...some with a bit of a kick(!), a little time in the oven (while you're at it, throw in some small red potatoes and baby carrots to really make it a quickie), add a fresh green side salad and there you have it. Dinner Plan-it Quickie!

Simple South-of-the-Border Meatloaf

• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 3/4 pound ground pork
• 3 slices bread, torn into pieces (gluten-free bread to make this GF) - leave the crusts on!
• 2 eggs
• 1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes and chiles
• 1 t freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 T Jane's Crazy Salt
• Heinz Jalapeno Ketchup - my new addiction! (or regular Heinz if you can't take the heat)

• 1 1/2 pounds small red potatoes, cut in half
• 1 pound baby carrots

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Combine all ingredients well (except ketchup), but lightly - you don't want a compacted, dense meatloaf, do you?

Divide mixture in half and make two loaves out of the mixture. Spray a roasting pan with Pam or line it with parchment paper. Arrange the meatloves in the pan with enough space between them to allow the heat to circulate. Drizzle the jalapeno ketchup on top - I like LOTS(!), scatter the potatoes and carrots around them and pop the pan into the oven for about an hour to an hour and a half.

Stir and baste the veggies a couple of times with the pan juices to keep them moist. If you need to, add a little water.

When the meatloaves are cooked through and the veggies are slightly browned, remove the pan from the oven. Set one meatloaf in the center of a platter, surround with the veggies, let them sit for 10 minutes before slicing and serve. Refrigerate leftovers.

I love cold meatloaf sandwiches, don't you?

Don't need 2 meatloaves at once? Freeze one for easy dinners during the week...that's exactly what I do.

Turkey-With-All-The-Trimmings Thanksgiving Meatloaf

Here it is for all of you who don't want to deal with the fuss and drudgery of making a great big, slippery, intimidating turkey, but still want to make a somewhat traditional holiday dinner. Traditional turkey,  tart cranberries, rich sweet potatoes and our favorite stuffing go-togethers...apples, sage sausage (turkey sausage to keep with the theme), celery, onion and lots of poultry seasoning truly makes this meatloaf a Turkey Day - or ANY day - treat!

Kimber and I started talking about making a turkey Thanksgiving meatloaf just a few days ago...today we mixed and tested, mixed some more...and tested some more, finally coming up with what we both think is the perfect combination of salty, sweet, tart and savory. Really, I don't want to over-hype it, but this is one of the best meatloaves I have ever posted to Dinner Plan-it. 

If you're looking for the tastes of a time-honored Thanksgiving dinner without spending hours and hours roasting, basting and carving, this might be just the thing. Add a nice bowl of fluffy mashed potatoes, a good green veggie or two, buy a pumpkin pie and a can of whipping cream and you've got a simple, delicious and relatively easy Thanksgiving dinner!

Now, gather those you love most, friends and family who mean the world to you...sit, talk, eat, laugh, treasure every moment. Enjoy the day without the big fuss and focus on what is most important...each other. Happy Thanksgiving and many blessings from us to every single one of you!

Turkey-With-With-All-The-Trimmings 

Thanksgiving Meatloaf

• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 stalks celery, WITH lots of leaves, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 6 ounces turkey breakfast sausage, got mine at Whole Foods...LOVE this stuff!

• 3 pounds ground turkey (white meat)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and shredded (about 1 cup)
• 1 apple, peeled, cored, small dice - I used a Granny Smith
• 1 cup fresh cranberries, chopped coarsely
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or more if you wish...I like MORE
• 5 tablespoons poultry seasoning
• 3 slices white bread, crumbled coarsely - a good firm white bread like Pepperidge Farm - to make this gluten free, I used Whole Foods Light White bread that has a similar texture and firmness to Pepperidge Farm - LOVE this GF bread!

In a skillet, melt the butter and add celery and onion. Saute until they start to soften. Add the sausage, crumbling well as it cooks. When it is cooked through, add salt, pepper and poultry seasoning, mixing well. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
 
In a BIG bowl, mix the ground turkey, eggs, cranberries, sweet potatoes, apple, salt, pepper and crumbled bread. Add the cooled (not cold) onion/celery mixture and mix thoroughly with your hands until the meatloaf mixture is evenly mixed.
 
If you wish, mound mixture into individual large foil muffin cups. If you do this, bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. I made 6 muffin cups and made 2 loaves out of the remaining mixture. I baked the meatloaves for 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees.
 
Let sit for about 5 minutes after removing from oven before slicing the meatloaves.
 
Just like a complete Thanksgiving dinner in a meatloaf - turkey, stuffing, cranberries and sweet potatoes...YUM!

Old Fashioned Pineapple Maple Ham Loaf

Has yet another an old time Pittsburgh classic been forgotten? Does anyone in Pittsburgh even remember what ham loaf is anymore? Sure, there's still ham salad to be found at your local ‘Burgh grocery store, but ham loaf?

You’ve never heard of it?  Similar to meatloaf, but with the addition of ground ham (duh), the pre-packaged, raw mixture used to be found in meat cases all around town.  Ready to mix together with a few other ingredients, shape into the classic loaf shape and bake, it was a quick and easy meal.  Easy and delicious. 

When we lived in Maryland and a craving for a taste of home in the form of ham loaf crept upon us, there was no such convenient mixture to be found.  Anywhere.  I asked the guy at the Giant (no relation to Giant Eagle) meat counter if they carried hamloaf mix - he never heard of it.  

So I figured I'd make my own.  "Where would I find the ground ham then?" I asked the butcher.  He looked at me blankly, then headed to the back to find out if any of the other butchers had ever heard of ground ham.  Eventually another butcher emerged…and he was smiling. The remembered conversation went something like this:

"You're from Pittsburgh, right?"

"How did you know?"

"It's like chipped ham...purely a Pittsburgh thing."  

Apparently we Pittsburghers like our ham.  Chipped, chopped, in salad, with cabbage and in loaf form...we just plain like our ham.  

What about that ground ham?  Could he do it? My new friend, the transplanted Pittsburgh butcher, explained that salt corrodes the metal of a meat grinder and, as much as he'd like to oblige, he just couldn’t do it.  The difficulty was that the grinder would have to be completely disassembled, cleaned thoroughly and reassembled before being used for anything else.  Okay.  Next idea.

My newly purchased, very first Cuisinart food processor rode to the rescue.  I did what any other desperate-for-ham-loaf, former Pittsburgh homemaker would do...I bought a ham, baked it for Sunday dinner and with the leftovers ground my own ham (enough for ham salad, too).  That beautiful Cuisinart chopped up ham until it was fine enough to make the perfect ham loaf! It worked like a charm.

The very same recipe my mom had used forever was brought back into play.  I've changed the recipe a little over the years, but it's basically the same trusted recipe that nearly every Pittsburgh wife and mother always made.  

A mixture of ground ham, beef, pork and veal is mixed together with freshly torn bread (gluten-free in our house), eggs, milk, salt & pepper - that was about it.  Mum always decorated the tops of the loaves with pineapple rings, and if she was feeling fancy she perched a maraschino cherry right in the center of each ring - just like on an Easter ham.  Her final step was to glaze the loaves to make them even prettier.  

Of course, I do the very same thing.  And don't tell anyone, but my favorite part of a fresh-from-the-oven ham loaf is the caramelized, sweet and salty-from-the-ham pineapple rings!

You all know by now how thrifty I am and you also know I make everything stretch as far as possible.  Besides ham loaf, ham salad and ham sandwiches, I always make some kind of soup with the hambone.  I’ll be posting a recipe for Butternut Chipotle & Ham Chowder soon.  

If you’re longing for a taste from Pittsburgh’s culinary history, or if you’ve never tried a ham loaf at all, you've got the recipe now!

 Old Fashioned Pineapple Maple Ham Loaf

Ham loaf:

• 1 1/2 pounds meatloaf mix - combination of pork, beef and veal
• 1 1/2 pounds ham, ground
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup freshly torn bread crumbs (I use Rudi's Multi-grain gluten-free bread to make ours GF)
• pepper, to taste
• 16 ounces pineapple rings in juice, not syrup, reserve juice

Glaze:

•  1/4 cup reserved pineapple juice
• 1/4 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the meats, milk, 1/2 cup of the reserved pineapple juice, eggs, bread crumbs and pepper until well combined.  Shape into 2 loaves (cook both and wrap and freeze one for later).  Decorate tops with pineapple rings. (TIP: Put a sheet of parchment paper in the bottom of the roasting pan.   The ham loaves come easily out of the pan and cleanup is a snap!)
 

Bake at 350 until done (approx. 1 1/2 hours depending on your oven), basting occasionally with glaze several times during the last half hour.   Remove to a platter, let sit for 10 minutes, slice and serve.  

NOTE:  The Cuisinart?  Still humming away over 30 years later.  They don't make 'em like that anymore.