Recipe shocker: Zucchini adds moisture, flavor to meatloaf
Zucchini's about to burst out of gardens all over the place. If you're growing zucchini, what're you gonna do with it all?
Over the years I've shared several zucchini recipes to help you use up some of your rapidly multiplying and quickly maturing zucchini and summer squash.
One recipe showed you how to use a mandolin to create spaghetti-like zucchini strands to substitute for pasta and significantly reduce carbs and calories when paired with my homemade Bolognese sauce.
Last year's Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread was a huge winner. Folks who made it couldn't stop talking about it.
You're going to find it hard to believe what I'm going to suggest you do with zucchini this year: meatloaf.
Really.
Meatloaf has been on my top-five favorite comfort foods list ever since I understood what a comfort food was. (Mac and cheese tops that list, followed closely by tuna noodle casserole, scratch-made chocolate pudding and grilled cheese sandwiches).
My meatloaf story begins with a late spring retreat. We were in charge of a Saturday dinner for 23 people. Over the past few years, spiral-sliced ham had been that dinner's protein centerpiece.
At first I thought, instead of ham, it might be fun and retro to make Ann Landers' world-famous meatloaf first appearing in her advice column 56 years ago. Landers use of a dried onion soup mix containing partially hydrogenated soybean oil (trans fats) and monosodium glutamate (you know it as MSG), and some other chemicals I didn't recognize sent that idea into a tailspin.
Perhaps the past should stay there.
I headed to one my own cookbooks and pulled out my recipe for an all-beef meatloaf that used unsweetened, drained applesauce to maintain moisture, that recipe was glued together with eggs and bread crumbs and was loaded with reduced-fat cheddar cheese.
We omitted the cheese because some folks had dairy issues and made four large meatloaf's, thinking there might be some left over to be scarfed-up on a late-night meatloaf sandwich raid.
Forty-five minutes into the baking the meatloaf's aroma from the onions and the tomato ketchup topping got folks wandering into the kitchen eager to see what they were having for dinner. In no time we had just a stub of one meatloaf remaining. Goodbye late-night meatloaf sandwiches.
After being home for a week, I wanted to make another meatloaf. This time, though, because I stay away from wheat as much as possible, I wanted to make this meatloaf without the bread crumbs used on the retreat.
In addition, I had some fresh zucchini that had been parked in my refrigerator yearning to be used; thinking that zucchini would add some additional moisture to my lean loaf. I also decided to add minced fresh garlic, because its flavor marries so well with zucchini.
How did it turn out? Sensational.
It may not be as good as the one Ann Landers shared more than 50 years ago, but I'll bet folks will head to your kitchen because it smells so good and they won't be disappointed with the flavor either. Give it a try.
• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write him at don@theleanwizard.com.