Fancy Meatloaf

Ingredients (not including "fancy"  relish on top...see below for that)

2 lbs ground beef

3/4 old-fashioned oats

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 c. ketchup

1/4 c. milk

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1/2 cup ketchup

3 T. brown sugar

2 tsp. mustard

Combine first 8 ingredients in a large bowl. Shape into 2 loafs (or divide among muffin tins). Bake at 350 for 40 minutes (or 15 minutes for muffin tins). Combine 1/2 cup ketchup, sugar, and mustard. Spoon over meatloaf. Serves 6.

To make it more "fancy" meatloaf, you can make the relish below and put it on top:

Relish:

1 onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced 

2 bay leaves

1 red pepper, diced

1 (14oz) can petite diced tomatoes, drained

1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley (or 1 1/2 T. dried)

12 oz ketchup

1 T. Worcestershire sauce

salt and pepper to taste

4 slices of bacon

Saute onion, garlic, and bay leaves in olive oil over medium heat. Add bell pepper and saute till soft. Add tomatoes. Stir in parsley, ketchup, Worcestershire and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes; then remove from heat.

When making meatloaf, add 1 1/2 cups of relish to meat mixture. Follow the rest of the meatloaf directions above. After forming 2 logs and placing them on the cookie sheet, coat the top of each meatloaf with 1/2 cup relish. Lay bacon across the top lengthwise.

When done cooking, pull the meatloaf out from the oven and allow it to rest 5 minutes before slicing. Serve with extra relish on the side.

My notes: I think I doubled this recipe and it made A LOT (enough for 4 good sized logs). If you double it, keep in mind that you may not necessarily need to double ALL the ingredients...I did and it felt like it was falling apart really easily. After making it with the bacon, I don't really think the bacon is necessary. Neither is adding the relish directly to the meatloaf mixture before cooking (although it's fine if you want to). Having it on top (or on the side) is good enough in my opinion.