Easy Basic Mealoaf

Yesterday I made Chile Verde, and after trimming a big pork roast down to usable cubed pork, I ended up with probably close to a pound of trimmings.  We can't be letting that go to waste, so it's time to get the meat grinder out, grind it up, mix it with some ground beef (also from scraps that I had in the freezer waiting to be ground, and make a meatloaf.  Or you could of course just buy a pound each of ground pork and ground beef.

Notes:

I use cracker crumbs or bread crumbs in my meatloaf..  If you're keeping it ultra-low-carb, you could just omit them and probably be fine.  Same with the ketchup on the glaze, use a no sugar added ketchup if necessary.  I figure it's not not all that many carbs per serving, and it doesn't seem to bother me.  (see the cgm graph below.)

Of course, every person with diabetes is different, so ymmv.

If I had to guess, I'd estimate the fat/lean ratio of the beef was probably close to if you bought 85/15.  The pork I'm sure had a higher fat ratio..  If you are using just beef, I'd not go more than 80/20.

Ingredients: 

(As with many of the things I tend to cook, I'm guessing on a lot of the ingredients here, there's no science to this.)

For the meatloaf:

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1/2 medium onion, very finely diced
• 3 small carrots (or 2 med, or 1 large), very finely diced
• Peppers of your choice, very finely diced.
• I used 3 "mini sweet peppers" because that's what I had in the fridge...normally I'd use a yellow, orange, or red bell pepper (green bell peppers are gross), and 3 serrano peppers (because...spicy, and also, that's what I had.)
• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 8-10 crackers, smashed into crumbs.  (or bread crumbs would be fine.)  (optional)
• 1 egg
• 1 packet of onion soup mix.
• oil to sauté the vegetables.  I use avocado oil for most things.
• salt/pepper to taste (don't overdo the salt, the onion soup mix already has some in it.)
• 1 tbsp crushed red pepper.  (because...spicy)

For the glaze (these are estimates, also experiment here.  Add BBQ sauce?):

• 3 tbsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Directions:

• Heat a small amount of oil in the pan, and saute the onions, peppers, and carrots for a few minutes until softened.  Add the minced garlic and saute for another minute.

• Mix everything (except for the glaze ingredients) well.

• Cut a piece of parchment to the width of a loaf pan, to make a "sling", to help get the loaf out of the pan while retaining it's shape.

• Press the meatloaf into the pan, packing it well into the corners.

• Invert the meatloaf onto a foil-lined baking sheet.  (you could do it without the foil, but I wouldn't..  the foil saves you a lot of mess.

• Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for about an hour, until internet temp measures 150 degrees.
• Mix your glaze ingredients.  Remove the meatloaf from the oven and brush the glaze on.  Return to the oven until internal temp reaches 160 degrees and the glaze is set.  Slice and serve.

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We ate at 4:00.  I "peaked" at 124 at around 5:30.

That's about as good as you can ever hope for.

I'm leaving the cracker crumbs and ketchup in the recipe.