Meat loaf is a staple in our house. It cooks quickly, in about an hour and a half, so we can throw it in the oven after work and still eat by seven. The dish is economical and the leftovers make dynamite sandwiches.
Only one problem with meat loaf – grease. No matter how lean the beef, you always have fat sitting in the bottom of your pan, which you must pour off at some point, but there is still a lot of grease absorbed, making your meat loaf less than diet-friendly.
A few weeks ago, my daughter gave my wife Nancy a Rachel Ray meat loaf pan as a birthday present. I have since adopted it as my own. What a wonderful piece of kitchen equipment!
It’s a two-piece pan and the perforated meat basket simply lifts out when ready to serve as the grease drips through to the bottom pan while cooking. The apparatus is totally non-stick, dishwasher-safe and can handle oven temperatures to 500 degrees, though I’m not sure who would ever cook a meat loaf at 500.
We cooked our first meat loaf in the pan a few nights back and it was perfect. As I have mentioned, sometimes pots and appliances are as important, if not more so, than the recipes you employ. The Rachel Ray Meat Loaf Pan is a prime example.
Below is my simple recipe for meat loaf.
1-½ pounds ground chuck
2 eggs
2/3 cup Panko crumbs
½ cup finely diced onions
1/3 cup Ketchup (use in mixture)
Kosher salt and coarse pepper to taste
1 cup Ketchup (use on top)
Thoroughly mix the first six ingredients in a small bowl. If you ever wanted to know how it feels to squeeze a batch of hog brains, it’s sort of’ like this. Put the mixture in a Rachel Ray Meat Loaf pan and shape accordingly. Bake at 350 for 1 hour and 15 minutes, remove from oven, add last cup of Ketchup on top and cook an additional 15 minutes.
You will love how easy these pans are to clean up.