Comfort Food

Any time I'm going through a season of challenge I tend to obsessively cook a bunch of comfort food. I might have touched on this in other posts, but cooking takes me through the tough times and allows my senses an overload so my heart can take a little break.

The beginning of this year has been met with many challenges. Let me just say that during the toughest times my soul wants to cling to Scripture. This week I clutch the Psalms. They seem to be the only place to go for solace lately.

I originally started And Be Merry during the long college winters in Pennsylvania, far away from the comforts of home and the conveniences of family life and desiring to become devout in my religion and more developed as a home cook. I think I missed the faith boat back then, but 8 years later I am realizing that it didn't miss me.

These brutal first days of 2013 have demonstrated that life is short and and meant to be simply lived and constantly savored. That social networking doesn't fill any kind of void, as fun and convenient as Facebook's constant status updates are and Twitter's steady stream of the happenings in the lives of strangers is. That family--both blood and chosen-- is everything and to hold them close. That my fiance is my rock and most sharpening iron. And that fostering a Relationship far exceeds following a religion.

Here is an old standby that never fails to warm the hungry belly and a verse to soothe the hurting soul.

I started making meatloaf about 5 years ago and it was the first meal my then-boyfriend Jeremy and I made together.

I had always despised everything meatloaf stood for but had never actually tasted it. I thought it was the lazy man's meal, up there with crock pot dinners and frozen pizzas (shudder). In the fall of 2007 I was reading the paper (thank you, Penn State Readership Program) and a New York Times recipe made me realize that there was a better, more gourmet version than cafeteria slop, affectionately termed "mystery meat" during my childhood. My mom never made it. My grandmother did but I didn't dare touch it. But the New York Times changed me (and earned me a steady boyfriend).

I've been making this version for about 2 years and sometimes change it up slightly but mostly stick to the same adapted version from an old country cookbook I bought used in a train station long ago. It's an old recipe, covered in tears and stains and my various notes but I love it even more each time I make a loaf. I made it most recently during Hurricane Sandy while watching the wind howl by, safe in our new apartment, eating piece by piece while holding onto my pup. It's been in constant rotation since the holidays and never fails to comfort no matter life's circumstances.

Yankee Meatloaf
(recipe adapted from "Larousse Treasury of Country Cooking", 1968)

Prep time: 5 minutes
Baking time: 45 minutes
Cooling time: 15 minutes
Total time from start to finish: 65 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
1 cup organic whole milk
1 cup homemade seasoned bread crumbs
2 eggs
dash of Worcestershire sauce (I use Lea & Perrins.)
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup Heinz ketchup (has to be Heinz!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (My oven underheats...Your oven may need to be turned down to 325 as the original recipe suggests.)

2. Combine the ground beef, milk, bread crumbs, eggs, Worcestershire and ground pepper and mix with hands. Shape into a loaf and place in a greased baking pan. Spread Heinz ketchup over top.

3. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Serves 4 (Or in our case, serves 2 in about one hour flat.)

Like I said, I make this differently each time but this is my favorite version. The cookbook recipe is much different, adding in onion and green pepper, lots of herbs and seasonings, tabasco sauce... so I guess you can say mine is just a very basic meatloaf, but it's the recipe I base it off of.

This version is deliciously moist. Sometimes I add a pat of butter as the cookbook suggests, and instead of Heinz cover with sliced tomatoes then bake...but the ketchup to me really kicks the "comfort" part of comfort food up a few notches. I'm eating a slice right now. Yum. Enjoy.

Shannon


"My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26