A Plague on Your House!

First of all, let me start by acknowledging that I know that I have misquoted Shakespeare in the title of this post.  But "A plague on both your houses!" doesn't make sense because, in this case, it was only our house that had the plague.  So there.  Color me Mercutio.

Second, let me explain.  This weekend we were forced to depart from the pantry raid.  It was not by choice, but by germs, when at 4am on Saturday morning I was hit by a Mack truck called the stomach flu.  I sucked it up until about 10AM when I called no joy, and prayed to the porcelain god for forgiveness from all my food related sins.  As I was "in prayer" Steve also came down with the virus.  Off the kids went to their grandparents' houses, and Steve and I wallowed in self pity for the rest of the night.  We woke up the next morning feeling weak, but much better.  Our stomachs, while having forgiven us, will never, it seems, forget.

The next night we were starving, and for whatever reason I was craving meatloaf, so I turned to my dad's recipe, which is the best ever!  Here's the recipe:

My Dad's Meatloaf:
Ingredients:
1-1.5 lbs ground beef
1 beaten egg
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 onion chopped
3 tbsp. vinegar
3 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. mustard
2 tbsp. worcheshire sauce
1/2 cup water.

Mix the ground beef, the egg, the breadcrumbs, the onion and half the tomato sauce together.  Add 1 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. pepper.  In a small bowl, wisk together the rest of the tomato sauce, the vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, worcheshire sauce and water. Knead half the tomato sauce-vinegar mixture into the meatloaf.  Put meat mixture in a loaf pan, cover with remaining sauce mixture.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1.5 hours.

It is to die for!  This is no dry meatloaf! It's tangy, ketchupy, sweet, vinegary deliciousness!  I don't even really like meatloaf, and I love this version.  I served it with sauteed asparagus, and this recipe for Paula Deen's garlic mashed potatoes. Believe it or not, we actually had everything for the dinner in the house, so it cost us nothing! 

Over the course of our stomach plague, I lost 4 pounds from "praying."  Typically this is what happens when you don't eat anything but a string cheese and half a Gatorade for 2 days, but I'm sure that our Sunday dinner put back on a little weight, but it was well worth it!

Tomorrow I'll post the meal plans for the week (it's starting to get ugly when all that's in your pantry is a can of mexicorn, some ramen, tomato soup and Enfamil).  In the meantime, we'll be praying (to Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Mother Earth, Shiva, Tom Cruise & the Scientologists) that the kids stay healthy this week!

See you tomorrow!