It’s fall. Shoulder season. Trying to figure out the exercise routine with the impending cold weather. Leaves need raking. Garage needs cleaning. Mostly, the couch needs more sitting. Instead of a couch potato, I feel meat loafy. Thus, off to the store to buy the ingredients below.  DISCLAIMER: I’m not great at measurements. I usually just add my ingredients by smell and instinct.  I will try my best to include an approximation.

-1 pound of lean (93%) ground beef (I prefer grass-fed, but any will do)
-1 pound of ground pork
-Bread crumbs (panko style is just fine) 1/2 cup -ish
-Marsala cooking wine 1//4 cup
-Soy Sauce (low sodium) 1/4 cup
-1 leak, chopped
-1 egg
-Thyme – who knows, heavy sprinkle or two. Enough to add flavor
-Ground black pepper

Yup, mix it all up in a bowl. Go ahead, get in there with your hands like it’s clay time in kindergarten. Once integrated, you should be able to predominantly smell the soy sauce and marsala. If not, add a little more – it’s like clay slurry. I used to have an art teacher in junior high that said, “Okay class, let’s slap some slurry on there.”  I usually roll this out to one-inch think and bake it in a 9X13 pan at 350 – about 40 minutes, but check it at 30 min, because I don’t know your oven. I bake it all the way through, no pink in the middle. I sometimes make a little gravy with the juices – damn that’s good.  Hopefully the pictures below will help you through it.

In the end, my meat loaf made me feel less meat loafy. I guess that was the goal.

One inch thick

Couldn’t help myself…