Kitchen Adventures: Inaugural Meat Loaf

No, that’s not a mirage; a recipe was in fact followed, for Eats Meats West has actually never put together a loaf of meat! Perhaps not surprisingly, Epicurious lists this recipe in a group of simple healthy meals.  I was a bit skeptical about the side dish (roasted quartered tomatoes and shallots) since they mostly seem to just be along for the ride, but they were actually a great compliment.  Tomato [ketchup] is of course a traditional accompaniment to meat loaf, and I liked how this preparation didn’t try to fiddle with the basic flavor qualities of the fruit.  That’s a nice way of saying the fridge was dangerously low on ketchup, but in all seriousness the added bonus of using shallots and tomatoes in a deep roasting pan (the recipe calls for shallow for some odd reason) is that when it comes to the deglazing those brown bits left over aren’t wasted.  I’m not sure why the author of this recipe instructs the home chef to deglaze with water, and not wine or even stock for that matter.  I feel like that would be too thin.  Plus, surely, you would pair this dinner with a dry red wine (which we did).  And if you’re wondering where we found the ground bison, so were we!  Luckily, Staubitz carries bison burgers in its freezer of horrors.