Squash Meatloaf

Do you like meatloaf? I LOVE meatloaf. Since I was a little girl, I've loved cutting into a yummy, ketchup-laden loaf of baked meat. From bite one, when that deliciousness practically melted in my mouth, I've been hooked. I've had meatloaf everywhere. Cracker Barrel, various family members, other random restaurants... if meatloaf is on the menu, I'm most likely ordering it.

Out of all those meatloafs, I still like my mom's best. Isn't that how it usually is? Nobody can cook like your mama.

When I "grew up" a few years ago, I asked my mom for a cookbook of all her recipes for my birthday. She came through for me (and my sisters, because since my birthday is so close to Christmas, she just made them for all of us). She painstakingly wrote all her delicious recipes (there are tons) onto 4-by-6 index cards. She got photo albums and slipped the cards in. Perhaps my favorite part of the book is the little note she wrote me inside. I'll have this cookbook forever. It's destined to be my favorite.

Of course, one of my reasons for asking for it was to get a couple of those family favorites written down - one of which was her meatloaf recipe. I remember sitting at the dinner table, eating meatloaf with her homemade mashed potatoes, green beans and biscuits. Dinner in our family was fantastic, but that was especially wonderful for a little girl in love with ketchup. I got that meatloaf recipe and it's still my favorite.

A close second? My squash meatloaf. It's basically the same as Mama's meatloaf recipe, but instead of celery, I used celery salt and added squash. I'm sneaky like that. My family has NO CLUE I'm pushing veggies on them this summer in the form of pureed squash and other such things in their regular foods and smoothies.

The ingredients:
1 pound hamburger meat
3 or 4 slices of bread
1 small can evaporated milk
1 tsp. celery salt
3 tbsp. mustard
1/4 c. ketchup
1 package of onion soup mix
1/3 c. pickle cubes (I processed my fridge pickles from here)
1/2 c. pureed squash (go here)
1 egg

First, tear the bread up into small squares (really, just tear it up) and put it in a small bowl with enough evaporated milk to soak into the bread. Set aside.

Then, the gross part. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl WITH YOUR HANDS. Yuck. It's totally disgusting, but the BEST way to mix meatloaf. Just throw it all in the bowl, and mix mix mix. Be sure to take off your rings if you wear them, because your hands are gonna get messy.

Add in the soaked bread and mix some more. Once it's in there really good (you shouldn't be able to see much of the bread at this point, it should look like a big ol' nasty bit of meat), throw it in a 1 quart glass dish. Shape it into a loaf, or just pat it down like I did mine.

Bake it in the oven at 350 for roughly 1 hour, until the top is browned and crispy (I like mine crispy, but if you don't, just bake it until it's brown). Take it out and pour any grease off the top (if you use lower fat content burger meat, this won't be an issue). Ice it with ketchup and bake it five more minutes and you're done!

My hubby isn't a fan of ketchup like I am, so he asks me to not ketchup his half. Don't tell him I add ketchup to the whole thing. :)