Halloween Week Day 1

Good afternoon bloggers! Welcome to another entry of Everyday Meals. You all know who I am, so let's skip the introductions. We all know that Halloween in coming up here in the states. This excites me. I'm a true Halloween person. I enjoy dressing up and baking treats that corolate to the day. So, like I was saying before I made myself giddy for Halloween... I thought it would be awesome if we could do a week of Halloween Inspired dishes. We are going to be starting our week with a dish called Dead Man's Meatloaf. I want to give you all a little background on meatloaf first before we begin though. Meatloaf has European origins. Minced meat meatloaf was mentioned in the famous Roman Cookery collection, Apicius, as early as the 5th century. Meatloaf is a traditional Belgian, German and Dutch dish and is a cousin to the Italian meatball. The contemporary American meatloaf didn't appear in cookbooks until the late 19th century. Okay, now with a little history and background, let's go have some fun and make something witchy!

Dead Man's Meatloaf

You will need:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 2 eggs
• 2 pounds lean ground beef
• 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
• 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 1 pitted black olive, cut in half
• 1 cup ketchup

Ready?

1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. 
2. Cook and stir the garlic, onion, and celery in the hot butter until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 10 minutes. 
3. Transfer the vegetables to a mixing bowl and allow to cool. 
4. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. 
5. Place a sheet of aluminum foil onto a baking sheet and spray with nonstick cooking spray. 
6. Crack the eggs into the mixing bowl with the vegetables, and mix until the egg is smooth. 
7. Add the ground beef, Cajun seasoning, and bread crumbs. 
8. Mix with your hands until the mixture is evenly blended. 
9. Form the meat mixture into the shape of a stick man. 
10. Bake in the preheated oven until no longer pink in the center, about 35 minutes. 
11. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 160 degrees. 
12. Once done, place the olive halves onto the head for eyes, and pour the ketchup onto the abdomen. 
13. Return to oven, and bake 10 more minutes. 
14. Serve with a plastic knife impaled in the abdomen for effect.
15. Enjoy!

I hope you all get a kick out of this dish. If you have children, they will enjoy helping out with dish, for sure! Have a great day and I'll catch you all on the flip side. Happy blogging to all! <3