“Meat”loaf and Mashed Potatoes

Meatloaf often gets a bad rap. Kids groan when it lands on the dinner menu. Passersby in the cafeteria line eye it with trepidation. And, you know, I get it: A big block-like chunk of ground meat can look pretty unappetizing, especially if there is no sauce atop it. I was lucky enough to grow up in a household that slathered its meatloaf with a delicious ketchup-and-brown-sugar topping. My mom even put a combination of mustard, ketchup and Heinz 57 into the meat mixture, which lent a nice tanginess that made me happy to gobble it down – as long as there were mashed potatoes. This, my friends, is one of the food world’s best marriages. A forkful of potatoes, a piece of the loaf (Make sure you get some of that sauce, too!), it’s just … perfect. As part of my love affair with this meat-and-potatoes dish, I’ve spent many an hour trying to replicate the taste and texture of what I remember from my childhood, within the confines of my new vegetarian lifestyle, of course. Most meatless loaves make use of the heartiness and flavor of lentils. While my husband was a fan of this version, the taste and texture just didn’t measure up to my memories. Inspired by a pecan-mushroom burger I had come across, I next tried to use bulgur as the main grain. It was delicious. The texture was much closer to Mom’s, too. But the flavor was more in line with stuffing than “meat”loaf. It was time to get creative. From Mom, I stole the magical combination of mustard, ketchup and Heinz 57, plus the aforementioned topping. I kept the mushrooms from the pecan-mushroom burger but subbed in wheat germ and oat bran for the bulgur. (Both have a nice nutty flavor, so no need for the pecans.) Cooked brown rice played an assisting role in texture, and for binders, I mixed eggs with milk and a little vegetarian Worcestershire. As for the mashed potatoes, you can thank my dad for the recipe. He gave it to me years ago when I was living in California, and it has treated me right every time. It’s a simple mixture of potatoes, salt, pepper, butter and half-and-half. You can cut some calories by replacing the half-and-half and butter with sour cream and vegetable broth, if you so please. The result of all this hard work had me feeling like a kid again – and finally, I had a “meat”loaf I actually wanted to eat.