I was a cookin’ fool last night!

In preparation for leaving The Hubster alone while I’m off gallivanting with my PassPorter pals next week, I’ve been trying to do a little “advance cooking.”

I don’t mean ADVANCED… as in, highly-specialized, fancy-schmany, froo froo food. I don’t *do* that stuff.

I mean “cooked in advance and ready to be reheated” food. And, as of yesterday, my freezer was loaded with Zip-loc bags of home-made soup, stew, meatballs, and waffles. Today’s addition?

Gluten-free Vegeterific Meatloaf with homemade barbeque sauce.

To keep things gluten-free, I make my own breadcrumbs with leftover pieces of home-made GF bread: I cube it and lay it out on a cookie sheet in a 200-300 degree oven to dry out, tossing it once or twice over the roughly 40 minutes it takes to get really hard, dry cubes. Once cool, I run it through my food processor until I get rather course bread crumbs.

First things first — and while my hands are still clean — I prep my pan. I found that using loaf pans makes it too greasy and it inhibits the formation of a lovely, crunchy crust. So, I learned from watching America’s Test Kitchen (on PBS) to cover a cooling rack with foil and then pierce it with a knife until I’ve made 20 or so holes to allow the drippings to drain off. I put this on a cookie sheet and set it aside while I get the meatloaf mixture together.

If I’m going to cook the meatloaf right away, I preheat my oven to 400 degrees, but I could also wrap the meatloaf up and tuck it in the fridge for a few hours if I needed to — I’d just make sure to let it sit on the counter a little while before I go to cook it later.

To keep the meatloaf moist (and to boost the fiber and nutritional value), I grate veggies with my larger Microplane grater, removing the excess water by putting them in a tea towel and giving it a good squeeze. By doing that, I reduce this:

–> to this –>

I mix the grated veggies into the bread crumbs and toss in some salt, pepper, dried parsley, a dash of seasoning salt and any other spices that catch my fancy.

One semi-weird addition is some instant mashed potato flakes. I know, it’s weird, but it helps bind things together and adds a nice texture.

Then I add in the meats — I like to use ground pork, ground veal, and ground beef or turkey in equal amounts. (I had just found a buy-one-get-one sale on the pork sausage, so I used that for this batch.) Using my hands, I mix the meats gently together, making sure to keep it “fluffy” and not let it get too smooshed together while I incorporate it with the bread crumbs and spices. When I’m done, it feels uniformly dry and gritty, but still rather light.

I scramble up two eggs with a little milk and pour that in.

Again, with clean hands, I mix that in to the mixture until the formerly dry and gritty feeling goes away and it starts getting a little sticky.

Then I lift the whole mass onto the prepared pan and begin forming a low, wide loaf. (Alternately, I could’ve made several smaller loaves or even “meatball” type balls.)

I love how you can see the bits of carrot and celery intermingled with the meat!

I pop it into the middle rack of my oven and let it cook for at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Basically, as long as it takes for a nice crust to form on the outside and for the internal temperature to reach at least 160 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.

It rests on the stovetop for at least 10 minutes to set up… which is the perfect amount of time to make some spicy-sweet & tangy barbeque sauce, for which The Boy’s godmother’s mom has won awards.

I’ve learned to do this as a “dump and stir” type of recipe, so have no exact amounts. I mince one shallot and quickly cook it in a saucepan with a tiny bit of oil. I then add a big blop of ketchup — maybe it’s 1 1/2 cups or more. Then I splash in about a tablespoon each of Worcestershire and A1 sauce. I squeeze in about a 1/4 cup of mustard (yellow or coarse, depending on what I have and what I feel like.) Then I add 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar and some dried parsley. I combine everything together on the heat until the smells nearly knock me flat and I start drooling, about 5 minutes.

My family likes to round out this meal with sugar snap beans and mashed potatoes. Yummy scrummy… I can’t wait to eat my leftover lunch!

Trust me, it makes for great bentos later. (In fact, I cut the whole meatloaf into slabs and lay them flat on a Silpat-lined cookie sheet so they can freeze solid. Then I pop them into a Zip-loc bag and can pull together a bento in a matter of minutes!

As an additional item, I made some GF apple cobbler that I’ll post about another day.

All I can say is, the house smelled terrific when I was done and I felt assured that my guys wouldn’t starve when I was gone.