Spiced Pork & Vegetable Meatloaf

Spiced Pork & Vegetable Meatloaf.

On answering the ‘What’s for Dinner?’ question when my kids returned home starving I was surprised with their reaction when I said Meatloaf. I had expecting ‘yeuch’ or ‘that sounds disgusting’ but instead it was ‘oh meatloaf, is that the American thing?’ and I said yes, because it does seem to be a very American thing.

I don’t remember my mother ever making it and in fact I don’t think I’ve ever had it before myself. I wanted to use pork mince and I had been thinking meatballs but they take such a long time to roll into balls and are tricky to cook through to the middle without overdoing the outside and have to be tended to whereas meatloaf is a much easier option. I based this meatloaf dish on a nutroast that I had made some time back {link} and decided to really healthy it up with lots of vegetables.

It is tasty, it is easy, it’s not a ‘wow’ dish but being simple and extremely economical it’s a perfect midweek dinner.

I’ve called it meatloaf but it’s mostly vegetables so as well as being speedy and cheap it’s a good healthy option. Ticking lots of boxes with this one.

A major plus is that with the aid of a food-processor it takes about 5 minutes to prepare and then cooks away happily unobserved in the oven for 1 hour so that you can do other things.

Accompaniments were wholegrain rice and cannellini beans cooked with garlic, onion, herbes de provence and a tin of plum tomatoes.

Note: I highly recommend the use of a food-processor with a chopping blade and a grater blade for speedy preparation of ingredients.

Spiced Pork & Vegetable Meatloaf:

Serves 6 generously.

You will need:
2 slices bread (wholegrain preferable)
2 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
4 mushrooms
1 red pepper
500g pork mince
3 medium carrots
50g pumpkin seeds
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp herbes de provence
1 egg
A little oil
Method:
Preheat the fan oven to 170C
Use a food processor to blitz the bread into breadcrumbs and place them in a large bowl.
Next chop the onion and garlic together in the food processor and add to the breadcrumbs.
Bltz the mushrooms and add to the bowl { – don’t mulch, keep bitey!}
Bltiz the red pepper and toss in on top of the other ingredients followed by the pork mince.
Change the blade on the food processor to a grating blade and then peel and grate the carrots and add to the pork mince mixture followed by the pumpkin seeds, chilli flakes, herbes de provence and 1 beaten egg.
Use your hands to get stuck in and mix the ingredients so that all are well distributed.
Use a piece of paper-towel to grease the sides and base of a loaf-tin with a little oil and then fill it with the meatloaf mixture.
Cook in the preheated oven for 1 hour.
Great with wholegrain rice and cannellini beans as described above.
Enjoy!
‘Til next time, Sheila