Brilliant Meal Planning

Hello, my name is Shannon and yes I am a meal planner! Every week we sit down and decide what to make for dinners each night. Then we make a grocery list and head to the store. This planning has served us well over the years. Never have I come home from work and thought "what on earth will we have for dinner?"

This week though I did something a little different.
I planned two different meals that used similar vegetables and prepped and cooked the veggies all at once..literally brilliant!

Each week before we make our dinner list, I take stock of what's in the fridge. You know...to find the food that we have forgotten about and need to use. This year I am really making an effort to not waste food. So when I found limp celery and two wrinkly green pepper I thought we can make meatloaf and chicken (or turkey) potpie. (see note below)

This is my favourite meat loaf - it is really classic meat loaf with sauteed veggies in it! And it makes 2 loaves so you can cook once and eat twice or freeze one for another time.

Favourite Meat Loaf

• 2 tsp. vegetable oil 
• 1 medium diced onion
• 1 medium diced carrot
• 3 stalks diced celery
• 1 diced green pepper 
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup ketchup or chili sauce
• 2 pound ground beef (sometimes I use 1 pound of ground beef and ground pork)
• 2 egg, slightly beaten
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 F.
• In a frying pan heat vegetable oil over medium heat. Saute onions, carrots, celery and green pepper for 3-4 minutes. Add garlic and saute for another minute. 

• In a mixing bowl combine bread crumbs, ketchup, ground beef, eggs, black pepper, cumin, cayenne pepper and cooked vegetables.  

• Form into two loaves on a 9x13-inch pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until browned and internal temperature reaches 74 C (165 F). 

Note: I doubled the amounts of the onion, carrot, celery, green pepper and garlic that the meat loaf called for. Cooked all the veggies together and then removed half and placed in the fridge to use later this week when I make a chicken potpie.

Enjoy!
Shannon RD
Registered Dietitian