Smoked meatloaf and a story...

minniemoh

A couple of months ago, I was at a BBQ joint that served smoked meatloaf. Some of my group was raving about how good the meatloaf was. I may have been a bit "overserved" (if you know what I mean) and I started popping off about how I could make a better meatloaf than that. Long story short, one of the guys in the group was my national sales manager. A few weeks later, he came to town to travel with me. As my wife and I always do, we invited him over for dinner. Of course, he said " how about some of your meatloaf!" I totally missed the mark that night! Even though I thought it sucked, he asked for the recipe. He made it for some friends last week. I hope his turned out better than what I served him. (I haven't hear back yet.)

Good news is this one turned out... Too bad I couldn't get it right when he was here. One of these days I'll learn to keep my mouth shut.

Sardonicus

=D>  Looks perfect!  =D>

SGH

Looks like a winner to me. I would devour it my friend

grege345

What went wrong with the first one?

minniemoh

Thanks @sardonicus and @SGH!

@grege345 - when my sales manager was here, I had to sub a different kind of italian sausage because I was out of my favorite kind, I had the wrong crackers, and my temp got too high so I didn't get any smoke on the one I made for him. It wasn't the first one I made but definitely was a low as far as egged meatloaf for me. Last night I had the right ingredients and the right smoke for my taste.

tulocay

Looks great. Can you share the recipe?

jcaspary

Looks awesome to me. Good job.

VC_Outlaw

Your meatloaf looks great, and it was probably very good the previous time. If your a passionate person there will always be times when you go a little too far (which I struggle with myself) but I will take passionate over polite everyday. Thanks for the story

minniemoh

Thanks folks - I appreciate the compliments.

@tulocay

This is how I made it last night. It's a little bit of a variation on what I've done in the past.

2 lbs ground beef

1 lb ground italian sausage

2/3 c chopped red or yellow pepper

2/3 c chopped green or orange pepper

1 chopped jalapeno - no seeds (optional)

1 c chopped onion

3 cloves fresh garlic (minced)

4 strips bacon 

2 eggs

1 c crushed crackers

Your favorite BBQ rub for beef

Fry bacon then use a little bit of the bacon grease to sauté the veggies until tender. Add the garlic for only the last couple of minutes of the sauté. Mix crumbled bacon in with the veggies.

Mix everything together and gently press into a plastic wrap lined loaf pan - don't make it into a meat brick! Then season with Bad Byron's Butt Rub.

Dump/flip onto a cooking tray and cook indirect at 375-400 until 160 internal. I use a couple of small pieces of oak for smoke. I sauce with about 5 minutes to finish.

RiverRatSkier

Which BBQ joint were you mouthing off at?

Meat loaf looks good. 

Lit

Man that looks great. I want meatloaf now may have to work from home this afternoon.

theyolksonyou

I'm not a meatloaf fan, SWMBO love it. This looks like something I may like. I've never had smoked or with italian sausage. Gonna give this a try. Bookmarked. Thanks

shtgunal3

I made meatloaf last night too. Yours looks great.

SWVABeanCounter

Great looking meatloaf.  Good story too.  I've used all kinds of meat in meatloaf, but never Italian sausage.  Definitely on the menu soon.  thanks for sharing.

Mickey

Big meatloaf fan. Yours looks good

Zmokin

For my meatloaf, I played around with fillers and settled on oatmeal.  I even tried crushed cheerios once.
Someone a long time ago, told me to try adding frozen spinach as a source of moisture, tried it, liked it, so I kept that idea in my recipe.
My mom always used canned condensed tomato soup for the sauce on top, so that is what I've always used.
Sometimes I grate cheese into.  I use nutmeg and a little curry to give it a different spin.

I haven't tried smoking one yet, might have to do that the next time I make meatloaf.  I also might go for a small enough loaf that I can wrap a bacon weave around it.