Annie’s Sweet Mama’s 1940’s Diner Meatloaf

Today, by popular demand, I bring you my sweet mama’s 1940’s diner meatloaf recipe. Y’all this is a pretty special event. My sweet mama doesn’t just give out recipes to all that ask. She is a cook by profession, and has perfected the art.

As most cooks are, she is very secretive about her recipes. However, for some reason, unknown to common man, or me, she has decided to share a few with the world.

 This recipe was first published publicly (and by publicly I mean somewhere other than her recipe box or mine,) in her church cookbook. Seeing as her church would not sell their cookbook to outsiders, the meatloaf recipe has, until this very moment, remained a very closely guarded secret.

This is the meal I ask my sweet mama to make me for Christmas, for workdays at her house, for any time I have an excuse to get her to make it. It is absolutely scrumptious.

Annie’s Sweet Mama’s 1940’s Diner Meatloaf

• 1 ½ pounds ground beef (or venison, turkey, etc.)
• ½ c soda cracker crumbs. (as in the dregs of the saltines bag) Place in Ziploc bag and smash with rolling pin. If you do not have a rolling pin, use a can of veggies or soda.
• ½ c milk
• 1 small onion finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt (I use kosher or sea salt. You may use whatever you have on hand.)
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 1 egg, lightly beaten (meaning, poke the yolk and stir it around a bit until it looks like you are about to make scrambled eggs.)

Mix the above ingredients. Find a shallow baking dish (I use a cake pan.) Spray the dish, then dump meat mixture into pan, forming it into a loaf. Smooth the top, then add a crease down the center of the loaf….sort of like a little valley, about 1 inch deep.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from oven, drain off grease.

While meat mixture is baking, mix the sauce together.

Sauce:

• 1/3 c dark brown sugar (or light brown if that is what you enjoy)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp yellow mustard

Once loaf has been drained, spread the sauce over the top of the loaf as a glaze. Be sure to get plenty in the little valley you made on the top of the meatloaf.

Throw the meatloaf back in the oven for 10 minutes, and voila! You are finished!

My sweet mama serves her meatloaf with mashed potatoes, green beans, and applesauce, with a side of chopped onion, but you serve it as you wish.

If you have leftovers, they make for great meatloaf sandwiches the next day.

I hope you enjoyed a little peek into my mama’s kitchen. We shall be visiting here again from time to time.

Enjoy your day, lovelies. As Democritus said, "Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul."

~Annie