How Do You Make Your Meatloaf?

Meatloaf is one of those great meat-based, budget entrees. It uses some of the cheaper cuts of meat and can be stretched with fillers like grains and veggies/aromatics. One pound of ground meat can be stretched to feed 5 or 6 people. While many of us use ground beef, ground game meat or farmed poultry or pork can also be used. Some recipes call for a mix of ground pork and ground beef in the same loaf. Vegetarian recipes might not be exactly "meat"loaf, but a bean-based loaf is also a possibility. My point? Meatloaf is budget-friendly and versatile.

As I was preparing a meatloaf for my family last night, I was thinking about all of the variations that folks do when making their meatloaves. My mother always used a slice or two of bread soaked in milk added to onions, herbs, salt and pepper, an egg, and ground beef. She spread the top of the meatloaf with ketchup before baking, and the loaf was baked in a bread pan.

My own meatloaf is a bit more basic. I soak a torn slice of bread in water, add diced onion and minced garlic, plus whatever herbs sound good (usually thyme, oregano, and rosemary) with the ground beef. If I feel like adding a bit of vegetable to the loaf, I add a spoonful of tomato paste or pumpkin puree to the mixture. Overall, my own meatloaf is pretty basic -- no egg, no glaze or topping. But it does taste meaty, and that's what I like. I bake mine formed into a loaf on a baking sheet with raised edges. I like how the sides get a bit crispy as well as the top when baked on a sheet. I sometimes make a gravy with the drippings and lots of aromatics. This is particularly tasty when I serve mashed potatoes on the side. Mmmm -- meatloaf and potatoes covered in gravy.

So, how about you? What do you add to your meatloaf? Do you add oats, bread crumbs, cracker crumbs, or other grains? Do you use an egg in your loaf? What flavorings do you use? And do you like to spread the top with a glaze of some sort, like ketchup? Do you bake yours in a bread pan (loaf-shaped) or do you form it on a baking sheet? Do you ever make a gravy with the drippings? And why do you choose what you do?

I like hearing how others do basic things like making meatloaf, as I sometimes get ideas and inspiration to try something different. Share in the comments how you make your meatloaf?

Where Does Goodwill Stuff Go if It Doesn't Sell in the Stores?

I've talked about this before, but I wanted to bring it up again this week. 

If you're not aware (from another country, maybe), Goodwill Thrift stores sell donated clothing and household goods. They receive so much merchandise every week that they can't possibly keep up in sales to match the volume of what is donated.

The stores color-code the price tags to indicate when donations were put out to sell and routinely cull the oldest-coded, unsold merchandise, to be sold at a steep discount elsewhere. All of this stuff goes to Goodwill Outlet stores.

As you can imagine, a lot of junk winds up in the outlet. But also, a lot of good stuff slips through without being sold in the main stores and ends up in the Outlet.

Instead of repricing each of these many, many items (which the labor to do so would drive up the price to the consumer), the Outlet sells everything except furniture by weight, with shoes, electronics, and hard goods less per pound and textiles slightly more. Clothing/textiles at our Goodwill Outlet is currently $1.79 per pound. The individual Outlet stores set their own price per pound, but the price per pound for all items ranges between $1 and $2 per pound across the country.

In case you haven't figure this out yet, buying high-value, but very lightweight items can be a steal. In 2019, I found a Calvin Klein summer dress that was lightweight. It was in excellent condition -- no stains, holes, or obvious wear. The price back then (even less per pound in 2019) was around 75 cents.

Clothing is not on racks, and most small hard items are not on shelves. Most everything is in large rolling bins. The employees roll out new bins periodically, removing the old ones to the back room. Shoppers descend on the "new" bins and begin digging through the piles. I'm not a huge fan of digging through bins, but my two daughters absolutely love to go to the Outlet. I sometimes think that they love a great bargain more than I do. 

Saturday morning they got up and out to the Outlet when they first opened. And they brought me home a "goodie."

They found this beautiful autumnal Jones New York silk scarf -- great colors and pattern to go with my fall and winter wardrobe. And yes, I wear scarves often! The price for this lovely scarf? About 25 cents! It needs a good pressing, but otherwise looks beautiful.

There are no dressing rooms and no mirrors at the Goodwill Outlet near me. I presume that is just how these outlet stores are. We deal with this, when it comes to clothing, by wearing leggings and slim-fitting tees when shopping at the Outlet, so we can pull clothing on over what we're wearing. To "see" how they look on us, we ask a family member to use our phones to take pictures from all angles. This works for us.

Anyway, that's where Goodwill merch goes when it doesn't sell in their regular stores.