Meatloaf and Mac

Submitted by HoChiWaWa

My entry for ICSA 6, the dormroom budget battle.

Prep

Comfort food, just like mom made, sometimes its better than the finest cusine, and its sure as hell doesn't cost as much. I'll be making meatloaf in "meatloaf sauce" and some macaroni and cheese

• 3.80 Meat (mix of beef pork and veal, $3 a pound)
• 2.00 chedder cheese, 8 oz (woot, on sale)
• 0.80 onion
• 0.60 3 Tbs butter
• 0.50 milk
• 0.40 1/2 cup of crushed crackers
• 0.30 Tbs coarse mustard
• 0.25 1 egg
• 0.25 1.5 cups of pasta
• 0.20 Tbs olive oil
• 0.10 2 Tbs worcestershire sauce
• 0.10 3 Tbs ketchup
• 0.10 2 Tbs flour
• -----------------------------
• 9.40 Total

Both dishes require onion, so mince one onion up pretty small.

Meatloaf

Now take your meat (this is a packaged mix, straight hamburger works well too) and throw it in a bowl. Season it well and make a bit of a well, crack an egg in it and add your worcestershire.

Next about 1/2 a cup of crushed crackers, my family never tried that hard to get all the chunks out, but you can if you like. You do need at least half of it to be crushed pretty much to dust though.

and toss in some of your onion not 1/2 or more a cup or so, make sure you save some for your cheese sauce later, a single onion is well over what you need for both.

Mix it all up and form it into a loaf.

Next classic "meatloaf sauce" pretty much 3 parts ketchup 1 part coarse mustard and 1 part brown sugar.

Cover the loaf in your sauce.

This can wait in the fridge as we prepare our mac and cheese.

Macaroni

Get your cup and a half of pasta boiling, I use elbows, shells or a combination usually, today just elbows. Keep your eye on it while we continue, it should finish before we finish the cheese, drain it and toss it in your casseroll whenever its al dante.

Then sweat some of the minced onion in a tablespoon of olive oil.

once the onion has softened add your 3 tablespoons of butter, go ahead and add some pepper too, if you don't like black flecks use white pepper.

once that is melted add your 2 tablespoons of flour.

Let that cook for a bit to cook the flour and add your 2 cups of milk.

Bring it up to a simmer to thicken and remove from the heat to start adding your cheese a bit at a time letting the previous handful melt before adding another.

Taste your sauce, season as needed, and pour it over the noodles and mix it up.

Bake

Now both are ready for the oven.

Bake at 350 until the loaf is starting to firm and the macaroni is starting to brown, It should be around half an hour, but check the loaf especially because it goes from soft to firm pretty quickly.

let them rest for a bit before serving, some like ketchup with their meatloaf, I am one of these people.

So there you have it, is it fancy? not by a long shot. Is it good? You bet your ass it is, this can feed more than 2 people too.