Cooking with Less: "Quick" Turkey Meatloaf

As many of you know, I am the cook in our home. I try very hard to make my meals healthy, delicious and Peanut-friendly. She has no food allergies, and we feed her what we eat. She has no excuses not to eat her dinner. My dad's classic line, "You don't have to like it, you have to eat it" definitely applies. Still, I like dinner to go as smoothly as possible.

FYI: I am NOT a food photographer

When Peanut learned I was making this recipe tonight I heard her say, "Yes! I was hoping daddy would make that." So this one is tested and approved:

I have taken some liberties with the original Cooking Light recipe, which you can find here. They call it "quick." But it takes longer than they say, probably because I use turkey instead of ground sirloin since I don't eat red meat often. When I do, I want to make it count (like a nice juicy steak or a good bread-sopping stew.) To me, meatloaf isn't worth it. But this quick and easy recipe is definitely tasty and worth it:

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup chopped onions
• 3 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1 1/3 pound ground turkey
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 6 tablespoons ketchup, divided
• Cooking spray

Preparation

• Preheat oven to 400°.
• Combine first 9 ingredients in a large bowl; add 1/4 cup ketchup. Mix turkey mixture with hands just until combined. Shape beef mixture into a loaf on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 25 minutes. Brush top of meat loaf with remaining 2 tablespoons ketchup. Bake 10-15 additional minutes or until done. Slice loaf into 8 equal pieces.

Making it "Peanut-friendly:"

• I use regular onion instead of green because she "doesn't like the green stuff."
• Ground Turkey instead of beef. I use a whole package of turkey and adjust the remaining ingredients accordingly since a package is usually 1 1/3 lbs.
• Since turkey is drier than beef, I use real mustard to make it juicer.
• Sometimes I eliminate the ketchup and use Worchestershire sauce.  

• I serve it with steamed broccoli or a mesclun salad with apple and walnuts (oil & vinegar), and rice or homemade mashed potatoes.  

• Heat oven first, then form your the meatloaf. Saves time and sanity. While meatloaf cooks, make your sides. 

• Should all be done in 40-45 minutes.

I "eyeball" things a lot. I don't do a lot of measuring. I like to experiment and add a splash of this here and a splash of that there. So use this as a guideline. Also, because My Director is a salt fiend, I under-salt everything. Hope you and your family likes it as much as mine does. Let me know how it turns out!