Poor Man's Roast Beef

Sunday night and I have a meatloaf in the oven. It seems I've been cooking this little meatloaf for hours but maybe I'm just anxious for one of my favorite cuts of meat. Does meatloaf even count as a “cut” of meat? I'm going to count meatloaf as such. I was kind of surprised I had to go back and check to see how many meatloaf references I have and I have more than I thought. Some have to do that a lot now at 2500 posts I've just about covered everything—but still hopefully I can do fresh twists on all items.

I call meatloaf the poor man's roast beef. I understand there are some people who do not like meatloaf which I find hard to comprehend. Friday was “food box” day. That is when the good bank delivers boxes of food and bread to qualified residents here at Plymouth View. I do not qualify for a box but I go down every food box day just to enjoy the excitement of the seniors getting the food boxes. Actually, I don't know how many the seniors actually like getting food boxes I just like the event. The food bank always delivers way too much bread so I always grab a loaf or two if it's bread that I can deal with. Truth is I rarely take any bread, just because of the calorie content. However this week all they had was white hamburger buns and I figured it would be good to have some white bread to use for meatloaf. I'm due to put together a meatloaf… Soon. Hamburger, I guess is a cut of meat that is often relegated to folks of low income. I guess I understand that. I have written about how the frequency of hamburger based dinners at our home tended to increase as we consumed the poor beef Steer flextime who had been sacrificed for our family's freezer. All the white butcher paper wrapped bricks of protein be they ribs, steaks or roasts had been systematically devoured. Even though we regularly, every Friday night, had hamburgers we still had blocks of one-pound packages left which of course turned into spaghetti sauce, sloppy Joe's and my favorite, meatloaf.

I am loving the smell that is filling my apartment at this writing. The meatloaf I cooked today from its frozen state in the refrigerator. I've never done this before, cooked a frozen piece of meat straight from the freezer but I read up on the concept and found I just have to have an inner heat of 160°F. This meatloaf is a mini-meatloaf, I picked up a few weeks ago that the market and the “quick sale” bin. I was a little reticent because who can make a better meatloaf then I? But I figured at three bucks for complete, granted,small meatloaf how can I go wrong? And if I didn't get the meatloaf I would experience buyers remorse. I bought it and stuck it in the freezer.

I actually pulled the steak from the freezer when I took out the frozen meatloaf. I washed my usual Sunday load of clothes today and didn't feel up to destroying the kitchen any further than I have this weekend especially after the frijoles event. The meatloaf one out, I want to use the package before became so freezer burned the meatloaf would be non-usable. I'm going to throw a potato into the microwave, pull out what's left of my ketchup and have a great little poor man's roast for dinner… Bon appétit.