I saw a recipe on the Today website that I've been wanting to try out. Roasted butternut squash with bacon! I thawed about 3 lbs of ground beef in the microwave and found a delicious looking meatloaf recipe from PaleoSpirit.
I started the butternut squash. I peeled and cubed a medium sized squash and put it into a rectangular Pyrex dish while the oven preheated to 400. I cut about 6 pieces of bacon into 1/2 inch pieces and mostly spread them out. They were still pretty clumpy as I mixed a good couple of glugs of olive oil in. I had started dinner late and the kids will be getting restless soon. I ground some sea salt and some pepper, gave a quick mix, and threw the dish in the oven while I started the meatloaf.
I altered the meatloaf recipe to match what I had on hand. In a mixing bowl I threw:
- 1 onion, diced and fried in bacon grease
- 3 carrots, grated
- 4 eggs, whisked
- 3/4 red bell pepper, diced
- 3 lbs ground beef
- sea salt
- pepper
- garlic powder
- thyme
- nutmeg
- 1/3 cup of gluten-free flour mix (mostly almond flour, I'll post a link later)
I checked the butternut squash and gave it a stir. The bacon did not yet look crisp. I lowered the temperature to 375 and put the muffin trays on the lower rack. I set the timer for 30 minutes.
Everything looked great. I took one muffin tray out, but some of the hamburger grease from the second tray must have spilled because our house quickly filled with smoke.
2 out of 3 boys liked the meatloaf (1 never eats dinner, so this is not a judgement on the recipe at all).
The butternut squash was more mixed. The adults and 1 boy liked it, 1 said "medium good", and 1 gagged on his one trial piece.
All in all, I would try both recipes again. I would be more careful about removing the mini-meatloaf and save 15 minutes of fire alarm fanning and winter windows being open.
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