Today’s recipe is for a traditional meatloaf, using ground lamb as the meat. Amazingly, I had never made a meatloaf before, so I read through quite a few different meatloaf recipes from my 1940s cookbooks before finally cobbling this one together. It turned out great and we absolutely snarfed it up!
And oh! Speaking of meatloaf, I must tell you a story. *Snicker.* 😉 When I was about 6 years old, I received a pet turtle as a gift from my sister. I guess turtles eat canned dogfood — or at least mine did — so we bought canned dogfood for Nutley and kept it in a Tupperware container in the fridge. One evening around this time, my mom made a meatloaf for dinner. After dinner, the leftovers were put into a Tupperware container, into the fridge. (Can you see where this is going?)
The next day, my dad ate his usual lunch of leftovers from the fridge. And later that same day, my mom and I went to the fridge to get out Nutley’s dogfood. Curiously, though, the dogfood was gone…but last night’s meatloaf was still there.
OH NO.
Um, dad? What did you have for lunch??
“Meatloaf.”
Are you sure????
Yes, he actually really did eat the dogfood for lunch, thinking the whole time that it was leftover meatloaf. That story has become something of a legend in our family; I’m afraid he’ll never live that one down! 😉
Anyway, here’s the recipe:
Italian-Style Lamb Meatloaf
1 ½ lbs (approx) ground lamb
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
1 egg, beaten
1 ½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
3 Tbsp parmesan cheese
8 oz spaghetti sauce
1 cup finely chopped bread (or dry breadcrumbs). (I use two slices of Ezekial 4:9 Sprouted Grain sandwich bread.)
1 ½ tsp Italian Seasoning
Mix all ingredients together, spread into a loaf pan, and bake at 350* for about 1 to 1 ½ hours, or until the top is nicely browned and/or the internal temperature measures about 160F.
Since this delicious, hearty dish will feed a family for not much more than the cost of the ground lamb (I get mine in the freezer section of my health food store), it’s actually pretty frugal…and is therefore part of Pennywise Platter Thursday over at The Nourishing Gourmet.
LOL! That is so funny! And the recipe looks delicious; if only my husband liked meatloaf!
That dogfood story is too much! Thanks for being part of the carnival, this looks delish! I also wanted to let you know that since I am using a “Mr. Linky” now, you can insert your link in yourself instead of having to wait around for me to do it. 🙂 Let me know if you have any issues with it!
Wow, I’d never thought of using ground lamb for meatloaf. I should have, but I didn’t! Sounds yummy! Thanks for stopping by my blog as well. 🙂 I look forward to reading yours more often!
Hi Alison!
Yeah, lamb is really nice in meatloaf. You do have to like the taste of lamb, though (it used to be too strong a taste for me, but I like it now). Another idea is to do half lamb / half beef or turkey.
Take care!
I love lamb! This looks delicious – and the dog food story – oh, my! Glad you included that. 🙂
I like the recipe but you can’t feed this to a cat. the garlic is toxic – causes Heinz body anemia. you need to read http://holisticat.com/cat-herbs.html
Hi Carolyn,
This recipe is not for cat food. It’s for human consumption 🙂
Interesting about garlic though!