Monster Meatloaf for Halloween

Halloween 2016

This has quickly become our Halloween dinner tradition. You can use any meatloaf recipe you wish, but make it slightly more soft to make it easier to sculpt. You can do this by adding a bit more liquid in the form of an extra egg or additional ketchup or barbecue sauce or even milk. I used this recipe this year, from Fabulessly Frugal but the kids thought the texture was too soft, so I will add a bit less barbecue sauce or egg next year.

Basic BBQ Meatloaf Recipe

3/4 cup BBQ Sauce
1 pound of ground Beef/Turkey
1/2 cup Italian flavored bread crumbs
1 Egg
Salt & Pepper

Or, maybe I will try this recipe from The Food Network (which I slightly modified): 

Brown Sugar Ketchup Glaze

1/4 cup ketchup or chili sauce
2 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cider or white vinegar

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl; set aside.

Meatloaf

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black paper
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons Worchestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce
• 1/2 up milk, buttermilk or low-fat plain yogurt
• 2 pounds meat-loaf mix (2 parts ground chuck, 1 part ground veal, 1 part ground pork)
• 2/3 cups crushed saltine crackers (about 16) or quick oatmeal or 1 1/3 cups fresh bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup minced parsley
• 6 ounces bacon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Heat oil in a medium skillet. Add onion and garlic, saute until softened, about 5 minutes; set aside to cool.

Mix eggs with thyme, salt, pepper, mustard, Worchestershire, pepper sauce, and milk or yogurt. Add egg mixture to meat in a large bowl, along with crackers, oatmeal or bread crumbs, parsley and cook onions and garlic; mix with a fork until evenly blended and meat mixture does not stick to bowl. (If mixture does stick, add additional milk, a couple tablespoons at a time, and continue stirring until mixture stops sticking.)

Turn meat mixture onto a work surface. With wet hands, pat mixture into desired shaped meatloaf. Brush loaf with all of glaze, then arrange bacon slices around the meatloaf, crosswise, over loaf, overlapping them slightly and tucking them under to prevent curling.

Bake loaf until bacon is crisp and loaf registers 160 degrees, about 1 hour. Cool for at least 20 minutes. Slice and serve

Halloween 2017

The general instructions for making your meatloaf into a monster meatloaf is to sculpt the meatloaf into a skull shape. Cut an onion into vaguely tooth shaped pieces and place in the mouth area of your monster meatloaf. If you wish to make your eyes like the meatloaf above, you will need a hard-boiled egg. Cut it in half and place into the eye socket that you have made into the meatloaf flat side down. Carefully carve out a round hole in the center of each eye egg so that it will fit a green olive, which you place so that the pimiento can form the pupil. Wrap bacon around the exposed areas of the meatloaf. Bake as your meatloaf recipe says, or until the bacon crisps.

It goes fast!