Celebrate Celebrate Celebrate - Birthday Party

Hard to believe my oldest grandson is 10 years old.  Check out the "10" on the jeep banner I made for him.

One of our birthday traditions is that you get to pick your birthday meal and your dessert on your special day.  Sometimes the same meal is picked year after year.  Mr. 2Wicked use to pick turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing (yup, the whole Thanksgiving meal) for years and years.  Then one year he decided to have Salisbury Steak.  The Future Mrs. 2Wicked has had a Seafood Boil for three years.  We're not cake eaters but we are all "dessert" eaters.  Some of our favorite birthday desserts are Strawberry Pizza, Chocolate Pie, Apple Dumplings and Heavenly Cake.


My grandson picked Pineapple Meatloaf, baked potatoes, salad - without tomatoes, garlic bread, and his great Grandma's cherry pie, and last but not least green beans.  He was very specific about the green beans; he wanted the canned, not fresh, short chubby ones - too funny.  That's a pretty sensible meal for a ten year old.  I'm just glad he didn't pick steak and shrimp, that would have been a spendy meal for 15 people.  As it was I made meatloaf using 5 pounds of ground beef - that's a lot of meat loaf.


This meatloaf recipe is the best ever.  A couple of things that make it special are pineapple, corn flakes and the way that it's cooked.  I like to cook mine on a rack or broiler pan so that it doesn't sit in the grease.  This gives it a delicious crust.  I've been making it this way for years and once you've had it this way you won't want to make it in a loaf pan anymore.

PINEAPPLE MEAT LOAF

3 lbs lean ground beef                2 tsp salt

½ c. chopped onions                  1 can crushed pineapple,

2 eggs, beaten                             drained (reserve juice)

1c. crushed corn flakes              2/3 c. ketchup

1 c. ketchup

Combine beef, onions, egg, corn flakes, and 1 c. ketchup and most of pineapple.  Shape into two loafs on rack over pan.  Sprinkle with remaining pineapple.  Combine 2/3 c. ketchup with enough reserved pineapple juice to form a sauce.  Pour over meat loaf.  Bake at 425⁰ for 45 minutes covered with foil.  Remove foil and bake for another 30 minutes.

Note:  That's a large can of pineapple.  When making the sauce it should be thick enough to sit on the meat loaf and not slide off.  Most of the time I use more than 2/3 c. ketchup.  I think because I make it into two loafs and I like a nice covering of sauce.  If you don't have enough just mix up some more.


Enjoy!  I'm going to go enjoy the meatloaf and pie that I plated so that I could take a picture for all of you!


-Laurie