Today was a snow day. Both my work and my husband's work were open, but with 2 hour delays. Leaving the children unattended since day care and preschool were closed was not an option. The coin was tossed and it was unanimously decided by the husband that I was to stay home. There really was no coin. Apparently he lives by Sheldon's rule of voting. (The Roommate Agreement, Controversial Clauses) Anywho, I settled in for the day. Got a solid 3 hours of work in before having to fly solo for the day, so one could say that I was "successfully working from home." Hey, I got to drink a hot cup of coffee. That's rare, even at work.
Sunday, the decision had been made to make meatloaf this week. I had defrosted the meatloaf trio (pork, veal, beef) and it was just sitting cold, waiting to go. Sunday ended up as New England Boiled dinner with family. Monday, well Monday went the way of Kraft for the kids and Chinese for us. Which meant, meatloaf HAD to be tonight.
Now, if you've ever had to work from home with a 5 year old and a 2 year old, you know that the day never goes as planned. While you may not actually get dressed, you still get absolutely nothing done, due to the cost of dedication to connect and check e-mail. My oldest is thankfully now at an age where I can somewhat trust that's she OK in her room doing her thing. Of course, recent history has proven this statement wrong as we have found marker on floors, doors, walls and clothes, but hey, she's learned her lesson by now...... right? God I hope. The 2 year old however, it another ball game altogether. Can't take my eyes off her for a minute! So knowing the day was not going to be easy, I knew I wasn't going to want to deal with dinner at 5, let alone anything later like 6 or even 7. And I couldn't go another night with not cooking. We've had take out, or hot dogs, nuggets and whatnot far too much recently. So meatloaf had to be cooked, today.
Light bulb! Crock pot. That wonderful invention of 8 hour slow cooking. Toss everything in, set it, forget it, and love it later. I personally grew up on crock pot food. My mom made the BEST pot roast in the world. No man (or woman for that matter) could out do her roast. And even though I have the recipe, it still doesn't hold a flame to hers. So, a quick google search produced that you can, indeed, actually cook a meatloaf in the crock pot. How interesting. It shall be done.
So. Mixed up my meat. Formed said loaf. Dropped it into the bottom of the pot. Turned it on. Walked away. . . . Wait. What about sides? I don't want to have to worry about that later. Ugh. Now what? Well, it's a crock pot, throw stuff in! Turned off the crock, pulled out the loaf. Rummaged through my cabinets and fridge. Produced a couple of carrots, a few yellow potatoes and a turnip (aka. rutabaga depending on what side of the Mississippi you live on) Peeled, chopped big and put them in the bottom (after spraying with cooking spray). Hrm.. now the loaf. Going back into my cabinets, I produced the inside of a 2 piece meatloaf pan. You know, the ones where the juices are supposed to run through but just down into the other pan? Balanced that baby on top of the veggies inside the pan and still had room to put the lid on. Voila. Yeah, this'll work! Turned the crock pot back on, set for 8 hours.
5:30 all was done. House smelled good. Meatloaf temp was right! Veggies were done.
The verdict? The 5 year old devoured it, no ketchup. The 2 year old, yeah well she's 2, so between the ups and downs in her seat she eventually ate all of it. Husband.. ate it! Didn't love it, but certainly did not get the reaction I did with the apple-sauce pork.
As the creator... I have to say it wasn't terrible. The veggies were great! I had modified my recipe for the meatloaf (again) and left out a few things like the chopped mozzarella, so the loaf dried out a bit. Changes for the next time I do this, and there WILL be a next time, would be to make sure i have the mozzarella in there, and I think I will be putting the loaf right into the pot, no extra pan so it can stew in it's own juices, and pile the veggies around them.
Good experiment. Fun to play and was for sure a time saver.
