Oops...I made it again!

I hope you all had a Happy Halloween or a Happy All Saints Day or even just a nice week end with your family & friends.

We had a bunch of friends over for a brunch/buffet, not after the usual slight drama having small children provides.

On Saturday evening our little boy, S., came down with a pretty high fever. I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed our daughter M. was (and us too, if truth must be told). Our pumpkin was carved, the seeds were roasted, the fridge was stuffed with food, Halloween activities for the kids had been printed... Sunday morning, however, S. woke up in great spirits and not a hint of a fever. You know how kids are, they sometimes get these spot temperatures that come and go in a matter of hours. Luckily, our guests all have children and have experienced the same thing with their children. Excessive drooling on S.' side further convinced us that it was all just a matter of teething. So we decided to have our friends over anyway and what a great decision that was. We had a lovely day and the children had a ball!

This week I will be sharing the recipes of some of the things I made. They are not Halloween-inspired and are great to prepare ahead of time for any large gathering.

My first recipe is for meatloaf. Yes, again. I know I posted another recipe no more than a month ago, but there are times when the perfection of meatloaf just can't be ignored: the combination of grey, rainy weather, the need to feed many mouths (several of which belong to kids under the age of five) and the convenience of a meat dish that can be prepared a day ahead and that makes for great leftovers. C'mon!

I was browsing through blogs and found a great recipe on Kalyn's Kitchen for a horseradish and caramelized onion meatloaf (is your mouth watering yet? Mine is, and I am eating the leftovers as I post) only to find out (unfortunately too late to run out to a store) that one of my main ingredients, horseradish, was not in tip top shape. So I took out a litte and added a little and the result was very satisfying. I am posting the original recipe and my adjustments, so you can choose the one you like best. I will be sure to try the original recipe once I have all the right ingredients. I am a sucker for horseradish.

Ingredients

2 onions, diced

olive oil

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tsp dried thyme (I didn't have any)

2 eggs

1/4 cup light sour cream (I used plain yogurt, you can only get sour cream in specialty stores here)

3 tbsp horseradish cream (I used Dijon smooth mustard instead)

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 lbs. ground beef 

1/2 cup breadcrumbs 

salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Sauce:

1/4 cup light sour cream (yogurt once again)

2 tbsp mayonnaise (I used 1 tbsp, the last I had)

2 tbsp horseradish cream (I made this the following morning, when stores were open) 

Heat oil in a heavy frying pan and add the diced onions, turn heat to low and let onions cook until they caramelize, stirring every few minutes, for about 30-40 minutes. Add the garlic (and dried thyme if you have it) and cook a little longer.
While the onions are cooking, put the ground beef into a bowl and let it come to room temperature. Whisk together the eggs, add the sour cream (or yogurt), horseradish (mustard) and Worcestershire sauce. Preheat oven to 375F/190C. When the onions are done, add the bread crumbs and onion-garlic mixture to the meat and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Then add egg/sour cream/horseradish/Worcestershire sauce mixture to meat. Gently combine with your hands until all the ingredients are mixed into the meat.
Grease roasting pan and then form the meat into a loaf shape and place in the pan, making criss-cross marks in the top of the loaf if you like. Bake meatloaf about 1 1/2 hours, or until the meatloaf is nicely browned on the outside and cooked through on the inside.
Let meatloaf rest at least 10-15 minutes before cutting. While it rests, stir together sour cream (yogurt), mayonnaise and creamed horseradish to make a sauce to serve with the meat.

Sorry, the last couple of photos are missing because I am having trouble downloading, so bear with me. But you get the gist!

Two days later: here are the missing pictures.