mom's meatloaf

How To Make mom's meatloaf

• Step 1
  Break up meat in large mixing bowl
• Step 2
  Empty crackers into plastic bag, add chopped onion, seal bag, take a tenderizing mallet and pulverize together. Pour into bowl with meat.
• Step 3
  Chop onion the way you like, whether you prefer small pieces to bigger chunks. As for the green onion, I had the ends of a bunch left in the fridge, so I removed the roots, washed them off and chopped bulbs and scallion stalk as fine as I could to add to the mixture. Add onions.
• Step 4
  Add remaining ingredients, milk according to how moist/dry the mixture is. Mix well either by hand or if you're the proud owner of a Kitchen Aid mixer, let it do the work.
• Step 5
  Spray glass or metal baking pan with cooking spray, form into loaf depending on the pan, place in pan. In our house not everyone likes ketchup as a topping so we cover half the loaf with ketchup and half is left unscathed. Cover with lid or foil, shiny side down.
• Step 6
  Bake for about an hour @ 375, 350 if a glass baking dish is used. With this I don't preheat the oven. I place the meatloaf in the oven and turn the oven on - everything acclimates together.
• Step 7
  AS FOR THE OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS: whether you make this stovetop or oven, shredded cheese can be added to taste. Mom used to make meatloaf stovetop in a tomato soup sauce. When she did that she'd brown the loaf both sides and place it in the pot with the soup - ketchup wasn't used as topping . the meatloaf seasoned the soup nicely, but it did take a couple of hours to cook over low heat. I imagine you could finagle baking it that way in an oven, and of course a crock pot would work, but in either case the loaf should be browned first.
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