Bat out of Hell (ish...)

 There's definitely a taste of spring in the air. Apart from the snowdrops and the daffs, I can tell by the whole having all four seasons in one day thing that we get at this time of year. Every time I think we can get out for a walk because the sun is shining I remind myself to wait five minutes because it's almost bound to be pissing with rain the minute you get a couple of hundred yards down the road. So I'm finding I'm still in cocoon and comfort mode when it comes to cooking. To that end today I made some soup and the other day I made Meatloaf - hence the bad pun in the title of this entry!

The soup is a no-brainer. I had some red onion, garlic, a bit of pepper, some fennel which I roasted. 

I added the roasted veg to a soup pot with two cans of decent Italian chopped tomatoes (I alway have to remind myself that I can make tomato soup even when tomatoes aren't in season.) and about a litre of veg stock. Let it simmer, season and serve. It also freezes well.

Then there's the meatloaf I made last week. Meatloaf is one of these things that never looks elegant, but one things I like is that the basic recipe has very few ingredients, but you can fancy it up as you feel inclined. And once it's cooled the slices you have left over can be frozen and you've got a ready made beef base for a quick bolognese, or chilli or just heat the slices and stick them on a bun for a variation on a burger.

My recipe for meatloaf comes from The New Granville Island Market Cookbook. For anyone who's been to Vancouver, you'll know that Granville island is a bit of industrial wasteland on the outskirts of the downtown that was reclaimed in the 1970s and is home to one of the best food markets in B.C. and some wonderful cafes and restaurants. I don't think I've ever made a bad thing out of this cookbook and I'm eyeing the recipe for Lemon and Pine nut Shortbread at the moment as something to maybe try next week.

Anyway, back the meatloaf - I used 1lb of beef mince, a good squirt of Worcestershire sauce, quarter of a decent size onion  chopped small, and 65g of mushrooms - I used a mixture of chestnut and porcini mushrooms to get it a more intense flavour and then used the porcini water as the base for onion gravy. Mix all your ingredients together, add salt and pepper (and any other flavours you feel moved to add) then stick it in a loaf tin and bake for about 45 minutes, basting the top with the juices as you go. (I should add the original recipe quantities were enormous - 4lb of beef and 1/2lb of mushrooms, so I had to size down.0

This is a truly terrible picture of the meatloaf, which I have to say does shrink in the cooking, but it tasted really good, especially with the onion gravy and since I was going old school, I served it with a baked potato, but forgot to take pictures of it all plated up, so apologies for the fuzzy, not very exciting picture.

I've just realised that if I hadn't already done the letter 'M' on the Alphabet challenge, this recipe would have the equivalent of a triple letter score - Meatloaf, Mince, Mushrooms. Never mind, hopefully more alphabet challenge cooking to come in the next week or so.

Happy Sunday every one, although I realise for most folks it's nearly over. Oh and look, the sun is out, I'm going to run and get some air and take my brolly while I'm at it!