Italian Meatloaf with Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad

For today's dinner I've decided to take other people's recipes and make them my own. We all do it and those who claim they don't are full of it. Everyone steals ideas, that's how new ideas are born. The key to doing it correctly is to change it slightly and, of course, give credit to those that you are stealing the ideas from.

Just for your own information, my food blog will give you an entire run through of how I made whatever it is I am highlighting at that time. If something goes well, you'll know about it, just as if something goes wrong. I'm not writing this so you all will think I'm an amazing cook; I'm writing this to give you the opportunity to learn through my trials and errors. Besides, we all learn best from our mistakes.

The list of ingredients needed are as follows.

Meatloaf

• 1 lb of lean ground beef
• 1 lb of sweet or hot Italian sausage
• garlic 5-6 cloves
• bread crumbs 1 1/2 to 2 cups
• grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• fresh Italian flat parsley
• salt and pepper

Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad

• 1lb of pasta, orzo or fusilli work well
• asparagus, one grocery store bunch should do
• 2 cups of grape tomatoes
• garlic 4-5 cloves
• red onion or shallots
• mini portabella mushrooms, 1 package
• olive oil
• white balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper

Instead of writing the recipes one by one, we are going to go through making this meal, from beginning to end, just as I did tonight. The key to cooking a good meal is timing. When we sit down we don't want to be waiting on the garlic bread. Definitely when we are entertaining but even if we are eating alone. It's nice to have it all done.

Anyway, the first thing I did was put pot of water on the stove. This is to blanch the asparagus. Blanching is just boiling water and throwing the asparagus in there for a few seconds. This is not a necessary step but I found that it roasted nicely. Before blanching, cut the bottom of the asparagus. Also, have a bowl of ice water ready and a colander.

When the water boils, throw in the asparagus. Wait about 30-50 seconds and drain then immediately throw the asparagus in the ice water. This will stop it from cooking any further from it's own heat.

Next we preheat the oven to 400 degrees. I didn't do it at this temp on purpose but my veggies were roasted in 20 minutes. While the oven in heating take all our veggies and prepare them for roasting. Cut up your onion, I used shallots because I had them but a red onion would work just fine.

Pull the stems off the mushrooms. I roasted them whole and cut them later because I was unsure of how small they would become. Stems are easy to pop off if you just push one toward a side it should just pop out.

Throw in your asparagus and then coat with olive oil. Then salt and pepper. Next, crush in as many cloves of garlic as you intend to use. Again, toss everything and then put it all on a cookie sheet. Put it in the oven. Check this periodically; there is no real wrong way to do it. Just watch until the veggies look like you desire.

While the veggies are roasting get the meatloaf ready. In a large bowl put your beef and then take the sausage out of the casing. Mix together until it is well blended. Mixing ground meat dishes requires hands whether you like it or not. If you don't like putting your hands into ground meat and mushing it between your fingers then you should consider not making these types of dishes. Granted, a potato masher would probably do the trick, but I don't think as well. Don't forget to wash your hands with soap after you put them in the meat. You don't want possible bacteria on your salt shaker or other containers that sit around your house every day.

Next we press the garlic in the bowl. I used 5 small cloves and 1 large but that's a lot. Add one at a time until the smell of garlic isn't too much or too little. Mix thoroughly. Then chop up your parsley and add it; mix. salt and pepper to taste; mix again. Be careful when salting not to overdo it. The cheese is going to add a ton of salt. If you plan on adding a lot of cheese, don't bother adding any salt.

Now we add the bread crumbs. One note, this is not an exact duplicate of a meatball I would make for a gravy. That's a completely different recipe. Bread crumbs in a meatball make it heavy; I prefer to soak bread in water. For the meatloaf however, I think bread crumbs will work just fine and that's all I had. Someone forgot to pick up bread.....

How much bread crumbs, well my guess would be that for this particular recipe I would put in the first cup. Then keep the extra aside in case once you add the eggs it gets so wet you can't shape it. Remember, mix thoroughly every time you add something. We do this so that everything mixes evenly. If you add everything on top and then mix odds are you will find lumps of bread crumbs or egg or cheese which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I still recommend my mixing method but you should feel free to do it any way you wish. That's what cooking is about, learning to make it your own.

The mixtures consistency at this point should be getting dry. No worries, we are going to add the egg last to loosen it all up again. But before the egg be sure to add your Romano cheese. I prefer Romano in all my breading/meatball recipes. It has a bigger kick and more flavor, in my humble opinion. But some of you out there may prefer Parmesan or Asiago for that matter; any of these cheeses would work. Make sure they are grated fine.

Romano cheese adds a lot of salt (repeating myself) so just add a 1/2 cup for the beginning. If you like more of the cheese taste add the other 1/2. Or, you could be like me and add 2 cups. I prefer mine on the cheese/salty side. Mix again.

Now crack the egg and then add them to mixture. My mom always told me to crack and egg in a glass first, then add it. If you see a red dot in the yolk that means the egg is spoiled and should not be used. I've never come across one like that in my life but I still always look.

You should mix the eggs one at a time. I did two for this recipe and it was a mess. While mixing, the consistency should be somewhat wet. Not too wet where you can't form it into a loaf but just dry enough so you can. The wetter the mixture, the moister your meat loaf. Drier mixture, ________ (fill in the blank. I love these interactive blogs don't you?)

Now, once it is all mixed, we form it on a cookie sheet. Then I put wax paper over it and placed it in the refrigerator.

The veggies should be done by now, if not just wait. Take them out and strain them in a colander to drain over a bowl and put them in the fridge. Lower the oven to 350 degrees.

Cook the meatloaf on that temperature until it brown on the outside. Mine took and hour and fifteen minutes, but I took it out too soon and that picture you see up there had a few pink pieces of sausage in it so I had to put it back in. Just be careful not to over cook your meatloaf.

While the meatloaf is baking boil the pasta for the salad. I used the mini rigatoni again because that's what I had. Any small pasta will do. Cook it as you would any other pasta dish, if you have questions you can read my blog from yesterday where I explain how pasta should be cooked. The link can be found here http://camillescucina.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-escape-jarred-pasta-sauce-or-as.html.

When the pasta is cooked, coat it with extra virgin olive oil. Put that in the refrigerator as well.

Take some marinara out of your fridge from yesterday's meal. The recipe for that can be found here http://camillescucina.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-escape-jarred-pasta-sauce-or-as.html. Heat it up to put over the meatloaf when serving it.

When the meatloaf is almost done and the veggies and pasta cool off, prepare the salad. Add more olive oil to the pasta, then at some chopped up basil, salt and pepper making sure to mix every time you add a spice. That way we avoid spice clumps. Add the veggies and mix. Then drizzle some white balsamic vinegar. Just a touch and toss.

I just learned about white balsamic from my cousin who made the same salad for me on Friday. She got the recipe from her friend. I won't say their names since I didn't get permission to use them in an article but I have to give them some kind of credit right? If they are reading this and want me to add their names, just give me the word and I'll hit that edit key so fast it'll, well, it won't do much. But I'll add your name...:)

I always used red wine vinegar for pasta salad but this vinegar is much lighter and tasty. Try it. If you don't want to buy some, just use whatever vinegar you prefer. Put it back in the refrigerator.

The meatloaf should be done. Slice and serve with touch of marinara and piacere!