What do you do when you’re feeling homesick and in a country that can’t figure out how to make a decent hamburger? You make meatloaf, of course. But not just any meatloaf: A Bachelor’s “Better Than Steak” Meatloaf.
I’d love to say this was a family recipe handed down through six or seven generations, but it actually comes from the classic 1994 The Great American Meatloaf Contest Cookbook, modified slightly to suit my taste.
It’s not your normal meatloaf. Instead of pouring on the ketchup to cover up the taste of heaps of meat, this meatloaf uses bread, cream, and cheese to accentuate the taste of a beef/pork/veal mixture. It’s a rolled meatloaf, meaning you create the meatloaf exterior and then roll it around the insides, making the final output a series of layers. I’ve made it several times for friends and dinner parties, always to rave reviews.
Ingredients:
Meat Mixture
1 small white onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
6-8 fresh basil leaves; minced
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
8-10 drops Worcestershire sauce
2½ lbs ground beef
1¼ lbs ground veal
¾ lb ground mild pork sausage
Editor’s note: You can modify the meat mixture to taste. I’ve also used a beef/turkey/pork mixture, a beef/lamb/pork mixture and, for smaller loafs, just a beef/pork mixture. I’m a fan of very lean beef for health reasons, but the higher-fat beef does give it a bit more flavor
Filling
½ small loaf sour-dough French bread
½ cup half and half or full cream
1 cup crumbled bleu cheese
3 tbsp minced fresh parsley
Preparation Instructions
First, create your meat mixture. In a large bowl, combine the various types of meat, adding in the onions, garlic, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, basil, and eggs. Making meatloaf requires getting dirty. Wash your hands and then mix the meat up thoroughly by kneading through it with your hands. This will take some effort, but is worth it — otherwise you’ll end up with the beef, pork, and veal all in different parts of the meatloaf.
Next, lay down a strip of about 12 inches of wax paper or aluminum foil. Pull the meat out of the bowl and flatten it out on the foil. It should be about 1/3″ thick, a little smaller than the width of the foil, and extend, well, until you run out of meat. Keep two small pieces of meat aside.
Now, find a long pan (a baking pan will do). Then, slide the French bread lengthwise so that you’ve got the crust and some soft bread. Pour half-and-half or cream in the bottom of the pan and then lay the bread on top of the half-and-half. Press the bread downwards so it sucks up all the cream. Take the bread and lay it on top of the meat. Repeat this with the remaining pieces of the bread until the meat is covered. Leave about a quarter inch on each side of the bread, as you’ll want to be able to seal the meat when you’re finished. Next, take crumbled blue cheese and spread it out on top of the meat. Add parsley (I’ve also used rosemary, which adds some nice flavor).
Now for the fun part. You want to roll the meatloaf up. Starting on one end, use the paper to roll the meatloaf, as if you were rolling up a newspaper. Keep it pretty tight, if you can. You want it to look like a cake roll. When you’re finished, seal the two ends of the meatloaf using the extra meat you kept around.
Place the meatloaf on a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Cook in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for approximately one hour (depending on the size of the meatloaf). Let stand for 10-15 minutes before serving.
And let us know if you try it!

It’s that time of year where we get a whiff of fall. This leads to one of my favorite activites – apple picking. We go to Homestead Farm in Poolesville, MD off River Road and get a haul of Golden Delicious (appropriately named), Jonathan, and Granny Smith apples. All good for cobblers, applesauce and, of course, fried pies.
For anyone who harbors the illusion that I am a sophistimacated foodie, I have this recipe to offer – fried apple pie. My first taste of a true fried pie was in Dollywood where they were the size of dinner plates. My arteries are still recovering. It was the perfect cross between pie and doughnut. Since DC is hardly the fried pie capitol of the world, I needed to figure out how to make my own or go without until our next Dollywood trip.
Thank god for Paula Deen, grand empress of tacky Southern food. Literally a week after the infamous Dollywood trip, there was a recipe for fried pie on Paula’s Home Cooking. It lived up to all of my fried pie memories.
I’d have to say that this is truly in the top ten of trashy food I have made. It uses a canned biscuit dough for heaven’s sake.
Fried Pies
1 canned flaky biscuit dough (should have 8 biscuits)
5 firm apples (Granny Smith, Courtland) peeled and chopped in to 1 inch chunks
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Raisins or dried cranberries (optional)
Vegetable oil
Mix the apples, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice in a bowl. Toss thoroughly and add the cornstarch. Simmer under low heat until apples are soft and have given up some of their juices. Pour of out some of the juices.
Roll out the biscuit dough until 1/2 inch thick. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the apple mixture onto the circle of dough. Brush the edge with water and fold over in half. Press the edge with a fork to seal.
Deep fry in hot oil unto golden brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Eat. Resolve to eat salad and sushi for the next week.

A couple weekends ago, I was puppy sitting my parents new dog, Winston. Stuck in the far reaches of Upper Northwest, and isolated from my usual weekend activities (OK, fine, that mostly means cleaning my apartment, but still), I decided, at the last minute as usual, to bring the fun to me and have people over to cook brunch.
WRC and EJG arrived with fixings to make plum pancakes with blueberry sauce, JK with salad and roasting peppers, SNH with corn for grilling, PL with assorted pastries, NM and MA with requisite beverages. I had not planned so much as bought things that looked like a good idea: Ricotta Saltada and Niçoise olives in Herbes de Provence from Whole Foods, eggs and cream (from the Giant). As the others cooked, PL and I schemed the fate of said orphan ingredients.
Omlettes were going to be much too much of a hassle, and not very interesting, so I thought that perhaps we could fake a Spanish-style torta – like the ones I’d loved so much in Sevilla last year, only minus the potatoes. What we did:

9 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
½ cup milk
Chopped Niçoise olives in herbes de Provence
Ricotta Saltada, shaved.
3 large cherry tomatoes, chopped.
Tarragon
Savory
Black Pepper
Nutmeg (ONLY A PINCH!)
Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes.
The result was yummy, but probably too sweet. This could be corrected by using light instead of heavy cream, or by omitting the tomatoes. I feel like the latter might be a good idea, but it needs a non-salty flavor, and I’m not sure what would be better. Onions? Spinach? Hmmm……
This is why I love experimental cuisine.