Vegan Meat Loaf

It sure has been cold around here lately. So yesterday when I started thinking about what I was going to bring for lunch today, I knew that I wanted something that fits into that "comfort food" category again. It didn't take me long to settle on meat loaf. I have been wanting to try making a vegan meat loaf for quite a while now, but I never could decide exactly what type of recipe I wanted to try. I've tried a few storebought kinds of vegan loafs and they were all quite good, but I didn't know whether I wanted a recipe that was based on lentils, nuts, tofu, or what. All I knew was that I needed a recipe that was simple, and would hopefully taste somewhat like I remember meat loaf tasting.

It didn't take me long to find exactly what I was looking for over at SusanV's Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. I have been using recipes from her website quite a bit here lately at home. It's a great resource, but you probably already know that. The meat loaf recipe that I found there couldn't be simpler. In fact, I kinda' just made it because I couldn't believe that it could be that simple and be any good. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much when I made it, but HOLY COW! (is it vegan to say that?) This really looks and tastes like meat loaf. I plan on jazzing it up a little bit the next time I make it by adding some chopped onion & green pepper, some spanish rice, and I might double the spices. But for something so easy to make, and for my first attempt at making a vegan version of meat loaf, I have to say that I was really impressed. I highly recommend making this, but I would definitely add the extra ingredients I mentioned. There is ketchup there on the top of the slice of meatloaf, it's a little hard to see in the picture. After I took the photo though, I covered the whole thing with some more ketchup and put the little lunchbox container lid on it. For some strange reason, meat loaf is the only thing that I really eat ketchup on. I don't really care for it on french fries, or burgers or anything else. But on meat loaf, I can't get enough of it. Strange. The recipe calls for spicing the ketchup up a little bit by kinda turning it into a barbecue sauce, but I prefer just plain old ketchup on my meat loaf, so I skipped that step.

To go with this delicious vegan meatloaf, I brought along some steamed mixed vegetables that I just picked up out of the freezer section at my local grocery store. There's broccoli in there, green beans, red peppers & carrots.

I also brought along some homemade mashed potatoes covered with some more of that delicious Bryanna's Vegan Brown Gravy that I have been making non-stop ever since I first tried it last week. I pretty much just keep some of this made and in the fridge at all times now because I like putting it on almost everything. It heats up really fast in the microwave, and if you need to, it's really easy to just add a little bit more water to it and thin it down a little.

For dessert, I just threw in some dates that had been hanging out in my fridge for a little while. I love these things. I usually grab one every time I notice them in the fridge and eat it for quick sweet snack. It's really because of getting addicted to the Larabars that I even tried dates in the first place (since they're the main ingredient in Larabars). If it hadn't been for that, I probably never would have even tried the things, because they're really not that pretty. They sure do taste good though. I have often thought about ordering a big stash of them from www.bulkfoods.com instead of buying tiny little bag after tiny little bag at the grocery store.

So that's it for Monday's lunch. If you liked meat loaf at all as an omnivore, then I highly recommend making this one. And I even forgot to mention that in addition to tasting really good, this recipe was also fat-free! I just think that's amazing.

Thanks for checking in and I'll see everybody on Tuesday.