you took the words right out of my mouth ~

Now THAT'S my favorite Meatloaf...I have always loved his music. teehee!

I experimented with a different kind of meatloaf tonight, the eating kind. lol. Meatloaf has never been a fav meal for me but ya know, I think it's because if it's dry, I just don't like it. Other than that, I like the combination of good flavors.

I went kinda wild this time - pork sausage and venison rather than beef, and I made my own sauce for it. The whole thing is loosely based on Alton Brown's meatloaf recipe from foodnetwork.com and I took quite a few liberties with it.

Meatloaf Sis Style

1 pound ground pork sausage

1 pound ground venison

1 stalk celery, cut into pieces

1 medium onion, cut in to wedges or sliced thick

5 or 6 cloves garlic, peeled

about 8 baby carrots

1 large or 2 small jalapeno peppers (remove seeds if you don't want the heat)

about 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (or to taste)

1 teaspoon salt

about a cup bread crumbs (seasoned, if you like)

2 eggs

1 can tomato sauce

4 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon Worcestershire

about 1/2 teaspoon of your favorite hot sauce

3 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon brown sugar

freshly ground sea salt to taste

freshly ground pepper to taste

Place the sausage and venison in a large bowl. Mix it around a little. In a food processor, place the celery, onion, garlic, carrots, and jalapenos. Pulse until chopped very small but be careful not to puree. Add this to the meat in the bowl. Add salt and pepper. Pour in the bread crumbs and drop the eggs in. I use a potato masher to get things fairly mixed, and then use my hands to finish it out.

For the sauce: pour the tomato sauce into a medium bowl, and add the cumin, Worcestershire, hot sauce, honey, brown sugar, salt and pepper. Mix well with a whisk and taste. Make adjustments to suit your tastes.

Pour about a half cup of the sauce into the meat mixture and blend well. Add more bread crumbs if the meat mixture seems too 'wet' and doesn't stick together well; however, don't go overboard, you don't want it too dry or full of bread crumbs.

Place meat in a greased 9x10 dish, and shape into a long, even loaf, or a round one if you want to use a round baking dish. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes. Pour on enough sauce to cover the loaf entirely, spreading it with a basting brush or a large spoon (however, do not dip the brush or spoon into the sauce, because you don't want to contaminate it with raw meat juices - just pour it out of the bowl or use a measuring cup to scoop it out). Use about a half cup at a time so you don't get too much and waste it. Continue baking until meatloaf is done. Alton Brown's recipe says until a meat thermometer reaches 155 degrees. I don't have one, so I just baked it 40 more minutes (total of 1 hour, 10 minutes) and checked in the middle to see if it was done. Let meatloaf sit for 5 to 10 minutes before slicing. Serve with some of the remaining sauce.