Loafing on the Job

If you can shape ground beef into patties for hamburgers, you can shape it into meatloaf, and instead of having a meal on the run, you can sit down to an appealing and substantial entree.

Although meatloaf is a long-cooking dish, you can put it in the oven and forget about it. It’s great for those times when you want something filling but don’t want to be tied to the stove.

The recipe that follows is for a simple yet well-seasoned meatloaf. Understandably, you don’t want to spend much time chopping and measuring ingredients, yet you’d like a dish that delivers flavor. This is it. Ginger and cinnamon have a hot-sweet punch that’s great in meatloaf. Just make sure that when you mix ingredients, you do so with a light hand or the meat will be tough.

If you’re willing to take a few extra minutes, combine ginger, tomato paste, cranberry sauce and lemon juice for a mouth-puckering cranberry catsup. Otherwise, jazz up your favorite catsup with a little ginger root, lemon juice and brown sugar.

To round out the meal, add small baking potatoes to the oven when you start to prepare the meatloaf. Then pour a bag of salad greens into a bowl and the meal is done.

MEATLOAF WITH CRANBERRY CATSUP

1/2 pound ground beef

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper

1 teaspoon grated ginger root

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons tomato paste

1 egg white

Salt, freshly ground black pepper

Combine ground beef, bread crumbs, onion and green pepper in a large bowl. Mix in ginger root, cinnamon, tomato paste, egg white and salt and pepper to taste. Spoon mixture into 7x3-inch loaf pan, smoothing top.

Bake at 350 degrees 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand at room temperature 5 to 10 minutes before slicing. Serve with Cranberry Catsup on the side.

Makes 2 servings.

Each serving, without catsup, contains about:

314 calories; 340 mg sodium; 64 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 17 grams carbohydrates; 20 grams protein; 0.47 gram fiber.

CRANBERRY CATSUP

1 teaspoon oil

1/4 cup minced onion

1 teaspoon grated ginger root

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1/2 cup whole berry cranberry sauce

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Salt

Freshly ground white pepper

Heat oil in small pan. Add onion and ginger root and saute 2 minutes. Stir in brown sugar, cranberry sauce, tomato paste and lemon juice and simmer 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened and heated through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Makes about 1 cup.

Each tablespoon contains about:

20 calories; 22 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 0 grams fat; 4 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams protein; 0.06 gram fiber.