It was 5:30 pm on Tuesday.

I’d come home from Pilates at 4:00 so I’d be ready and waiting when Kelly walked in the door from school at 4:30.  Leftover roasted chicken with a baked potato and some sautéed zucchini was what I prepared for her dinner.

Still dressed in my workout clothes with my hair stuffed in the baseball cap I’d placed on my head early that morning, all I really wanted to do was shower and finish up a few work emails.

But those things would have to wait.

For starters, we had no toilet paper, and the list of things I needed from Target was long. Knowing this, I’d promised Kelly we’d go there together after she finished dinner.

Before we left, I threw a meatloaf in the oven using the ground beef I’d taken out of the freezer the night before. It was a flurry of ingredients that I mixed together using my bare hands.

As I patted the mixture into an oblong shape in the pan and programmed the oven for it to cook while I was gone, I realized I wasn’t even sure if I’d put everything I normally do in the meatloaf.

Oh well, it will still be delicious…and at least it will be done when I get home! I reassured myself knowing I looked forward to dinner with my husband.

When Kelly and I got home from Target an hour later, I finally showered and then put the finishing touches on dinner.

The meatloaf was done cooking and had shrunken to a little less than two thirds it’s original size. The pan was full of juice, or rather fat, rendered from cooking the beef. Before placing the pan in the oven, I’d covered it with tin  foil, something I don’t normally do, hoping that it would prevent the meat from drying out if it over cooked while we were gone. That in effect steamed the meatloaf releasing all those juices and fat and had me worried that maybe despite my attempt to avoid it, the meatloaf was going to be dry.

When I took a bite of the meatloaf, the results were beyond my wildest dinner dreams. I was shocked by how unbelievably delicious it tasted. I’m talking food orgasm good. It may be the best meatloaf I’d ever tasted. Scott, my husband, agreed wholeheartedly.

I felt grateful and proud.

In the end, taking the 10-15 minutes of prep time to pull the meatloaf together was well worth every second and our meatloaf dinner was much more satisfying than a bowl of cereal, scrambled eggs or a simple salad would have been. Not to mention we got to enjoy it for several nights. Comfort food for the soul, the very best!

The Very Best Meatloaf

3 pounds of organic grass fed beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon coconut or olive oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon Herbs de Provence
2 tablespoons Fish sauce
1/4 teaspoon red chill pepper
1/3 cup almond flour
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Saute onion with oil in a small pan over medium high heat until tender and translucent. Remove from heat and stir in herbs de provence, chili pepper, fish sauce and tomato paste. Set aside. In a large bowl combine the meat with the eggs and almond flour. Stir in the onion mixture. Grease the bottom of a 9×11 or similar size baking pan, I use pyrex pans. Pour meat loaf mixture in to the pan and form in to a large loaf, smoothing the top as you go. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes or until no longer pink inside.