Meatloaf time!

I've been wanting to make a vegan meatloaf for a long time now, but have always bulked at the prospect because it somehow seemed difficult and tedious. Not so! This particular one I made was... somewhere between a "breeze" and "needing to run the dishwasher twice in two days." The clean-up was longer than the cook-up, but it was well worth both efforts, in my opinion.

This was my lunch yesterday:

"Meatloaf" with a side salad of mixed greens and baby spinach lightly drizzled with balsamic olive oil vinaigrette. Delish!! Just look at the richness of that "meatloaf:"

 

*1/4 C tomato paste

*2 T soy sauce or tamari

*1 t honey (or other sweetener)

*1/4 t paprika

*1 T minced garlic

*4 T olive oil

*1/2 C onion

*8 oz mushrooms, cut up in little pieces

*6 oz can of tomato sauce

*2 celery stalks, diced

*2 carrots, diced

*1 C brown (or other kind of) rice

*1 can kidney (or other kind of) beans

*salt

*pepper

*splash of hot sauce

*1 t Dijon mustard

*2 t dried parsley (or fresh, if you've got it)

*1 T cornstarch

*3/4 C (gluten-free) breadcrumbs 

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the first 4 ingredients and half of the garlic in a bowl. In a skillet, saute onions in olive oil first, then add mushrooms and saute until the juices run. In another skillet, with some olive oil, saute celery, carrots, and leftover garlic with some salt and pepper. Cover and cook 10-15min, stirring occasionally. Cook rice separately, too. (Told ya -- tons of cookware!) In a food processor mix rice and beans then place into a bowl. Then process the veggies. Place in the same bowl as the rice and beans. Add onions and mushroom mixture and the tomato sauce. Add the last 5 ingredients into the same bowl and mix everything together well. Press the mix into a greased loaf pan (or line the pan with foil) and pour the canned tomato sauce on top. Bake, covered with foil, for 45 minutes, then uncover and bake 15 more.

Done! Much simpler than it looks on "paper." (I love quotation marks, don't I?) (And brackets.) =D

And for dessert -- don't forget dessert! -- I had a monster home-made peppermint cup (like a Peppermint Patty and peanut butter cup combo. But without the peanut butter. Or the patty.)

Here's the aforementioned monster:

It's in a muffin holder!!! HUUUUUGE!!!!!!

 

...and OH. SO. DELICIOUS!!!

It made me happy.  :D Almost as happy as punctuation makes me. But with more of a sugar high -- noticeably so!

I love dashes! And exclamation points!!