Whole30: Day 7

I bet reading what I eat for every meal each day can get boring. Especially since I eat pretty much the same breakfast each day and leftovers for lunch. I'm going to switch things up a bit today and just rave about our dinner.

I'm the type of cook that likes to start a dinner from a recipe. I think it comes from the fact that I am a detail oriented person and my creativity has to start from somewhere. It's the same thing with my crafts. I need inspiration like a picture of something that looks great to go from. This year I've started investing in Paleo cookbooks. I don't know how many I have now but I'm definitely adding to my collection quickly. One of the cookbooks that I've been picking recipes out of is the Paleo Kitchen. I'm more and more enjoying the flavors that Juli Bauer is coming up with. Her Barbacoa recipe from PaleOMG.com is the best. So when she published her top 25 recipes of 2014 and Bacon Chorizo Chipotle Smothered Meatloaf was on it, we had to try it.

Meatloaf has been an ongoing experiment in my house for the past 8 years. My mom always made meatloaf in one of those loaf pans with the grease bubbling and it just tasted like meat. Little did I know that meatloaf could have different flavors to it. My mother-in-law made meatloaf a couple years ago in individual servings on a rack. This made me realize that the texture can be different just by a different way of baking it, which I preferred. So my most recent meatloaf recipe has more mexican spices and flavors to it with ancho chiles, cilantro, and cumin. When I saw Juli's meatloaf it was a no brainer that we needed to see how this was.

We weren't disappointed at all. I was skeptical when the recipe calls for no spices, aside from garlic powder. Then I realized that the chorizo holds all the flavors necessary. I did make some changes to the recipe just based on what we prefer in our meatloaf. I added an egg since the meat seemed too dense. I also added more carrot and less spinach and mushrooms. In hind sight I'd probably saute all the veggies before putting them in the meatloaf to remove the crunch that was still present from the carrots.

Moral of the story, try new things. Although I've perfected my spicy meatloaf over the last several years it can always get better. I plan on making meatloaf again next week to adapt what we enjoyed from this meatloaf into my ever evolving recipe. I expect it'll be awesome!