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Mich23: I don't have a favorite combo, but I wanted to give you the link to our National Meatloaf Appreciation Day Cook-a-long. I'm hoping there will be lots of great combos appearing that day.

Ah . . . no secret recipes here. My favorite meatloaf comes from Seppi Renggli - it's a Lemon Veal Loaf. Both light and rich at the same time. Ground veal, ground pork fat, lots of lemon zest and other seasonings.
Unfortunately my children have taken against me and will not eat veal.

I use days-old sourdough bread, torn into bite-size pieces and then soaked in milk or other liquid, before adding to the beef. Generally add sauteed green peppers or green chile and diced tomatoes to the basic recipe. Seasoning is an envelope of Lipton's dry onion soup mix. My kids love it!

I use Ritz crackers instead of bread crumbs. It makes all the difference.

I grind together: 1lb prime chuck, 1/2 lb sweet italian sausage, 1/4 lb chorizo, 1 red bell pepper, 1 poblano chile and 1 small onion, then toss this mixture with about 1/2 cup heinz chili sause, 1 Tbsp Worcestershire , salt and black pepper. Then I top the loaves (I bake them in 3 inch rings) with a food processed mixture of panko, reggiano and parsley before baking.

Smoked meatloaf onced you had it you'll never go back to the oven

To All: Great suggestions! I can't wait to incorporate some of these ideas into my recipes. THANKS

I don't much care what's in the meatloaf but as long as there's leftovers for some sandwiches then I'll be a happy camper! My dad is a meatloaf fiend, he must have it with gravy though otherwise it just goes to waste.

I sure would love recipes for the veal and the turkey-and-cranberries ones. post?

Mich23, are those sage leaves fresh or dried?

maggiesara, here is the recipe - revised for style to avoid copyright issues. It is from a book I've mentioned before: The Golden Lemon by Tobias/Merris:

Country Style Lemon Veal Loaf

3 lbs. ground veal
1/2 lb. ground pork fat
2/3 C minced onion
1/2 C chopped Italian parsley
1 clove minced garlic
1 tsp. fresh lemon zest
3 lightly beaten eggs
1 C chopped fresh tomatoes
2 tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper
6 slices bacon
2 lemons, peeled and sliced thinly
3 Tbs. melted butter

Oven 350 F.
Mix together all ingredients except bacon, lemons, and butter. Shape into loaf and place on top of bacon in baking pan. Top loaf with lemon slices. Bake one hour, remove lemon slices, baste with butter and return to oven for fifteen minutes.

Serve hot, cold, or at room temp. (I like it best room temp) with cornichons, chutney and sweet mustard.
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Note: The pork fat is in this recipe to give it richness and texture, as veal has little fat content. The difference this makes in a recipe where veal or other meats with little or no fat are the main composition is marked. The difference is like eating a fantastic grilled well-marbled steak as opposed to eating a grilled five percent fat burger. In other words, the fat really matters in terms of the quality of the dish.

You can ask the butcher at any regular grocery store to grind the fat for you and most will do it.

The important point in our household is to decorate it. It's not meatloaf if it's not Monster Meatloaf. Button mushroom eyes, celery stalk horns, six carrot stick legs, cherry tomato snout, in endless variations. Initially, it was meant to be child-attractive, of course, but the kids are in their twenties now and we're still doing it. Which leads me to another question: does anyone (else) take pictures of food?

Here's what I do and confirmed meat loaf haters love it.

Meat Loaf
3 lbs. 85% lean ground beef (No leaner unless you add olive oil)
3 Eggs
2-3 Slices bread or 2-3 small rolls which have been moistened with water and squished
1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 cup finely diced Onion
Couple of squirts of hot sauce (such as Tabasco)
1/2 Cup Ketchup
1/2 Cup Chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
Salt & freshly Ground Pepper
1/2 lb. medium sliced Deli Ham (you may not need all of it)
1/2 lb. thin sliced Swiss Cheese (you may not need all of it)
1/4 cup Ketchup for garnish

Preheat oven to 375. Lay out a large piece of plastic wrap on the countertop or table. You will need this to roll the meat loaf.

Place first nine ingredients into a large bowl beginning with ground beef and scattering the rest over the beef. Do not begin mixing ingredients together until all ingredients are in the bowl. Mix gently to combine ingredients.

Turn out the meat mixture onto the plastic wrap. Gently press meat mixture into a flat rectangle. (Size depends on your roasting pan.) Lay slices of cheese onto rectangle, leaving a 1" border all around. Lay the slices of ham on top of the cheese. Using plastic wrap, roll up like a jelly roll. Place seam side down into roasting pan that has been sprayed with vegetable spray. Squirt Ketchup over top in a zig-zag pattern.

Bake in preheated oven approximately 1 hour. Allow it to rest about 15 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife to get through the ham slices. Serves a crowd! Also makes great sandwiches right out of the fridge if you're in need of a quick lunch.

Some variations include: Replacing 1/4 of the chop meat with fresh chorizo OR ground turkey OR ground veal. Sub some other melty cheese for the swiss and prosciutto for the ham.

If you want a one-pan meal, scatter quartered potatoes and onions in the roasting pan, sprinkle S&P, and bake as directed.

I used to know a guy who would not eat meat loaf without mashed potatoes with a pan gravy made from the meatloaf poured over the top of it all.

Myself, I have a liking for that red sweet and sour chili sauce glaze on a regular meatloaf.

I wonder if this is a regional thing or merely a taste thing or what-one-has-been-brought-up-with thing.

What do you all do - eat it plain, with a gravy, a glaze, or sauces besides (of course) ketchup?

Mich - I've actually only seen one recipe in a cookbook for meatloaf with pan gravy in lots of time spent reading cookbooks. The difficulty with the pan gravy is that the drippings from many meatloafs can be very fatty and slightly strange sometimes - with the albumen stuff (or whatever it is, I think of it as being albumen and know what to do with it but please don't ever try me on any science vocabulary test - blech) from the meat clogging up the pan drippings. In the one recipe I do remember, I believe that the meatloaf was cooked "freeform" while being basted with beef stock during the cooking process, which left drippings in the pan which were not totally gunked up when the meatloaf was done. Meatloaf was taken from pan, set in low oven to keep warm, then the pan drippings were well skimmed of both excess fat and impurities before adding roux, etc. then finally more stock and seasonings.

This was a 1950's or 1960's diner-style meatloaf dinner, basically. A nice touch is to add sauteed mushrooms and a touch of dry sherry to the gravy when starting it.

Of course, almost anything tastes good with mashed potatoes, to me.
Heaven is a place filled with books and mashed potatoes.

A side story to the gravy-with-mushrooms is that the guy who liked this recipe and who would not eat meatloaf any other way insisted that he could not stand regular button mushrooms. He considered himself a gourmet of very high standing and fussed over many food things in a fancypants sort of way.

Somehow I did not believe that he really could not stand button mushrooms, that he could only tolerate portobellos or shiitakes, and one day used button mushrooms in a recipe and uh . . . told him that they were portobellos. He loved the recipe. Raved about it.

I never did tell him that his taste buds were not quite as discriminatory as he seemed to believe.

With the talk of mashed potatoes and meatloaf, reminds me of my favorite billboard. Since we are all carnivores on this thread I hope I do not offend. The billboard showed a deer, elk, bear, and various birds hunted in MI. It said, "There is room for all God's creatures, right next to the mashed potatoes." Mich23, this was in the UP on US 2 by Nagaunee. Close to the road sign that said "Do not try to pass when opposing traffic is present." Who could read the all that sign while going 70+ MPH? I finally read it during a snow storm while to Mich Tech.