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In these days of hectic lifestyles, it's often much easier to grab fast food or claim that it's too difficult to learn to cook. This article will describe how to put a home-cooked meal on the table with all instructions listed step by step.
The menu for this meal will be a Old Fashioned Meatloaf, baked potatoes with sour cream, vegetable of your choice, and Apple Crisp.
You'll want to make the dessert earlier in the day. Start by filling a 6 inch by 15 inch baking pan with sliced apples. Next, make your topping by mixing 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, pinch of salt, and 1 egg. When this is mixed into crumbs, pour it on top of the apples in pan. Pour 1/2 cup of melted butter over the crumbs. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. When it time to serve, you might want to put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the bowl with it.
You've already made the dessert!
The rest of the meal will be started about 2 hours before serving time.
Make your Old Fashioned Meat Loaf in this way: Mix 1 1/2 pounds ground beef, 1 cup soft bread crumbs, dash of salt and pepper, 2 beaten eggs, 1/4 cup chopped onion, and one 8 ounce can of tomato sauce. Shape it into a long loaf in a 13x9x2" baking or cake pan. Bake this for 30 minutes at 350 degrees and remove to add topping.
Mix the following for topping: Another 8 ounce can of tomato sauce, 1 tablespoon mustard, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1 tablespoon vinegar, and 3/4 cup of water. Pour over the loaf. (NOTE: If you use a 16 ounce can of a specialty tomato sauce such as Italian, just put half in the loaf and half in the topping.)
Return this to the oven to bake for 1 hour. At the same time, put your medium sized potatoes that have been scrubbed into the oven to also bake for that hour at 350 degrees. (Potatoes can also be made in the microwave in the last 15 minutes or so.)
About 15-20 minutes before the meatloaf and potatoes are finished, prepare a green vegetable of your choice.
All that's left now to do is serve. Your meatloaf and potatoes will be finished at the same time as your vegetable. Serve the potatoes with butter or sour cream, and slice the meatloaf. When it's time for dessert, bring on the apple crisp.
That's all there is to it. You have prepared and served a home-cooked meal of which you can be proud.
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