Dinner Time

What's your meal time like? Does everyone gather around the table to eat or do they pick up their  plate and go to their room? With life becoming busier and hectic, the art of dinner time is becoming lost. At my house, we all sit down at the dinner table, even if we're busy. On Sundays, we have a pretty long dinner. I don't know if it's because my family and I are tired at the end of the day on Sundays, but we eat slowly and also enjoy conversations.

Did you know that Children who do not eat dinner with their families are 60% more likely to use alcohol, tobacco and/or illegal drugs? And children who eat dinner with their families are 20% less likely to drink, smoke or use illegal drugs.   


So, there's a whole bunch of positive things that can happen when a family sits down for dinner as a family. Eating together encourages communication. Sitting down for a family meal can provide a real quality time . Serve a meal that everyone will love and make dinner time fun and everyone will be looking forward to eating with the family. 

As I've said earlier, Sunday dinners are a bit different. I cook a fairly big meal, just last Sunday I cooked some mashed potatoes, broth blanched brocollis, spring salad, cauliflower soup and meatloaf. I'll share the recipe for the meatloaf.


Meatloaf

Ingredients
3 slices white bread
1 large carrot, roughly chopped
1 celery stalk, roughly chopped
½ medium onion roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, smashed
½ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, loosely packed
½ cup plus 3 tablespoons ketchup
4½ teaspoon dry mustard
8 ounces ground pork
8 ounces ground veal
8 ounces ground round
2 large eggs, beaten
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon hot sauce
½ teaspoon chopped rosemary
2 tablespoons packed light-brown sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small red onion, cut into ¼inch-thick rings


Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Remove crusts from bread; place slices in the bowl of a food processor. Process until fine crumbs form, about 10 seconds. Transfer to a mixing bowl.


2. Place carrot, celery, onion, garlic, and parsley in the bowl of the food processor. Process until vegetables are minced, about 30 seconds, scraping down the sides of the bowl once of twice. Transfer vegetables to bowl with bread crumbs.


3. Add ½ cup ketchup, 2 teaspoons dry mustard, the pork, veal, beef, eggs, salt, pepper, hot sauce, and rosemary. Using your hands, knead the ingredients just until throughly combined. about a minute. Co not over knead; doing so will result in a heavy and dense loaf. The texture should be wet, but light enough to hold a free-form shape.


4. Set a wire baking rack in a 12 x 17-inch baking pan. Cut 5 x 11-inch parchment paper, and place over the center of the rack to prevent the meat from falling through. Using your hands, form elongated load covering the parchment.


5. Place the remaining 3 tablespoons ketchup, the remaining 2½ teaspoons mustard, and the brown sugar in a bowl. Mix until smooth. Using a pastry brush, generously brush the glaze over the loaf. Place the olive oil in a medium saucepan set over high heat. When the oil is almost smoking, ass the red onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and golden in places. Add 3 tablespoons water and cook stirring until most of the water has evaporated. Sprinkle the onion over the meatloaf.


6. Bake for about 55 minutes until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the loaf reads 160ºF. Let the meat loaf cool on the rack, about 15 minutes. Serve.