Comfort foods were a staple at our house growing up. Almost every meal consisted of a meat, potato and a vegetable. Although, we didn’t eat a very large variety of veggies, which was totally fine by me, I grew up eating a pretty balanced diet. My mom was a great cook and taught me well, although I would have rather not spent my time in the kitchen when I could be outside riding my horse or hanging out with friends. Since I initially showed little to no interest in the kitchen, my parents told me that I couldn’t date until I could cook. I am sure my husband is happy that I decided to take my parent’s words seriously because it led me to love cooking!

In an effort to help my family stay on track with our meals, I’ve taught myself some meal planning tricks. Just last week I took an hour and sat down with all my favorite recipes and cookbooks and decided to write down as many meals as I could think of. I wanted to also include corresponding sides because I would get really bored eating broccoli every night.

Many of you know I am a huge fan of Wildtree. I use their spices all the time and take advantage of their Make Ahead kits to put meals in my freezer. So, it’s no surprise that some of my families’ favorite meals are from Wildtree. As I was making my list, I came across the Homestyle Meatloaf and I was reminded of how much my kiddos enjoyed that, so on the list it went.

The list was a huge success and tonight it fell on Homestyle Meatloaf.  I had taken my meat out of the freezer and let it thaw, so it’s time to add in all the other ingredients. The recipe is super easy and I love that it’s gluten free since most meatloaf recipes call for crackers or something like that. This meatloaf is also super moist, I think the combination of the egg and coconut flour is perfect. I usually follow the recipe when it calls for 1 lb. Gr. Turkey and 1 lb. Gr. Beef, but this time I forgot and took out 2 lbs. of our grass fed, pasture raised Gr. Chuck. The Gr. Chuck was just as good as the beef and turkey mixture so, use what you have in your freezer.

I prefer to use a food processor when I need diced onions for a couple reasons: 1) because I don’t like to be crying when I am cooking dinner, 2) because I need to have my onions in small, almost undetectable size pieces so that my picky eaters don’t realize that there are onions in there, 3) because it’s so fast, cut it in quarters, throw it in  there, press the chop button for 5 seconds and they are done!

Once all the ingredients are measured and put in the bowl, you are ready to mix it all up. This is the messy part. But my fingers get the job done. Make sure all the ingredients are fully mixed and then transfer it into a large loaf pan. Wildtree’s recipe calls for tomato sauce over the top of the meatloaf. My family isn’t the biggest fan of plain tomato sauce so I usually put a little bit of honey sweetened ketchup on top.

The meatloaf goes into the oven at 375 degrees for 50 mins and that’s it! I take it out and let it rest for about 10 mins before serving it to my family. Delicious!