Mac 'n Cheese Stuffed MeatLoaf

How much you will enjoy any given food will depend largely on two things:

1) Your appetite at any given moment.

2) Your individual taste.

Setting the stage for the first one is easy. The longer you go without eating, the greater your appetite will be and the more you will enjoy your food.

But your individual taste is a very complex component in determining how much you will enjoy what you are about to eat.

A lot of your individual taste can be affected by your culture and the foods you were introduced to as a youngster. How often you've been introduced to a particular taste can be a factor. Associations with pleasant or not so pleasant memories will play a part. Was it a meal your MOM made just for you? The mood you are in, how tired or stressed you are, are you anxious about something? Happy, sad or angry?

Is the smell pleasant or familiar? And just like taste, all the same components also apply to the smell in helping determine how much the food will be enjoyed.

I had high expectations of this meatloaf when I was making it, but as you know, "It's important that you manage your expectations."

So I was pleased when My Shirley declared she thought this meatloaf was "better than" her own recipe.

I was not as kind. I wasn't certain to what degree I even liked this and chose to reserve judgement. However, I was not about to admit it could in any way be better than My Shirley's meatloaf.

Of course there were two more factors involved here affecting both our taste buds.

My Shirley was experiencing the "almost everything tastes better when someone else makes it" syndrome while I was experiencing the "I'm not really hungry after preparing supper" phenomenon. I'm not sure why that is, but I often lose my appetite when I prepare a meal. There doesn't seem to be any correlation to how much sampling I've done during preparation as this phenomenon exists even when prepping meals that don't lend easily to sampling. I often enjoy a meal I've prepared, the following day as leftovers much more.

In the long run, the general consensus was this recipe would be saved to make again, although I will not concede that it's better than My Shirley's meatloaf. Unfortunately, you'll have to take my word for it as I can't share that recipe here since My Shirley claims she never makes it the same way twice.

My favourite part of any meatloaf, is making a meatloaf sandwich with the leftovers. I feared that the filling in this meatloaf wouldn't go well in a sandwich. I mean, really... that's kind of like a "mac 'n cheese sandwich". GROSS! But it was surprisingly good.

While I cannot rate this recipe as the best meatloaf I have ever had, I've decided it's uniqueness, ease to make and overall taste make it a recipe worth hanging onto.

Just one tip. If you don't have ground sausage meat, don't worry. Just use more ground beef. I couldn't really taste the sausage in it anyway.

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 50 mins

Total Time: 1 hr

Stuff You’ll Need

• 1 box of Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese

• 1 eggs, beaten

• ¾ lb ground beef

• ½ lb ground sausage roll

• 1 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs

• ½ cup onion, diced

• ½ sweet green pepper, diced

• 2 tsp garlic powder

• 2 tsp dried parsley

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tsp black pepper

• ½ cup Maple Syrup BBQ sauce

• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

For The Sauce:

• ⅓ cup ketchup

• 2 tbsp brown sugar

• 1 ½ tbsp yellow mustard

Do This:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.

2. Boil water to prepare Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese as per the instructions on the box.

3. While the water is boiling, spray or brush a casserole dish with vegetable oil.

4. Combine eggs, ground beef, sausage, breadcrumbs, onion, green pepper, garlic powder, parsley, salt, pepper and BBQ sauce in a large bowl, and mix well.

5. Take half of the meat mixture and shape it into about an 8”x4” loaf in the center of the casserole dish. 

6. Press down in the center of the loaf, creating a bowl in the middle. 

7. Make sure the sides are about 1” thick.

8. Finish preparing the macaroni and cheese and mix in the mozzarella cheese.

9. Spoon the mac and cheese mix into the cavity in the meatloaf bowl. (You may have a bit left over.)

10. Use the remaining meat mixture to top the loaf, making sure to enclose the macaroni and cheese by pinching the sides closed.

11. Bake for 40 minutes. 

12. While this is baking, in a measuring cup, combine the topping ingredients and mix well.

13. Remove meatloaf from the oven and increase the temperature to 400° F.

14. Brush the sauce over the top of the meatloaf making sure it’s not too thick.

15. Return to oven for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until meatloaf is cooked through and topping is bubbly.

16. Let meatloaf stand for at least 5 to 10 minutes before slicing and enjoy.