Prepared April 30th, 2019

This very may well be the perfect meatloaf. It is good when in first comes out the oven but it just keeps getting better with age. It is huge so I have the last little remnant stored in my freezer I can't wait until it resurfaces. 

 Here is the recipe as it appears in Epicurious.

 Here is my version:

The recipe is enough for at least 6 servings--you will still have leftovers. :)

Ingredients:

1 cup fine fresh bread crumbs (2 slices of bread) I used my food processor to turn my Trader Joe's Canadian white bread into crumbs (I also made extra because I like to have bread crumbs on hand)

1/3 cup whole milk

1 medium onion, finely chopped (I used a purple onion as always)

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 medium celery rib, finely chopped

1 medium carrot, finely chopped

2TBS butter (the recipe calls for unsalted BUT I always use salted butter)

2TBS Worcestershire sauce (I am so glad that Lea & Perrin's stopped ruining their "original" recipe with HFCS)

1 TBS cider vinegar

1/4 tsp ground allspice

2 tsp salt

1-1/2 tsp pepper

1/4 lb uncooked bacon (about 4 slices), chopped

1/2 cup pitted prunes, chopped

1-1/2 lbs ground beef chuck

1/2 lb ground pork (not lean)

2 large eggs (I used eggs from my brother's chickens)

1/3 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

**Garnish** cooked bacon (for the record I did make this--I confess that I ate it while waiting for the meatloaf to cook!)

Preheat the oven to 350°F with rack in the middle. Soak bread crumbs in milk in a large bowl. Meanwhile. cook onion, celery, and carrot in butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic at the last so that it cooks but doesn't burn. Remove from heat and in Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, allspice, ***pet peeve alert** (here is where the original recipe lists extra ingredients not in the main ingredient list--yes it is only salt and pepper but it still annoys me-so they are up there now) salt and pepper. Add to bread crumb mixture. I added the eggs and parsley to the breadcrumbs at this point--trust me it makes it easier to mix with the meat this way. 

Finely chop the bacon and prunes in a food processor. I also strayed from the recipe here as I added this mixture to the ground beef and the ground pork and then I gently mixed the meat into the breadcrumb mixture with my hands. This way everything gets more evenly distributed and the less you work with the meat the better the end result.

Pack mixture into a 9x5 inch oval loaf in a 13x9 inch shallow baking pan. Bake until an instant read thermometer inserted in the center of meatloaf registers 155° about 1-1-1/4 hours. I did not measure the temp-but if you are skittish about doneness of meat then it is a hefty thick loaf so you may want to check. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving. 

I will definitely be making this again and again.