Healthy Meatloaf Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup flax seed meal (Bob's Red Mill)
• 2 lbs. lean ground beef (< 10% fat)
• 1 cup finely chopped slow roasted tomatoes ( you can use sun-dried tomatoes (rinse with hot water if oil packed) or well-drained roasted canned tomatoes )
• 1 T ground fennel (Penzeys)
• 1 T dried parsley
• 2 eggs slightly beaten
• 1 T garlic powder
• 1 T dried basil
• 1 pkg. (19.5 oz.) hot turkey Italian Sausage
• 1 tsp. Vege-Sal (or 1/2 tsp. salt)
• 2 T dried chopped onion

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Spray roasting racks or loaf pan with non-stick spray.
2. Remove ground beef and turkey sausage links from refrigerator and let come to room temperature. In bowl, combine garlic powder, dried parsley, dried onion, , dried basil, ground fennel, Vege-sal or salt, and flax seed meal. (I purposely used dried herbs since I wasn't adding much binder to the meatloaf and I didn't want added moisture.)
3. Squeeze turkey sausage out of casings in small pieces into the mixing bowl. Break ground beef into pieces and place in same bowl. Add tomatoes, and eggs to meat mixture and use your hands to combine well. Try to mix the meat enough to get spices and eggs evenly distributed without overmixing.
4. Shape meat into two loaves. I prefer to bake meatloaf on a roasting rack as shown, so the fat can drip out. This meatloaf doesn't have a lot of fat, but using a rack also browns the meatloaf well on three sides.
5. Bake until the meatloaf is well done, 165F on the meat thermometer.  When I originally baked this in my toaster/convection, it was done in 1 hour 15 minutes.  This time it took about 1 hour 30 minutes in my large oven.  Cutting one meat loaf open is the still a good way to see if the inside is done to your liking (Remember this contains turkey and needs to be fairly well done.)