Paula Deen Meat Loaf

Not only will there be no picture of this recipe, I'm also not including the recipe for this recipe! That's when you know something went very, very wrong. 

As much as meatloaf is about as basic as you can get for an evening meal, I think it can sometimes be tricky to get just the right texture and taste out of a hunk of doctored up beef shaped into a loaf. I've had some successes with different meatloaf recipes, as well as times of definite failure. Like last night. 

I'm often prone to blame myself as a cook but, in this case, I'm giving Cook Barbara a pass on execution, though she should've perhaps recognized some warning signs in the ingredient list. Let's take the "8 oz. canned diced tomatoes with juice" for instance. When my loaf came out of the oven, I cut into it and was horrified to find what looked like chunks of raw meat interspersed throughout the mixture. Closer inspection revealed that I was actually looking at some of the tomato chunks. OK...that's well and good, but who wants that visual of raw meat in the midst of their loaf?????? Not me, for sure. 

The tomato issue was pretty off-putting but I could've MAYBE got past that visual if this meatloaf had lived up to the hype Paula Deen touted about how her version of last night's dinner was the best in the world. Sadly, I found the taste of the loaf very bland. 

I served up an end, slightly more palatable piece to Martin, treated Funston to a nibble or two,  and threw out the rest. I even deleted it from my Paprika app, just so I don't somehow forget how bad this recipe is and someday go to make it again. If you want to try it out and do a better job than I did, have at it. But go find the recipe yourself because I'm not putting it here!