Meat Loaf a la Dave Lieberman

I had already planned on making meatloaf (with potatoes and green beans) when we decided to have 2 of Dave's friends over (Doug and Justin) for the vice presidential debate. While I will post the entire recipe, I'd like to note here that I probably wouldn't make this the same way again. I would probably just make the meatloaf and potatoes separately as the potatoes still were not cooked after twice the amount of cooking time. Maybe it's because I used a roasting pan instead of a large ceramic casserole (as shown in the picture though not mentioned in the recipe).

Bubby's Meat Loaf With Red Pepper Sauce and Tangy Green Beans from Dave's Dinners by Dave Lieberman

Ingredients:

Meat loaf:
2 eggs
3 oz. tomato paste
1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt
15 grinds fresh black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 pounds ground beef, 85-90% lean (again I used ground turkey)
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, pressed
(2 Davers' hands... for mixing!!)

Red Pepper Sauce:
3 oz tomato oz.
1 small onion roughly chopped (like inch cubes)
1 garlic clove
1 small red pepper, seeded, cored, roughly chopped (like inch cubes)
1.5 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
15 grinds fresh black pepper

1.5 pounds small red potatoes, halved (or smaller if they are bigger, which I did)

Green Beans:
1 lb green beans, trimmed (just snap off the gross end)
1/2 cup olive oil
salt
1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Prepare:
Preheat oven to 350.
Chop the onions (for a fun tip, see the prepare section of the Pasta Matriciana post).
Prepare the red pepper.

Cook:
Whisk together the eggs, tomato paste, water, salt, pepper, and cayenne in a large mixing bowl (make sure to crack the eggs into the bowl first in case one is bad). Add the remaining meat loaf ingredients and work together completely until all the ingredients are evenly distributed.

Place the meat mixture into a baking pan (large casserole dish???) and shape into a loaf about 11 inches long and 4 inches wide. The loaf should be in the middle of the pan.

Make the red pepper sauce by placing all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and pureeing until smooth. Cover the meat loaf with red pepper sauce and allow the excess sauce to pool around the meat loaf. Cover the pan with aluminum foil but avoid contact with the meat loaf by leaving at least a couple of inches of space between the top of the meat loaf and the foil.

Bake 45 minutes, then uncover, scatter, and submerge the potatoes in the pan juices, and bake 45 minutes longer, until the potatoes are fork-tender.

More Prep:
After placing the meat loaf in the oven, prepare the green beans and potatoes for cooking.
After placing the potatoes in the oven, make the green beans.

More Cooking:
Bring a pot of water to boil. Salt the water and add the green beans and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until the beans turn bright green. Strain them and run under cold water to stop them from cooking further.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add a few pinches of salt and the vinegar and let cook down for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and toss in the beans to coat them thoroughly and evenly with the dressing. (NOTE: let the oil mixture cool for a bit first, I tossed the beans in right away and ended up with hot oil spatter on my shirt, my arms and the stove. OUCH!!)

Serves 4-6 (recipe says 8 but NO WAY)

Now, since my potatoes didn't cook, I eventually fished them out, put them in a casserole dish, and nuked them in the microwave for like 10 minutes. They were...

DELICIOUS!!!