Meatless Loaf

Recipe: Meatless Loaf Cupcakes with Butternut Squash Puree

Source: http://www.thesweetlifeonline.com/2012/10/22/meatless-loaf-cupcakes-with-butternut-squash-puree/

Time: 1 1/2 hrs

Ease: 7

Taste: 4

Leftover Value: 5

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain

This is one of those recipes that after making it all I could think was: if you are going to choose to be a vegetarian, why on earth would you try to replicate something in which its very name involves meat?

Meatless meatloaf.  It just doesn't quite make sense.

I had bookmarked quite a file of recipes for my Daniel Fasting, before I punked out and went vegetarian.  I decided I still needed to sprinkle in a few of my pre-selected recipes and this stood out as one that I needed to give a try.*

*It also stood out because I had put it on my dinner calendar** and purchased all the ingredients necessary to make it.

**Yes, I have a dinner calendar.  Perhaps a post on that in the upcoming future?

I made this on a night that Hubby was working late.  The process is all rather tedious and time consuming.  Much more than I had hoped for, in fact, much more tedious and time consuming than any MEATloaf I have ever made has ever been.  To me it is such a waste of time in order to avoid using meat.  First, the lentils need to be boiled and the butternut squash baked.  That takes 45 minutes.  The lentils are then put in a food processor with an onion mixture, tomato paste, and a flour/walnut mixture.  

The butternut squash puree is also supposed to be made in the food processor.  I'll give it this: it made it very smooth.  However, unless you are independently wealthy and/or you collect food processors, it means you need to wash the food processor out in the midst of your cooking.

Not cool.

The recipe calls for something called "liquid smoke".  After investigating it a little, and learning that ultimately it is used to give a smoky flavor to food, I decided against purchasing it for the sole purpose of this meal.

I'm going to say it if you won't.  These mini meatless loaves look like throw up.

The butternut squash on top definitely gives it a cupcake look.  Now if only it had a cupcake taste.

At first I thought I could live with this recipe.  The outsides were crispy, and mixed with the butternut squash puree it had a familiarity of meatloaf.

Of course, it certainly was far from the real thing.  Especially since the real thing for me is coated in bacon and dripping with a delicious ketchup and brown sugar mixture.  Mmmmmm....

When I reached the center of the "cake" I was pretty much ready to be finished with my dinner.  Rather than the semi-appealing crunch that the outside had given, I was faced with a mushy warm center.  I tried to cover it up with more butternut squash puree and zucchini, but it was no use.

I managed to finish my dinner and, perhaps because I hadn't eaten anything of substance all day, told myself it hadn't been that bad.  I felt full, and I guess my stomach was satisfied.

Then Hubby came home and had some of it leftover.  I find I can only get an opinion from Hubby on dinners I make if they meet one of two extremes: 1. Really delicious or 2. Really disgusting.

You can guess which category he told me this recipe fell under.