Vegetarian Meatloaf

I know some of you are cringing at the thought of a "meatless" meatloaf. Honestly, I would love to have a nice meatloaf with ground turkey, but alas, it is not to be...right now anyway. I did some internet searching and found this "meat"loaf that uses lentils-one of my favorite legumes. David and I love lentil-barley burgers, so I'm hoping this is just as good. Being a woman I crave comfort food-although I know you don't have to be a woman to want comfort food. So, tonight I'll be experimenting with the recipe and trying it out. One of the ingredients in BBQ sauce, which makes everything better. I also topped it with BBQ sauce instead of ketchup. Sweet Baby Rays is our house sauce (even though it has HFCS...we'll let that one slide). Here is the recipe that I tweeked from a recipe submitted from food.com

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup lentils
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
  
• 3/4 cup grated cheese ( cheddar, swiss, jack or american)-I used sharp cheddar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1-1/2 cups tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup BBQ sauce
  
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Add salt to water and boil in a saucepan.
2. Add lentils and simmer covered 25-30 minutes, until lentils are soft and most of water is evaporated.
3. Remove from fire.
4. Drain and partially mash lentils.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
   
6. Scrape into mixing bowl and allow to cool slightly.
7. Stir in onion, oats, panko and cheese until mixed.
8. Add egg, tomato sauce, bbq sauce, garlic, basil, parsley, seasoning salt and pepper.
9. Mix well.

9. Spoon into loaf pan that has been generously sprayed with non-stick cooking spray or greased another way...like butter...mmm butter
   
10. Smooth top with back of spoon.
11. Bake at 350 degrees for 30- 45 minutes ( add some bbq sauce to the top 10 minutes before done) until top of loaf is dry, firm and golden brown.
12. Cool in pan on rack for about 10 minutes.
13. Enjoy!

    

It was really good! We had mashed potatoes from our garden and I couldn't resist breaking into some of the freezer corn I did earlier in the summer. :)

e