Welcome in the year with simple turkey meatloaf

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Happy New Year to you all and welcome to 2019. I’m still putting away holiday decorations and have yet to take down outside Christmas lights, but everyone is back to work, school and weekday routines.

For those of you who made resolutions, good for you and good luck with them. While I don’t make resolutions, I do like to set goals for myself. Especially in the area of food.

In past years, I’ve had goals to incorporate certain things in my family’s diet, such as more and varied whole grains, more healthy fats and meat-alternative protein sources. It has been a fun culinary journey to try new foods and find new favorites (I’m looking at you, amaranth).

Last year’s goal was to make meals that could be on the table in 30 minutes or less. Could delicious dinner dishes be the norm without spending a whole afternoon on them? As regular readers and I discovered, yes. And what a time saver those recipes were!

This year, my goal is to share recipes that are simple. Really simple. Like 5 ingredients or less. No long list of ingredients, no hard-to-find ingredients and no complicated instructions.

As many of you know, I’m not opposed to long ingredient lists or dishes with long cooking times. Remember, I’m the one who shared a recipe for mincemeat pie back in December 2010 that required a laundry list of dried fruits and several weeks of steeping in brandy.

But recipes like that are for special holidays, not for a Wednesday night in January. What’s needed during the week is conciseness, ease and simplicity.

A friend of mine encourages me and a few others each January to focus on a word for the year. A few years ago, my word was “trust” and what a challenging year that was – I really did have to develop deeper trust.

My word this year: “simplify.” We are less than two weeks into the new year and I already see some things I need to simplify in my life. Even in the area of food.

You may be wondering, isn’t it simpler to go out to eat? While it’s fun to occasionally go out to eat, it is simpler to cook a meal at home. According to dietician Ben Atkinson of the University of Washington’s Harborview Medical Center, there are many benefits of homemade meals.

First up, it saves money. When eating in restaurants, we are paying for the costs of running that restaurant (staff, electricity, rent) in addition to the food we order there.

Secondly, eating at home saves time. I know this from personal experience. Sometimes we will order a pizza to be delivered (I know, you’re shocked), but I know I could have made and baked a homemade pizza in the time it took to order and have it delivered.

Other benefits of homemade meals include healthier ingredients, better portion control, avoidance of foods that can trigger allergies and more family time together.

This week’s recipe comes from the Food Network website. Chef Claire Robinson used to have a popular show called “5 Ingredient Fix.” Although the show is no more, the recipes live on and continue to inspire home cooks with their ease and practicality for weeknight meals. It’s as simple as that.

Five Ingredient Turkey Meatloaf

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 2 lbs. ground turkey
• 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
• 1 1/2 cups herb and oil marinated sun-dried tomatoes, pureed with the oil
• 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh sage leaves

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a large baking dish with aluminum foil or parchment paper. In a large bowl, lightly beat the eggs and add the ground turkey, bread crumbs, 1 cup pureed sundried tomatoes and sage. Set aside the remaining 1/2 cup tomato puree for later. Mix all ingredients by hand and transfer to prepared pan. Shape turkey mixture into a large loaf. Bake at 375 for 50-55 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. Remove from oven and spread the remaining tomato puree evenly over top of the loaf. Return it to the oven and bake for additional 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before cutting into 1-inch slices.