Show Mommy How the Piggies Eat

I have always LOVED the movie A Christmas Story.  I watch it every year at Christmas time (usually multiple times) and sometimes even throughout the year.  It is one of my favorite all-time movies.  I remember one time when I was in high school and my sister was home from college we sat down to watch the movie together.  When it got to the part where Randy wouldn't eat and utters the "meatloaf, smeetloaf, double beetloaf I hate meatloaf" line and the mom tells him to show her how the piggies eat we started laughing uncontrollably.  We had both seen the movie many times but there was just something in that moment that struck us as hysterically funny.  I still laugh pretty hard at that part every time I watch the movie to this day and I will always remember watching it with my sister that day at my parent's house. 

I was a pretty picky eater growing up and there were many things I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole but oddly enough meatloaf, something many people despise, wasn't one of them.  It is, however, one of those dishes that I would only really enjoy if my mom made it and never would have ordered it in a restaurant.  I also recently saw a Rachael Ray episode where she added beer to her ground beef while making burgers and I decided that if it works in burgers it would work in meatloaf too. 

We recently purchased half a cow and split it with Jason's brother so ground beef is plentiful in our house and I have been trying to come up with new ways to use it.  Tonight was an experiment in combining some of Wisconsin's greatest things; beef, cheese and Miller Lite.  I started with two pounds of ground beef and added about half a cup of beer, some worcestershire sauce, about a cup of bread crumbs, a little chopped onion, some roasted garlic and some various other seasonings.  I mixed that all up and put half on a piece of parchment paper in a cake pan.  I learned this trick a while ago from my friends on the Food Network that if you bake the meatloaf on a cake pan all the grease comes out in the pan and the meatloaf doesn't get greasy.  Once I had half the ground beef mixture down I layered on some swiss cheese and sliced mushrooms and then topped it all off with the remaining ground beef.  I made sure all my edges were sealed up and topped the meatloaf with a mixture of beer, ketchup and balsamic vinegar and popped it in the over at 350 for about an hour.

While that was baking I started my drunken potatoes and gravy.  I quartered some baby reds and smashed and peeled some garlic and threw it in a pot with the rest of the can of beer and some water.

While the potatoes and garlic hung out on the hot tub I got started on the gravy.  I sliced up the rest of the mushrooms from the carton that I used for the meatloaf.  It's funny to me that I now love mushrooms because they were a food that as a child I would not go near.

I melted some butter in a sauce pan and added the mushrooms and a little flour to thicken it up a bit.  Once the mushrooms started to cook down a little it was Miller Time.  I added a little beer to the pan and let the sauce thicken up a bit.

 My sauce got a little thick so I added some beef stock to thin it out and then threw in a wedge of french onion laughing cow cheese to add some creaminess and a little flavor.  Once the gravy was all together and simmering away my potatoes were ready to be smashed.  I pulled out one of my very favorite tools for this job, my Pampered Chef Mix n Chop.

This thing is amazing!  I use it all the time for ground beef and turkey and I love it for potatoes too (I like my potatoes lumpy).  I smashed up the potatoes and garlic and added some butter, cream, some more Laughing Cow french onion cheese, a splash of beer and some seasonings.

By the time I had the potatoes all complete m gravy had simmered down a bit and the meatloaf was ready too.  I pulled the meatloaf out of the oven and slid the sheet of parchment paper it was baked on onto a cutting board.  I have recently started to use a digital thermometer, which I love, so I can really know when food is done and I don't have to cut into it and hope for the best anymore.  The meatloaf was perfectly done and the mushrooms were cooked well in the middle and the cheese melted beautifully.

Everything turned out great!  The meatloaf had good flavor and the cheese was a nice gooey addition to the center and the potatoes were nice and creamy and the gravy had a hint of beer flavor that somehow balanced nice with the earthiness of the mushrooms.  This dinner brought a whole new meaning to cooking with beer, which up until now in our house is when Jason grilled out with a beer in one hand.  It was a good experiment and one which I will continue to do in the future.