As we all know, food in loaf form is some of the finest food there is. Loaf is second only to "on a stick" as far as desirable food formations.

That said, I found this link a while back for Bacon Mushroom Meatloaf. It looked good, but needed some editing. So I have recreated my experience of making this loaf for the betterment of mankind. (Note: link checker came up positive for Domain match, but I'm not worried as it is a recipe site. Even if this particular one has been posted before, I'm changing some things and also it should be funny if I play my cards right.)

Original recipe calls for:

8 slices bacon
1 Tbsp. olive oil
4 chopped large button mushrooms
1 minced onion
1/2 cup corn flake crumbs
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 cup shredded Havarti cheese
1-1/2 lbs. extra lean ground beef
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

But as you will see, I have modified it somewhat. I ended up with this pile:



One of these things is not like the other!

The original recipe calls for Havarti cheese. Do you know what Havarti cheese is? According to Wikipedia.org:

Havarti is semi-soft Danish cheese which has been interior-ripened. It is a rindless, smooth and slightly bright-surfaced cheese with a cream to yellow colour depending on type. It has very small and irregular openings ("eyes") distributed in the mass. The texture (also depending on type) can be supple and flexible.

Havarti has a buttery aroma and can be somewhat sharp in the stronger varieties. The taste is buttery, somewhat to very sweet, and slightly acidulous. When the cheese is older it becomes more salty and tastes like hazelnut. When left at room temperature the cheese tends to soften quickly.

According to me, however:

Havarti is fucking cheese that costs ten fucking dollars a pound.

So, until the day when I sell off my unicorn and raise enough money wrangling dinosaurs that I can afford 10-dollar-a-pound cheese, I have substituted it with Colby-Jack. While it may not be interior ripened or have a buttery aroma, it tastes fucking great in meatloaf. Cheddar would most likely also be palatable.

Onward!

Step 1: Fry bacon



Mmm, bacon. If you happen to be a cartoon character, expect members of your family to be roused from slumber and dragged into the kitchen by their nostrils by the spectral aroma-hands emanating from the pan. Bacon frying usually smells great, unless you're like me and are also smelling the charred remains of whatever you cooked last, which have slopped over onto the burner and are happily becoming coal.

Note: If you are cooking this at someone else's house, it helps to have a contingency plan in case something goes wrong during preparation:



After frying the bacon, set it aside to dry. Paper towels work good for this, or simply hang it by clothespins in front of a fan. Remember to dispose of your grease properly; I threw mine in my neighbor's face for letting her dog shit in the stairwell.

Step 2: Onion time

All right, no matter how saturated we are with the cheap humor of it, cutting onions is a bitch. You will cry, unless you are a man mightier than man himself. I tried to circumvent this by chopping onions with the as-seen-on-TV Magic Bullet:



But I realized that to chop onions in the Bullet, you have to have the driest onions in the fucking world. I was treated to a healthy dollop of Onion Sauce. Sadly, the picture of it was corrupted, but it looked like the shit they ate in The Matrix. This happened with both the chopping and the not-chopping blade.

Afterwards, I began mincing the onions in a very non-gay fashion, despite the use of the word "mincing." My eyes began to stream viscous fluid and sting so bad I thought I had eye gonorrhea. My last outbreak was months ago, though, so I was pretty sure the penicillin had worked, and it was, in fact, the onions.



Donning protective facegear I had borrowed from the Cave Fish from the hit Lucasarts game Full Throttle, I managed to finish the onions off once and for all.

Step 3: Mushroom Magic



Though the recipe calls for large button mushrooms, I had no idea what the fuck those were and also I couldn't find anyone at Ric's that did. So I bought regular mushrooms, which worked fine before. These are Moonlight mushrooms, but really, any sort of astral radiation should do. Phlogiston will work in a pinch.



You then "brown" the mushrooms because "sauté" is French and if they didn't support us in the War on Terror then they can damn well stay out of my meatloaf.

Step 4: Combination a-go-go

You're now ready to put some stuff together with other stuff. First, beat one egg like it owed you money:



I personally selected this egg after being assured by the grocer that, if fertilized, it would have become the Hitler of eggs, and later, the Hitler of chickens. It would then lay other eggs that would hatch into small Hitlers.



Before using bread crumbs, be sure they are free of Ultramen. Combine the crumbs (recipe calls for Corn Flake crumbs but fuck that noise,) Evaporated Milk, crumbled bacon, cheese, and onion/mushroom mix into a big ass bowl. This forms the "loaf:"



Mmm. Delectable. Now retrieve your meat from the common meat-storage venue, the dry goods cupboard:



And combine. Enjoy the visceral pleasure of squeezing dead flesh between your fingers. Have flashbacks to 'Nam if so inclined.



The finished product. Like most food, it will taste better than it looks. Combine into a "loaf pan." If you're like me, you probably don't have a "loaf pan" sitting around, so you can go to "the dollar store" and "buy a disposable one." If you happen to have a loaf pan sitting around, ready at a moment's notice, I don't think this relationship is going to work out.



Ready for the oven, which should have been preheating this whole time. You did turn the oven on, right? It's the big thing in the kitchen with dials on it. The kitchen is the room you don't sleep, poop, or watch Gilmore Girls in.

After it's cooked for about an hour, take it out and sprinkle some cheese on top:



This is where the Parmesan called for in the original recipe comes in, but fuck it, I'm tossing some more Colby Jack on top. Another 5 in the oven gets you:



Voila! The finished product. It doesn't look like much, but it's hearty and tasty and goes great with your fizzing beverage of choice. If you used disposable things where applicable, clean up is a snap, and the whole package cost me $23 at Ric's, but that was buying EVERYTHING involved in making it. Presumably typical human households may already contain things like olive oil, evaporated milk and maybe even vegetables. Either way, even at $23 this is a decent meal, considering how if you're eating alone (and let's face it, you are,) there's enough here for 4 or 5 meals altogether. Mmm, meatloaf sandwiches. I also have leftovers of almost every ingredient used. With some meat and an onion, I could make this again, no problem.

The other great part about this recipe (and all meatloaf, really,) is that if you don't like something, take it out. If you like something else, put it in. Skip the onions and fry up some green peppers. Try carrots instead of mushrooms, fuck, I don't know. If it doesn't become poisonous through baking, it can go in meatloaf. Feel free to experiment, and feel free to comment. Thanks.