Julie Bove > wrote:
: What do you put in yours? All of the recipes I've seen call for an egg or
: two and we have an egg allergy. Some call for milk. We have a dairy
: allergy. I came up with a recipe that kinda sorta works, but I make it into
: small loaves because it doesn't seem to hold together so well for slicing.

: I am a bit confused because last night I was talking to a man who says he
: stopped putting egg in his a long time ago. I thought it was the egg that
: holds it together. But maybe it is the crumbs or oatmeal that holds it
: together? But then people here say they don't use that either.

: I loosely followed a recipe that called for 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef, 1/4
: onion chopped, 3/4 cup rolled oats, 8 oz. tomato juice, salt pepper and an
: egg.

: I subbed in a generous amount of flax for the egg. I didn't add water as I
: normally would to do an egg sub because I added a ton of veggies to the mix.
: Used a large onion instead of 1/4 of an onion. About 1 1/2 cups of
: zucchini, two big handfuls of spinach, couple of large tomatoes with the
: seeds removed, a few sliced green onions. This stuff was all finely chopped
: in the food processor. I then emptied it out and whizzed in the oats and
: let them soak in the veggies and juice. I read to do this somewhere. The
: flax went in at this time too. Instead of tomato juice I used a bottle of
: organic vegetable juice. It was rather thick and according to my husband,
: chunky. Didn't look like enough juice so I added a small can of tomato
: juice. And a few squirts of One Carb ketchup for extra flavor. I also used
: about 2 1/2 pounds of ground beef. And I added oregano because some people
: who tested the recipe said to do that for added flavor. This resulted in 9
: generously sized mini meatloaves that I topped with a small jar of thick,
: homemade (not by me) chili sauce.

: I mixed this up last night and put it in a bag in the fridge. By the time I
: took it out, there was a lot of liquid in the bag. I am thinking the
: tomatoes were not a good thing to add. Perhaps I should have gone with
: peppers and mushrooms? At any rate, I added what I had in my veggie bin
: that needed to be used up.

: They are baking and just about done. They smell wonderful but I just
: spooned off almost a cup of watery stuff from them. I don't think there was
: much grease in there. I used really lean meat. Most likely it is juice
: from the vegetables.

: So does anyone see a way I can improve this? I have made this before and it
: does taste good and isn't too carby for me but it would be nice if I could
: make it lower in carbs still. I just fear that if I leave out the oatmeal
: entirely I will have something that is too solid in texture and not like a
: meatloaf. My mom makes a really good meatloaf but she doesn't put
: vegetables in hers aside from onion. She also puts bacon on top which I
: find a little strange, and it's a little too high in carbs for me. She uses
: gluten free bread or crackers made into crumbs. I would like to be able to
: make a large loaf or two so it can be eaten cold in sandwiches.

When I cok my no crumbs meatloaf, ig gets very watery looking for quite a
while but if I leave it i the oven lond enoughthe liquid evaporates
leaving a kind of rotein gel arond the meat which I think of gravy.

Wendy