Vegetarian Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf arguably originates from the USA, but this uses meat-free mince (soya protein) and adds flavour with the sun-dried tomatoes, purée and stock cube. An excellent vegetarian offering well worth cooking even if you are not vegetarian.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
1 tbspn oil	25 gm pine nuts
100 gm onion (prepared weight)	50 gm sun-dried tomatoes in oil
50 gm red pepper (see note 1)	25 ml milk
1 tspn garlic	½ tspn dried rosemary
1 tspn tomato purée	½ tspn dried oregano
50 gm meat free mince (see note 2)	½ tspn fennel seeds
1 slice of bread	1 medium egg
1 stock cube (see note 3)

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 190° C.
Finely chop the onion.
Deseed and chop the red, green or yellow pepper (see note 1).
Finely chop the garlic.
Drain and chop the sun dried-tomatoes.
Make breadcrumbs from the slice of bread and reserve 15 gm.
Crumble the stock cube into the 15 gm of breadcrumbs and mix together.
Very roughly grind the fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar.
Beat the egg.

Cooking

Heat the oil over a low flame and cook the onions, red pepper and garlic, stirring regularly, for 8 min.
Add the tomato purée and cook, stirring regularly for 2 min, then remove from the heat and allow to cool.
In a bowl, add the meat free mince, breadcrumbs, pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, milk, rosemary, oregano, fennel seeds, cooled onion mixture and the beaten egg and mix thoruoghly.
Spoon the mixture into an oven proof dish or ramekin (see note 4), press well down and bake in the oven for 1 hour.

Serving

Cut into 3 slices and serve with boiled potatoes and peas.

Notes

(1) Red, green or yellow peppers can be used or any combination thereof.
(2) Meat free mince can be purchased at most supermarkets and is ideal for this dish.
(3) If you are vegetarian use a vegetable stock cube otherwise a beef stock cube is ideal.
(4) A ramekin that holds about 300 ml (12 cm diameter and 5 cm deep) is ideal.

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