Crockpot Meatloaf

Ok, so I seem to make meatloaf kinda often.  It's funny; to me, meatloaf is total comfort food, but I'm not particularily fond of meatballs at all.  It's weird, I know.  I should just be able to make meatballs with my fave meatloaf flavours in there and voila--but no.  Not the same.

So this recipe idea originally came from the Wellness Mama, who did an entire month of blogging crockpot recipes (my hero--I love things I can throw in the crockpot and come home to a house full of good food smells and dinner waiting for me whenever I'm ready for it...).  But I was feeling saucy (aka cranky and tired and difficult) two nights ago, when we were trying to assemble whatever ingredients we could in advance so we could just stick it in the pot and turn it on the next morning.  I wasn't feeling particularily helpful, so when Steve asked me what I wanted in the meatloaf this time, I said, "I dunno, I don't care, get creative."  Hmm.  So he scowled for a minute while I emailed him a copy of the crockpot recipe to his laptop, and then he pulled out the dog-eared "Company's Coming Crockpot Recipes" book at the back of our cookbook cupboard and began asking me questions about which ingredients are paleo and which aren't.  So this is what ended up going into the meatloaf...

I'll be the first to admit that anything cooked in the crockpot, while delicious, comes out looking like crap.  It does not make food look pretty.  But slow cooking meat with spices draws out so much more flavour, all flavour, that less spices are needed, and the meat is fall-apart tender no matter what cut you use.

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground meat--I used beef
1 egg
3 tbs worchestershire sauce
1/3 c salsa
1 small cooking onion, or 1/4 large spanish onion, finely diced
1 5-oz can tomato paste

Directions:
Combine everything except tomato paste in the crockpot.  Steve literally packed it down to the shape of the crockpot and didn't even try to make it a loaf shape or anything.  Spread tomato paste all over top of crockpot.  Cook according to crockpot instructions--in my crockpot, its always low 10-12 hours or high 4-5 hours.

Now, the Wellness Mama suggested her kids liked their meatloaf with applesauce (whatever made them think of THAT?)  But the British in me loves anything even more if there's a sauce involved, so I thought, why not?  I have unsweetened applesauce in the back of my fridge--and wow, it IS better yet with applesauce.  I have a new love:  Applesauce with my meatloaf.  Who'da thunk it?