blue cheese meatloaf

This is a great comfort food recipe, easy to put together and perfect for a family weekend dinner. The resulting meatloaf has a subtle blue cheese flavour and is perfectly moist. The polenta helps to firm up the texture of the loaf so that excess moisture is soaked up and makes for easier slicing. If you don't have any you can always experiment with oatmeal or breadbrumbs. If you have any left overs you could always make yourself a meatloaf sandwich using the kaiser rolls.



Ingredients
700g lean mince (I used 50/50 pork and beef)
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 sticks of celery, finely diced
100g blue cheese
1 tsp fennel seeds, lightly ground if you like
1 tsp dried rosemary
freshly ground black pepper
1 egg
70g cornmeal/polenta

1. Preheat oven to 150C (fan oven). 
2. In a large bowl mix all the ingredients together until thoroughly combined but take care not to over mix otherwise you'll end up with a tough meatloaf. Place the mixture in a 1lb loaf tin, cover loosely with foil then bake in the oven for around 1 hour 30 minutes. About 30 minutes before the end of the time, remove the foil lid, carefully drain off the excess fat and return to the oven to colour up.
3. Once the meat loaf is cooked remove from the oven, turn out on to a serving plate and slice up ready to serve. I served mine without any additional sauce or gravy but with butter bean and potato mash and slow cooker red cabbage as sides. Feel free to add a sauce if you like though.