Healthy Meatloaf & Low Fat Tomato Sauce

I'm a huge believer in making meals from scratch rather than buying convenient prepacked jars/sauces and ready meals. It eliminates the risk of consuming artificial additives and sugars; plus homemade is always best; its tastier, healthier and  fresh. These days it can be difficult to know what's exactly in ready made food we buy. With all this in mind, it's a wonder at all why one would buy ready made meals at all.

This meat loaf is made with extra lean steak mince meat from my local butchers, ensuring a healthy, high quality meat. 

The tomato sauce I've made to accompany the meatloaf, is simple to make and extremely low fat with no butter or cream in sight. It's a great basic tomato sauce recipe to have, as it goes well with pasta and fish and is a great pizza base. Plus did I mention it has almost zero calories. 

The meatloaf freezes well also, once frozen and defrosted correctly, meaning freeze it completely cool in an airtight container and defrost in the fridge overnight within 3 months.

Ingredients

Meatloaf

• 500g of extra lean steak mince
• 1 large egg
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• 2 carrots (grated)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 tbsp chopped rosemary
• 6-7 leaves of sage
• 2 slices of wholemeal brown bread
• 3 tbsp of worchester sauce
• Salt and pepper
• 1 tsp of olive oil.

Tomato Sauce

• 6 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tbsp of tomato paste/puree
• 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp of dried oregano
• 1 tsp of olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 6 basil leaves, finely shredded

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees
2. Add all the meatloaf ingredients to a food processor and blitz until well combined
3. Rub the olive oil into a loaf tin and transfer the meatloaf mixture to the tin
4. Place the tin in oven proof dish and fill the oven proof dish half way up with water (bain marie)
5. Bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes, after 30 minutes cover the meatloaf with tin foil to prevent it burning and bake for a further 25-30 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, saute the onion and garlic for the tomato sauce on a medium heat with the tsp of olive oil. Add the oregano and puree and continue to saute.
7. Add the tomatoes and mix well. Add the salt, pepper and red wine vinegar and allow the tomatoes to cook down to a 'mushy' consistency.
8. Pour the tomato mixture into a jug and blitz with a hand held blender.
9. Return to the pan. The sauce should have a smooth consistency now.
10. Add the shredded basil and more pepper if necessary.
11. To plate up, remove the meatloaf from the oven and take it out of the loaf tin. Allow it tot rest for a few minutes below cutting it into slices. Place the tomato sauce in the centre of a plate and top with 2 slices of meatloaf per person.

Serving Suggestion: Garden Peas and garlic and rosemary roast potatoes