Meatloaf Spice Mix - McCormick's Clone

I've got an earlier post on meatloaf but I wanted to very quickly stop in and post the spice mix I now make and use exclusively. It takes just like McCormick's, only fresher.

Ingredients

     2 tsp ground mustard
     2 tsp paprika
     1 1/2 tsp sea salt
     1 1/2 tsp thyme
     1 1/2 tsp basil
     1 tsp ground black pepper
     1 tsp garlic powder
     1 tsp onion powder

If you use 1lb pork sausage plus 1lb elk burger (or beef), you'll add 1 Tbsp of this mix to your meatloaf ingredients.

     ...8 crackers, 1/2 C milk, 2 eggs.  375 in loaf pan for 1 hour

If you use 2lbs of elk burger (or beef), you'll add the entire mix.

If using beef and trying to recreate the rest of my recipe, add 3 more crackers as beef contains more fat than elk.

If you have a last packet of McCormick's to use up and want to try it with pork sausage like I do, you'll use 1/3 of the packet.

If all of this is confusing, raise your hand.

How do you make your meatloaf?

Onion Soup Mix, Hold the Onion

I really hate onions. I can smell an onion a mile away and I gag if one slips through my defenses and into my mouth. It's pretty embarrassing in public but that doesn't happen too often anymore. I've learned to just ask if something has onion in it and it's very sad how much that limits what I eat when I eat out.

Over the last 2 years as I've really begun to cook, I've noticed that a lot of recipes for beef (I always substitute with elk or deer as I can't have beef) call for dry onion soup mix. I use it but I have always dry strained the mix over the bowl so that no sliver of evil dehydrated onion worms it's evil way into my food.

Lately I've been on this MMO (make my own) mix kick and today as I was creating a recipe for Extra Hearty Roast Con Gravy, I thought some onion soup mix might be good. Too lazy to look in the cupboard and excited to try my own, I created this Dry Onion Soup Mix Without Onions!

In the photo, you see Knorr Beef Bouillon which I do use, but this particular batch today was made with beef bouillon from the local co-op. It's just a little more spendy than Knorr in the hispanic aisle of my local MalWart. Believe me, I'd go all uppity and refuse to shop there if I could but the simple fact is that I can't afford to, and the bouillon with spanish writing is cheaper than that with only english. Go figure.

Recipe:

• 1/3 C Beef Bouillon
• 4 tsp Onion Powder
• 1/4 tsp Celery Seed
• 1/4 tsp Sugar

To substitute for 1 packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix, start with 2 Tbsp of this mix and add as you like.

Ugh, iiiiiif you haaaaave to have stupid evil nasty gross evil onion flakes, you can add

• 3/4 C Dehydrated Onions

and start with 4-5 Tbsp of the mix to replace 1 packet.

But I wouldn't *shudder*