So you have a family reunion or church dinner and you need that main dish that you said you would bring. Here is a simple meatloaf recipe that packs a lot of punch and most of the things you need for it you already have at home.

Step 1: What We Need....

For this dish you will need :

1 1/2 to 2 pounds of hamburger. I usually get ground chuck or ground round.
A sleeve of saltine crackers
milk
mustard
one medium onion
ketchup
one egg

Dishes needed:

a large mixing bowl
a medium baking dish
a paring knife
a spatula
rubber gloves (you will see why, just trust me a little here)

Step 2: Before the Mixing Begins

We will be baking our meatloaf at a toasty 350 degrees so go ahead a preheat the oven so it will be ready once you have mixed up your ingredients.

Step 3: Let Us Begin...

First thing you want to do is to get your hamburger in the mixing bowl. Easy enough just unwrap it and dump it in there.

Step 4: Add Your Crackers...

You want to add the entire sleeve of crackers. They need to be broken up so just leave them in the sleeve and squeeze away. Not only will it break up the crackers, you can get out some pent up frustration as well. The photo above is a before after of the cracker crushing process.

Step 5: Adding the Onions....

Dice up the onion and add it to the mix. How finely you want to dice them up, well that depends on your culinary skills and how much onion you want. Like I said, pretty simple so far.

Step 6: Adding the Rest of the Ingridents...

You will need to add the rest of your ingredients. Add a little bit of mustard for tang, I didn't put an amount because some people love mustard, some hate it, so do what you feel like doing with that. Add 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of ketchup and one egg. That is everything you need to add. Now let the mixing begin.

Step 7: Mixing It Up...

Told you that you would need the rubber gloves. To mix up a meatloaf correctly you gotta dig into it. You gotta dive into it. Spoons for mixing up a meatloaf Pshaw... get in the and really mix it up.

Step 8: Getting It Ready for Baking

Once it is mixed really well, put it into the baking dish. Make sure when putting it into the dish that it goes all the way to the edges and make sure it is pretty level, this ensures even baking throughout. Now the final step before baking put plenty of ketchup on top. I don't cover mine life I am applying paint to a wall, just spread a little bit over the top in a thin layer.

Step 9: Now You Are Ready to Bake

By now your oven should be 350 degrees. Slide that baking dish into the oven, close the door, set your time for an hour and go on with what you want to do. At about 30 minutes you should drain some of the grease off it, I used ground round for this Instructable so there wasn't that much grease but if you use regular ground beef, it can make a great deal of grease so it is just a good practice to see if you need to drain it. Just do it carefully, use pot holders and make sure you have something safe to pour the grease into, we do not want any burns.

Step 10: And We're Done.

After the hour is up, you house will smell yummy and your meatloaf will be done. If serving this to your family, add some mashed potatoes or veggies of their choice and maybe some yeast and watch them eat it up.

Hope you try it and enjoy, if you do let me know.

Peace!!