Mama's Italian Stuffed Meatloaf

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Mama was a small woman weighing 105 lbs. and 4’11” my father used to say she was small but mighty.  My sister and I on the other hand weighed that much at the age of 10.  Mama was a dynamo and was always on the go and always planning something. Whether it was card  games, dinner and dancing at the Italian Club, having her lady friends over our house for lunch, going with the ‘Girls’ into Manhattan to a catch a Broadway Play and have dinner, or making trays of cookies. And she had a job to go to 5 days a week  and she walked there except when school was closed.  I don't think she ever stood still except when she went to bed.  But most of all Mama kept busy  bitching at me and my sister about our weight.  I don’t know why we had a weight problem because we were always on the go as well.

 In the summer we rode our bikes everywhere, walked two miles to Burham Park pool which was  the biggest town pool in the state. Built by the WPA during the depression years.  Men needed the work so they built a pool the size of a small lake. We got a lot of exercise swimming, diving off of the high dive and walking across the street to the Pavillion to buy goodies.  In the winter we walked everywhere because it was too cold to ride our bikes. We walked to school every day, to the movies, to Burham Pond to ice skate and over to all our friend's and relative's houses. Papa took our one car to work so if we wanted to go anywhere we walked or rode our bikes.

My sister still jokes today that until she was 15 she thought her middle name was “Fat Son of a Bitch “ and she thought my full name was Carol you “Fat Son of a bitch-bastard”.  This might sound cruel and it was but for the most part we took it with a grain of salt since Mama called everyone a ‘bitch’ or ‘bastard’ even in a kidding and loving way.  For example if a friend bragged to Mama that  she won money, Mama  might say "you lucky son of a bitch" and laugh.  No one was offended by it.  I personally didn’t mind it when she called me names when no one was around, however when she did it in front of friends and family I would cringe.   This was the dynamics of our home and it was not always happy for me. 

Mama made all this wonderful food and way too much it. However, mama wanted Linda and I to eat small portions. Well how the hell do you do that when she put  so much food on the dinner table. I guess  she cooked in such large volume at her job that it just carried over to our home.  She never made just one course.  If we had pizza we also had fish or mac and cheese. Wait until I write about Thanksgiving and Christmas, we could have fed most of the homeless in the state on those days.

  She tried everything to make us lose weight even buying awful things to eat. I remember one was a  low calorie product called Desserta. It was a horrible tasting pudding and an even worse tasting jello and nasty dry Melba Toast.   They didn’t have all the wonderful low fat and calorie foods back in the 50’s that they do today.  Diet soda was nonexistent and skim milk looked like blue water and I hated it.

My father was the milkman for thirty years working for Brennan’s dairy in Summit, New Jersey. We always had a supply of rich butter, cream, full fat milk and chocolate milk. Mama used cream and butter in her baking.  There was nothing low calorie about her cooking, no wonder why she had two chubby daughters. My father had a sweet tooth which my sister and I inherited.  Mama was always baking either for papa, guests or someone’s party so we always had goodies in the house.  Honestly I can’t recall seeing her eat much or any of it.   If Linda and I wanted to eat those goodies  we had to do it when mama wasn’t around.    Heck we were kids and it was very tempting to have them in our home. Of course we were going to eat them.

Mama, Papa and Linda would go to bed by 8 pm because Papa had to get up at 4 am.  I would stay up and watch TV.  Many a night after everyone was in bed I would go into the kitchen and feast on cookies, cake or maybe even warmed up some food leftover from dinner. I often think that if Mama had left us alone and let us eat what we wanted  at dinner we would not have gotten into the habit of sneaking food and overeating. 

Mama was a woman on a mission.  She was determined to make her chubby daughters thin or kill us.  She never stopped nagging about our weight.  Her generation was fixated on weight more so than today.  In today’s world you can be a large women and still be considered big and beautiful, become a popular  celebrity, have boyfriends, buy nice clothes in larger sizes other that size 2 to 9 and be accepted by your friends.  Oh yeah and find a Husband.  But back in the 50’s women could have curves but if you had a few rolls of fat no guy wanted to have anything to do with you.  Mama was always emphasizing to me (and I was a only a kid mind you) , that I was never going to find a husband or be popular in high school unless I lost weight.  The sad thing is  back in those days it was true.  But at 10 finding a husband was the last thing on my mind. I was more interested in going to the movies on Saturday afternoons, riding my bike and eating.  I loved going to the Park or Community Theatres, watching horror movies, eating Popcorn and  juju fruit candy.

 When I was at home one of the meals that I loved was Mama’s Meatloaf dinner.  She stuffed it with hard boiled eggs.  It looked really pretty when it was sliced open. I still make it this way today but I put provolone cheese in with the eggs.  I enjoyed it cold in a sandwich with lots of Mayo.  If we had it for dinner I would end up eating a meatloaf sandwich while watching TV.  Thank god Mama never came downstairs and caught me or I swear she would have put a lock on the fridge. 

Mama’s Italian Stuffed Meatloaf

1 ½ lbs ground beef

2 eggs lightly mixed

½ cup chopped red onion

½ cup chopped celery

1 green pepper seeded and chopped

 15 oz can diced tomatoes

1 teas. Onion powder

1 teas. Dried oragano

2/3 cup Italian Style Bread Crumbs

2/3 cup grated Romano Cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

2/3  cup shaved or shredded aged provolone

2 or 3 Hard Boil Eggs

1 ½ cup of your favorite tomato sauce, Mama always had some of her Sunday sauce on hand, I use Classico tomato basil sauce.

Mix all ingredients  together except the tomato sauce, hard boiled eggs and provolone. Take ½ of the mixture and make it into a loaf in bottom of 13x9 pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Sprinkle the provolone over this layer and line up the Hard Boiled Eggs on top of the provolone.  Take the remaining meat mixture an place it over eggs and cheese.  Shape in into a loaf sealing the sides of the bottom and top together.  It helps if you use a little flour to do this. Pour the sauce over the top. Sprinkle with more Romano Cheese if desired.  Bake at 350 for one hour or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean and the meat feels firm. The boiled eggs pick up the flavors of the seasonings and the cheese.  YummO!  Mama served this with baked potatoes, a veggie and a salad. Try it I bet you will like it.

   The Hard boiled eggs take on a different consistently when cooked in sauce or are baked.  They become firmer.  Sometimes I dropped boiled eggs in the Sunday Sauce and let them cook for hours and the flavor of the sauce and meat is absorbed by them. My husband and I love them cooked this way. Mama sometimes would stuff a few of her meatballs with boiled eggs and provolone cheese.