What a month! I’ve spent the past several weeks traveling with J and his mom, beginning with an Alaskan cruise and ending with a trip to the Oregon coast. While I love trying new foods, I have to say I was so relieved to be home and back in my kitchen. Vacation foods, especially on the cruise ship, were rich and sometimes way over salted. Maybe I have some control issues, but these last few weeks made me realize how much I value being able to control what I cook for myself and my family.

To that end, I present my favorite vacation reboot meal. While meatloaf might not strike you as health food, I find putting it in a muffin tin for portion control and adding plenty of greens strikes a balance between comfort and nutrition. If you end up eating the whole tin, that’s fine too. Welcome home.

Notes:

Meat: I like to use dark ground chicken but you could also use ground turkey or beef.

Variations: The great thing about this recipe is you can have fun! Sometimes I just coat the meat in store bought BBQ sauce and serve it with coleslaw. The Mediterranean flavors here work nicely but feel free to experiment!

Sides: These can be served with a simple green salad. I like to roast a couple chopped sweet potatoes as well. Toss the potatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper, and paprika and bake on a foil lined cookie sheet along with the meatloaves.

Mediterranean Mini Meat Loaves with Tzatziki

Serves two with leftovers (maybe)

For meat loaves:

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups fresh spinach or kale, roughly chopped

1.5 lbs ground dark meat chicken

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup crumbled feta

Salt and pepper to taste

For Tzatziki:

1 cup whole milk yogurt

1 small cucumber, grated

2 cloves garlic, grated

2 tsp dill, finely chopped

2 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Make the tzatziki by combining yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, cucumber, dill and salt. Chill until ready to serve with the meatloaf.

Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Sauté onion with salt and pepper until soft, then add spinach or greens and cook until wilted. Remove from heat.

Combine onion mixture with ground chicken, egg, bread crumbs, crumbled feta and Worcestershire. Be careful not to over mix or meatloaf will get tough. I like to use my hands.

Divide meat mixture into a greased muffin tin. Bake until cooked through, about 30 minutes. You can also put in the cookie sheet with the sweet potatoes at this time. Serve meatloaves drizzled with tzatziki and sweet potatoes or salad on the side.