Mexican Style Meatloaf

Cooking spray

1/2 lb lean ground beef

1/2 lb lean ground turkey breast

2 large Egg whites

2 oz cornbread stuffing dry mix (about 1 cup)

1 medium onion, finely chopped

4 oz canned green chili peppers, mild, diced

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp ground cumin

8 oz canned enchilada sauce

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat a broiler pan with cooking spray.



• Combine all ingredients, except for half of the enchilada sauce. set remaining sauce aside.



• Spoon meatloaf mixture into pan.



• Bake for 60 mins.



• Spoon remaining sauce over meatloaf and cook an additional 5 mins.

It's important to use a broiler pan, which is a loaf pan that has holes on the bottom, so the greese can drip out.

Pair this dish with roasted corn polenta (see recipe).

History on Chiles

Chili peppers were discovered in the Caribbean by Columbus, who appended the word "pepper" because of their fiery similarity to the black peppercorns he was familiar with (There is no relationship between the two plants). The first chiles were brought to Spain in 1493 by a physician by the name of Diego Alvarez Chanca, who was on Columbus' second voyage to the West Indies. From there, chiles spread quickly to India, China, and Japan. They were first grown in the monastery gardens of Spain and Portugal as botanical curiosities, but the monks experimented with their culinary potentions and later discovered their pungency offereance and inexpensive subsitute for black peppercorns. Peppercorns were so costly, sometimes they were used as legal currency in some countries.

*data gathered from http://www.thenibble.com/