Being born and raised in the deep South, I do not know where my recently developed taste for spicy food came from. I do not remember much spicy food being served at the dinner table when I was growing up. Although life has taken me far from the South, my love for the Southern cuisine has never diminished. And, this new love for adding “spicy” to my Southern dishes has me a little pleasantly surprised.

Are you in need of an easy quick recipe for dinner? No matter how busy you are, your family still needs to eat. If you’re the cook, dinner can become an insurmountable problem on a busy day. Take-out gets boring pretty quickly and puts a strain on the pocket book as well.

Lets face it, half the battle is in planning ahead. When you know the menu, and have the meat thawed, then an easy quick recipe like this one is a snap. If the dinner hour approaches with no plan in mind, then a lot of energy will be expended in the planning and shopping. With a few simple recipes and planned ahead menus you can have dinner on the table in double time.

There is Southern Cooking and then there is SOUTHERN COOKING! You can follow a recipe and still come out with a dish that does not resemble what the recipe intended. The reason is technique and the little secrets that are not included in the recipe.

Technique is as important as the ingredients and proper technique helps you avoid the following common mistakes made by novice cooks. You can find many free Southern recipes on the internet, but few web sites provide the additional information needed to to be a real Southern cook. So when you find a site that does, bookmark it and stick with it for your Southern recipes. (See Resource Box below for recommendation).

There are as many meatloaf recipes are there are cooks. This one is my favorite, an easy meatloaf recipe that can be varied to suit your tastes. Start with the basic recipe and add seasonings from the list below to suit your family. You can vary the meats used and the seasonings.