When I was younger, one of my favorite meals was Meat Loaf, with a side of rice and some broccoli. And, of course, lots of gravy! Thursday night was Meatloaf night in my house growing up. And, once my mother returned to work, she would often rely and my sisters and I to do most of the prep work for dinner. When it was meatloaf night, I used to prefer to take over in the kitchen.

My mother used to buy three pound packages of ground turkey. I always added bread crumbs, ketchup and an egg or two. And after that, I would go wild. I would grab every herb and spice I could find in the cabinet, and dump it into the mix. And, invariably, it would taste pretty darn good.

Then my Mom discovered the recipe for meatloaf featured on the back of the onion soup package, and that became our go to recipe for our favorite comfort food dish. I carried it over into my own house when I moved out. Sometimes I would use a mixture of meats (pork, veal and beef) sometimes just beef, and on occasion, turkey. But the add in ingredients were always the same: Italian seasoned bread crumbs, water, ketchup, eggs and onion soup mix.

The one day, I was looking through a magazine and saw a recipe that called for V8 in lieu of ketchup. I tried that recipe, and really loved it. With a few of my own personal touches, I came up with this tasty meat loaf recipe.

3 lbs. ground beef (you can use meatloaf mix or ground turkey if you choose)
12 oz. can V8 vegetable juice
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 envelope onion soup mix
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. minced garlic
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Using your hands, thoroughly mix all ingredients together. Press into a loaf pan. Cook at 350 for 1 hour and 15 minutes
Note: I say the parmesan is optional only because I left it out by mistake this time, and it still turned out delicious!