Cuisine Chimera: Thai Meatloaf

Cooking is a favorite pastime, a great creative outlet and often a wonderful excuse for doing strange experiments.

I love Thai basil. Tonight's wondering: Is there a way to mate the often loathed American meatloaf with Thai cuisine to produce a pleasing result?

Answer: Two of two familial guinea pigs gave my first stab enthusiastic thumbs up.

There's probably still some tinkering to be done before submitting to RecipeZaar, but here are the details.

20 oz. pack of ground turkey

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms (more wouldn't hurt, used baby portobello)

1/2 chopped water chestnuts (like 'em and they add a little crunch)

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 tsp minced garlic (might not be necessary, used the milder stuff from a tube)

2 tablespoons chili garlic sauce* (this sort of stuff; testers said it was spicy, so cut in half if you like things one star rather than two or three stars)

2 tablespoons chopped thai basil (don't even think about subbing ordinary basil for this)

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1. Preheat oven to 400F

2. Combine ingredients and add to small bread pan

3. Cook for 30 minutes, remove and drain (pour out juice; gets pretty juicy; do this to avoid making soup)

4. Cook for 30 more minutes

5. Enjoy

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Yey! Another new invention!