Sometimes, simple is best

I own an obscene number of cookbooks. Some were very pricey with beautiful, full-color photos that could easily be mistaken for a coffee-table book.

They fill three full shelves on the bookcase in my dining room, as well as two other shelves in my kitchen.

My favorite cookbooks, however, are your standard, everyday, spiral-bound cookbooks created by local churches or organizations trying to raise a few bucks. These books are loaded with great family recipes from local cooks.

One of my frequent go-to books is from a church in Hawaii my husband had when we got married. I've made dozens of recipes from this book, which is simply a compilation of typed recipes bound together with a hand-lettered and hand-drawn cover.

Some of the recipes I've had to adapt (I never use MSG and will usually substitute dry white wine or chicken broth for the Japanese rice wine known as sake.)

I'm still looking for the perfect meatloaf recipe, but in the meantime, I like this one a lot.

It goes together quickly and paired with some mashed potatoes, a vegetable and maybe a salad, it's a great weeknight meal.

Dutch Meatloaf

1 pound ground beef

1 cup bread crumbs

1 medium onion, chopped fine

Half can tomato soup

1 egg

1 teaspoon salt

Quarter teaspoon pepper

Sauce:

Half can tomato soup

Half can water

4 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard

4 tablespoons brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together ground beef, bread crumbs, onion, tomato soup, egg, salt and pepper. If meat seems a little too dry, add a tablespoon of water. Make sure the mixture is well combined, but don't overmix. Form into a loaf and place into an 8-inch-by-8-inch baking dish.

Combine all of the ingredients for the sauce, then pour it over the meat and bake at 350 degrees for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, basting occasionally, until cooked through.