Fiesta Meatloaf

An entire bottle of chili sauce would appear to make this meatloaf spicy.  But Heinz Chili Sauce is basically just a doctored up ketchup.  I often skip the chili sauce altogether and make the variation which is loosely based on the original.  Instead of serving it with any remaining sauce, I serve it with gravy or just plain.

½ cup chopped onion
½ cup chopped celery
¼ cup chopped green pepper
2 tbsp. butter
1 bottle Heinz Chili Sauce (12 oz)
1 ½ lbs. ground beef
1 cup soft bread crumbs
1 egg, slightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Saute onion, celery and green pepper in butter until vegetables are tender. Stir in chili sauce.  Combine ½ cup of this mixture with ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, salt and pepper.

Form mixture into a loaf in shallow baking pan.  Bake 1 hour.  Let stand 5 minutes before slicing. Serve remaining sauce cold or heated over meatloaf.

Variation: Instead of using the Heinz Chili sauce, I simply saute slightly lesser amounts of onion, celery and green pepper.  Then I add ½ cup ketchup to sauteed vegetables and combine with ground beef.