moonfish meatloaf

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing, this moonfish meatloaf is moon-themed, with Moon Pies, Moon Cheese, and even moonshine in it, along with some foods the astronauts had in space!

Why didn't I think of including moon cakes!? I mean, sure, this meatloaf had a lot of ingredients in it to the point it was almost overflowing the bowl but still. Ok, so I got that off my chest, now on to the rest of this post. 

Anniversaries as significant as man landing on the moon are once in a lifetime. So that idea of making a shark meatloaf in honor of the upcoming Shark Week? That's gonna have to wait another year. 

Meatloaves made from fish, with the exception of canned tuna and salmon, need a lot of fillers and binders to hold it together. This moonfish meatloaf was no exception. They're basically fillets you have to crumble up into a ground meat-consistency. Of course, you could put them in a food processor but then they might end up looking like cat food. 

Note that the ingredients that don't start with the word "moon" in this recipe(besides the onion powder and eggs) are not the only things the astronauts on Apollo 11 had to eat while in space. There was a huge menu they had and I obviously couldn't include them all in one meatloaf. I just included the ones I already had on hand or could easily procure. Though butterscotch pudding or grape punch would've made the recipe even more interesting than it already is...

So what does moonfish taste like, anyway? Two words: buttery whitefish. It's actually become one of my favorite types of fish to eat since it's so soft. But alas, if you want to find them for sale offline, you're going to have to go to Hawaii or Fiji, which is where they're usually found. 

This strange arrangement of ingredients harmonized quite well and one wouldn't think that when associating chocolate with fish. I remember having some dark chocolate with anchovies as part of a dare at my day job and let me tell you, that was disgusting! I don't think of many types of food pairings as gross, but this pair definitely was. Dark chocolate isn't very sweet to begin with, so perhaps milk chocolate or even white chocolate would've better counteracted the anchovies' innate saltiness. 

My dad didn't try this meatloaf because it had chocolate and moonshine in it. 

​HELPFUL LINKS: 

Moonshine Jelly: www.amazon.com/Temperance-Tavern-Country-Foods-Moonshine/dp/B074PKF51R/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=moonshine+jelly&qid=1564254009&rnid=2941120011&

Variety Mini Moon Pies: www.amazon.com/Moon-Pie-Minis-Chocolate-Strawberry/dp/B00ZKEZQAU/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=mini+moon+pies&qid=1564254199&

Moonfish: www.exoticmeatmarkets.com/product-p/moonfish201.htm

You will need: 

Meatloaf Ingredients:

Pinch of onion powder
2 beaten and whisked eggs
1/4 cup orange juice(food on Apollo 11)
1/4 cup moonshine jelly(see HELPFUL LINKS)
1 packet hot cocoa(food on Apollo 11, though not of the Oreo variety I had)
Pinch of bacon salt(they had bacon on Apollo 11)
5 mini Moon Pies(see HELPFUL LINKS)
4 oz. Moon Cheese
2 sugar cookies(food on Apollo 11, thought not the frosted kind I had)
1 pound moonfish(see HELPFUL LINKS)
1 cup Frosted Flakes cereal(food on Apollo 11)

Instructions: 

1. Put the first 7 ingredients into a large bowl. 
2. Crumble up the Moon Pies, Moon Cheese, sugar cookies, and Frosted Flakes before putting them all in the large bowl. 
3. Cut the moonfish up into the smallest pieces you can.
4. Then with your hands, crumble the moonfish up into a ground meat consistency. Put the crumbled fish in the large bowl. 
5. Mix all of the ingredients in the large bowl up until you get a firm mixture. 
6. Spray a lasagna pan with nonsitck cooking spray. 
7. Form 2 loaves. 
8. Bake the meatloaves in a 350℉ oven for 20-30 minutes. 

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