Cheese-stuffed Meatloaf

I have string cheese around pretty much all the time. Because instant-cheese satisfaction makes sense to me. I wondered if mozzarella stuffed meatloaf was a thing, and of course it was. I had the ingredients and I made it. It was fairly heavy for a warm day meal, but it was delicious, so I'm writing it down.

Cheese Stuffed Meatloaf

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 lb ground beef
• 1 pkg (12oz/4ea) Isernios Hot Italian Sausages, removed from casings
• 1 stalk celery, fine chop
• 1 large carrot, fine chop
• 1/2 cup Italian panko breadcrumbs
• extra rosemary as desired
• 1 egg
• sat & pepper
• 4 sticks string cheese, um...out of the packaging. :)
• 3 Tbsp ketchup
• 2 Tbsp dijon mustard

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350.
2. Line a loaf pan with foil, leaving edges up like a sling
3. Mix all ingredients, save for the string cheese, with your hands, combining ingredients well.
4. Take about 3/4 of the meat mixture and form a sort of "tray" in the bottom of the loaf pan about 1-1.5" thick with slightly raised sides.
5. Lay mozzarella sticks out in this trough, tuck the rest of the meat mixture on top of and around the mozzarella sticks.
6. Bake uncovered in oven for 1-1 1/2 hours
7. Mix together ketchup and dijon to make a simple glaze (alternately, try a splash of some leftover favorite spaghetti sauce)
8. Brush top of meatloaf with this sauce and broil until starting to bubble and brown
9. Remove from oven, lift meatloaf out with sling and place on cutting board to rest for 3-5 minutes
10. Slice and carefully transfer to plates.

I feel like the "rubberiness", for lack of a better term, is wha makes the string cheese a good candidate for filling. It doesn't all spill out when you cut it. Resting it helps as well, letting it cool down a smidge so it regains some structure.

In the future I could see adding some veggies to this middle zone, maybe some red peppers, spinach, etc. I didn't have them for this go-round.