Friday Meals on Reels: The Iron Giant.

Have you missed me around these parts? I’ve started a new job this week, so blogging has grievously taken a back seat while I get up and running. My new employers actually expect me to “get up to speed” and “hit the ground running”. I’m so busy I have to come up with my own corporate clichés to describe what I’m doing.

In Brad Bird’s deliriously awesome 1999 film The Iron Giant, we get our first foodgrab at just under 6 minutes:

Sonny Corleone and Tom Hagen (see The Burbanked Basics if you’re still confused about this) love this movie, and I’d never seen it before just a few months ago. We rented it through Netflix and somehow over the course of the last few weeks I ended up getting it for my birthday. It truly is a spectacular film, so visually rich and packed with surprising amounts of heart, humor and emotion. Watching Giant, one can truly see writer/director Brad Bird’s pre-Incredibles themes and family dynamics in evolution; his strong sense of story and character transcends the traditionally paper-thin plots and development that you’d find in “normal” animated features.

But if you’ve come here only for the food, let’s take a look at what the phenomenally scintillating and incomprehensibly vivacious Mrs. Burbanked is serving up today, after the jump.

Today’s Friday Meals on Reels: Roadside Diner Giant Meat Loaf Bacon Cheeseburger Sandwiches

• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 cup oats (the quick-cook kind)
• ¼ cup chopped onion
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 1½ lbs. ground beef
• ⅓ cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 2 tablespoons relish
• 2 medium sliced tomatoes
• 8 slices swiss cheese
• 8 strips of bacon, cooked
• 8 pieces of thick bread or deli buns

In a giant bowl, mix up the egg, oats, onion, salt, pepper and tomato sauce. Squish in the hamburger - use your hands! - and mix everything up until all the ingredients are well-blended together. Press evenly into an ungreased baking dish, maybe 13″ x 9″ or so. Bake uncovered at 350° F for 30-35 minutes and set aside. Mix up the mayo, relish and ketchup and spread it all over your meat loaf, then cut into eight equal pieces. Cover each piece with tomato, cheese and bacon and then broil those bastards until the cheese is melted. Serve on lightly toasted bread or large buns. When eating, pretend the sandwiches are made of old, junky automobiles and you’re a 50-foot benevolent robot.