Southern Style Meatloaf?

Ok so I decided to make some meatloaf, and I could have very easily used the handy recipe my mother always made.  Her recipe involved a combo meatloaf-mashed potato loaf, which  was always very good, but I wasn't in the mood to deal with mashed potatoes.  So I took to epicurious to find another recipe.  I came across a very simple recipe for what claimed to be "Southern Style Meatloaf."  Basically its meatloaf with bacon all over it.  I asked a few southerners I know and none of them seem to be familiar with this "style" of meatloaf, but I made it anyway, I mean....come on...bacon.

Southern Style Meatloaf

-3 lbs lean ground beef
-1 cup ketchup
-1 Tbsp kosher salt
-1 tsp black pepper
-1 Tbsp Soy sauce
-1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
-3 slices of white bread, dampened and pulled into 1/2 inch pieces
-3 large eggs
-1/2 teaspoon tabasco sauce
-1 medium onion coarsely grated (as I'm writing this I'm realizing that I totally didn't do that, I chopped it, good job reading the recipe by me!)
-1 lb bacon (I can't believe I'm saying this but, probably way too much bacon)

So the instructions for this are simple, throw everything into a bowl and use your hands to knead it all together until it is combined.

Using a 13x9 baking dish, create a 12x6 mound, spread bacon strips over the top and bake about an hour until the meat is firm and the bacon is well done.




Ok so this was super simple and the end result was OK I guess.  Here's the problem, it was more like meat mush than meat loaf.  Also cooking 1lb of bacon means a lot and I mean A LOT of bacon grease.   That grease had no where to go so essentially it just sits in the baking dish with your meat.  And while I love bacon, I have no desire to eat massive amounts of bacon grease.

Ultimately it was sort of tasty, but I felt like I had a brick in my stomach for a few hours and I didn't even eat very much of it.  Oh well, next time I think I'll stick with momma's recipe.