You and two training partners are enjoying a deload day. The car is packed. You have your favorite pancho and sombrero on. Your dineros have been converted to pesos. You are ready for a border run. You have emptied five cervezas before you cross customs and, barring a confrontation with a rival cartel, this IS going to go down.

The pungent smell of stale sweat, poblano peppers and desperation assaults your senses as you strut into the cantina. An obese man propped in the corner (we will call him El Gordo), is either drunk or dead. The dozen extra swarming flies tilts the consensus towards rigor mortis. The barkeep, who looks like he combed his hair with a greasy porkchop, barely looks up at you.

In contrast, three angry men at a table take immediate notice of you and a bottle of tequila is knocked over as their heads swivel in your direction. First to rise from his creaking chair, a mountainous and hairy bundle of stench and misplaced hostility utters an unspoken grunt. His left eye is a dead milky white shade but projects hatred nonetheless.

Your trusted training partners have opted to not follow you through the doorway and are most likely a block-and-a-half away by now. Chairs are knocked over. Bystanders scramble for the back exit. You reach fast for your hip as the three guerreros furiosos go for their pistolas. It all comes to an end as noise rings out!

Not a gunshot or the crack of shotgun fire...the noise you hear is the insistent clanging of the alarm on your Android phone. You apparently passed out on the couch some time ago and it is time to get your meatloaf out of the oven. Obviously,  the smell of south-of-the-border seasoning has given your siesta a "Dusk 'til Dawn" tone that has you squeezing the TV remote with the fluid expertise and iron grip of a seasoned gunslinger.

It takes four to five minutes to absorb your true surroundings and to bring your heart rate back down to non-combat levels. You tread around restlessly, like a caged panther, as you realize that you still hold the channel-changer, thumb pulled back, as though it can send a cascade of hot lead through the room in a beautifully choreographed display of violent resolution. While the bulk of your consciousness has returned to your sectional-based mundane reality, part of you is still on saloon danger stand-by, unable to fully let your guard down.

All of this hallucinatory action has built up quite a hankering for a serious sit-down and your Mexican Turkey Meatloaf cannot cool down fast enough to handle the job! Killin' brings on a big appetite and your savory birdloaf is exactly what you need to hit the spot!

Let's take a look at what goes into this easily-portable and dream-inducing combo of macronutrients guaranteed to help you win Mexico's Strongest Man competition... if only you can get the right citizenship papers. The trick is turkey (unusual in a country where chickens roam the streets), but proper seasoning changes the game with this Mexican meatloaf.

Ingredients

  • 5 pounds ground turkey
  • 3 cups of whole oats
  • 3 whole eggs
  • 2-3 cups of salsa or Rotel
  • Taco seasoning to taste (2 packets is suggested)


Tips: You can use any variation of ground meat, but the leaner you go, the more salsa mix you will want to add so it is not dry. Rotel mix is a great alternative to salsa also.

Also, make sure to spray the pan GENEROUSLY with lean meats, otherwise the meatloaf will stick and crumble.

You can easily scale this back with smaller portions of meat and dial back the other ingredients to accommodate.  This is a hard combination to mess up, so don't worry too much about specifics.

Enjoy, amigos!

A strongwoman athlete, Holly Joy McCabe owns Kaizen Hybrid Training in Nashville, Tennessee.  With emphasis on rehabilitative and athletic training, her team works with a wide variety of clients through fitness, nutrition, and therapeutic bodywork.  Visit www.kaizenhybridtraining.com for more information.