italian meatloaf cupcakes

I'd seen these all over the internet and wanted to make them for April Fool's Day.  I used my favorite Italian meatloaf recipe and they were quite tasty!  As I piped the potatoes onto the base my son said I was using quite a lot of icing.  When we sat down to dinner one of my daughters toasted two slices of toast- she said she thought cupcakes for dinner sounded weird.  She ended up eating one.

italian meatloaf cupcakes
meatloaf:
2 pounds extra lean ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs
3/4 cup tomato sauce
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

mashed potatoes (homemade or store bought- great use for leftover mashed potatoes!)
gravy (I used leftover gravy from when we had a roast earlier in the week)
bacon bits


Prepare muffin cups by lining each one with a square of foil.  Lightly spray each cup of foil with nonstick cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground chicken, egg, breadcrumbs, tomato sauce and  oregano.  Make sure the ingredients are mixed well.  Use a round 1/3 cup scoop to scoop up the meat mixture and put one into each cup.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.  
Warm some mashed potatoes and put them into a sturdy zip-lock bag.  Force the potatoes into one corner.  Snip the corner like a pastry bag and pipe the potatoes onto the "cupcake".  Sprinkle some bacon bits on top and drizzle with gravy.