Zombie meatloaf (bacon-wrapped meatloaf skull)

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high; add the celery, onions, mushrooms and a big pinch of salt. Cook until the mushroom water evaporates and the mixture dries and turns a little golden.

Off the heat, stir in garlic, black pepper, thyme and cayenne so the residual heat takes the raw edge off the garlic; cool to room temperature.

Season the ground beef with kosher salt; add buttermilk, egg, Worcestershire, ketchup and bread crumbs, then the cooled vegetables, and mix by hand until just combined.

Cover and refrigerate; cold meat shapes more easily.

Slice two eye pieces from the side of a peeled onion and push a clove into each as a pupil; cut an inch-wide slice into teeth.

On a parchment-lined sheet pan (water under the paper so it doesn't slide), shape the meat into a skull with damp hands: nasal cavity, large eye sockets, mouth.

Cover the surface with bacon strips like facial muscles, ends tucked into orifices or underneath; press in the onion eyes and teeth, then overlap more bacon at the eyes; tuck all bacon under with a spatula.

Bake in the centre of a 325 oven about an hour, to an internal 155; cover the onion eyes with foil after 10 to 15 minutes.

Uncover the eyes, spoon out juices from the cavities, transfer to a cutting board and squirt blood sauce around the edge and into the mouth.