Because I can’t promote just one thing in a post, let’s do

#MeatlessMonday Vegan Pork Albondigas with Match Meat and Red Gold Tomato Sauce

Phew.  That’s a mouthful.  This post is like already like NASCAR car.  It’s just covered in ads.  Hrmm…let’s see how much worse I can make it.

Anyway, this is the promised second post in my Saturday Edition of #MeatlessMonday.  I’ve been doing a little catch up on the #MeatlessMonday tip since I missed  a few weeks.  So that’s why this is a #MeatlessMonday post.

Secondly, this is a recipe for albondigas, which is Spanish for “meatballs.”  But don’t be fooled.  Sure, there are some albondigas recipes which are pretty much like your average Italian meatball recipe or exceptional one’s at Jasper’s.  (By the way, he’s having a from snout to tail pork dinner Thursday.)  Others, though, use Latin ingredients like corn or jalapenos to give them a unique flavor.  I used this recipe as a basis for my albondigas from About.com because it stuffed them with rice.

Third, since I am trying to do this as a #MeatlessMonday, I figured I’d turn to Match Meat since they are my favorite source of meat replacers and I had a package of ground pork vegan Match Meat in my freezer.

Fourth, most of the recipes you find for albondigas are actually for albondigas soup, which is fine, and it’s how the About.com folks got away with using uncooked rice in the albondigas.  I, on the other hand, didn’t want a soup.  So I found this recipe from WhatsCooking.us for albondigas in ancho chile sauce.  And since the recipe called for diced tomatoes, I was more than happy to use the Red Gold tomatoes that I got in the tin I mentioned yesterday on BlogWellDone.com.

So in the end, I took the albondigas recipe and the sauce recipe and combined them together to make dinner.

(Oh, did I mention I went to the Farmhouse for lunch and guest posted on The Bobby Pin?  And congratulations to Chef Michael Smith for his James Beard nomination and to Chef Debbie Gold for being tapped for Top Chef Masters.)

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but with extra diabla and some vegan crab Match meat.  All of which makes really good

Camarones a la Diabla Minus the Camarones

So, there’s a lot going on with this post today.  In brief, what I wanted to do was keep the week of #MeatlessMonday recipes theme going on, so this recipe is absolutely 100% vegan.  It doesn’t get much more #MeatlessMonday than that.

Secondly, in case you don’t know what camarones a la diabla are, they are one of my absolute favorite Mexican dishes.  Translated literally it means shrimp of the the devil, or deviled shrimp, but they are a fabulously spicy shrimp dish I order a lot at Mexican places.  The shrimp are stewed in a spicy tomato sauce and served with warm tortillas, rice, and avocado.  So good.

Of course, there’s a problem, right?  Camarones are meat.  This is #MeatlessMonday (Wednesday edition.)  That means no camarones.  So that’s when I turned to my good friends at Match and their Uh-may-ZING vegan crab made from plant proteins.  So good.

In the end, I came up with something that was not bad for a first attempt at a Mexican dish.  It still needs some work, but I think I got pretty darn close.

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What would unResolution Month be without

Vegan Cookies and Cream Ice Cream

using Newman’s Own Newman-O’s?  No where, that’s where!!

Real quick, first it is with a heavy heart that I make this post.  This is the final day of not only Vegan Week, but unResolution Month as a whole.  It’s a bittersweet moment, but it is a sweet moment since we’re going out with vegan ice cream!

We love this recipe in the BlogWellDone household.  We’re ice cream fans here in a bad, bad way.  For this, I blame Mrs. WellDone since when we became one in that whole marriage ceremony thing, I seem to have gotten her sweet tooth.  On the other hand, she seems to have gotten my desire to tinker with recipes.  Thus, it is with all due praise and admiration that I admit that this is her adaption of a recipe that came with our ice cream machine.

She was even the one who decided to add the Newman-Os, which are vegan chocolate sandwich cookies produced by Newman’s Own Organics, a company which produces some fantastic products.  (I’m in no way affiliated with them, we just like their vegan Newman-Os, lemonade, and salad dressing.)

The only problem I have with this recipe is that it requires an ice cream maker.  I wish I had a recipe for ice cream that didn’t require additional equipment, but it does.  The good news is that ice cream makers are not that expensive and they make really great ice cream.  Vegan or otherwise.

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Okay, one last vegan wing recipe and it is

Vegan Asian Zing Wings with Match Chicken

Yes, I am following a theme of veganizing Buffalo Wild Wings recipes with the frying instructions for Match Chicken.  No, I’m not sorry because BWW makes AWESOME wings.  However, today I finally get to feel useful since there is a good chance the Asian Zing sauce isn’t vegan right off the bat. So, I’m going to veganize it.

See, the Asian Zing sauce uses chili-garlic sauce, which you could kind of call Asian ketchup and not be too far off the bat.  I’m pretty sure that the sugar they use when making the sauce was processed using animal bones and therefore, should not be considered vegan.  The good news is that it won’t be too hard to make our own chili-garlic sauce knock off.

Oh, and as a word to the wise, one of the commenters on the recipe was complaining that the wings were too hot.  I think that’s because she used the wrong type of chili-garlic sauce.  As near as I can tell, there are two types of chili-garlic sauce.  One basically looks like runny jelly with little red flakes.  That’s what you want to use.  The other stuff is thick and red and looks like tomato sauce.  That stuff is HOT and would kill you in this recipe.  (I think that’s Sichuan chili-garlic sauce, actually.)

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Okay, someone asked about sticky wings, so I’m making

Vegan Mango Habanero “Wings”

Again, I’ll be rocking the Match Chicken again since it tastes awesome and they sent me a lot of Match chicken (at my request since I love me some chicken wings.)  And while yesterday’s vegan buffalo wing recipe was great, I really like wings with different flavors like soy-ginger wings, jerk wings, and these spicy little mango habanero wings.

They are a great combination of just a little sweet from the mango and a lot of heat from the death chili (I mean the habanero).  The mango is certainly not overpowering, but it’s the perfect complement to the whole mess of spice coming off that habanero.  Seriously, this ain’t no fru fru wing!

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Roasted Red Peppersa

Homemade Creamy Tomato Red Pepper Sauce

Happy 2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative and happy #meatlessmonday!  Hopefully you are enjoying many a meatless dish tonight, but if you’re out of delicious meatless ideas have I got one for you?!

This one is super simple and delicious.  I was actually inspired to make it when eating at Em Chamas (please no nasty comments about getting meatless recipes from a Brazilian barbecue…)  They have this fantastic cheese ravioli dish on their buffet made from a sauce of tomatoes and roasted red peppers that was just terrific.  Right next to it, they have a tomato-based chicken stroganoff that is light, creamy, and more than a little tangy.  So I got the idea to blend them together and make a delicious creamy tomato red pepper sauce.

Better yet, you can make it for less than $11.50 as part of the 2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative.  If you’re not familiar with the challenge, Shawna Coronado grows chemical and pesticide-free (ie nude) vegetables and I turn them into a dinner for a family for four for less than $11.50.  Ready for the recipe?

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So, for the past few days, we’ve been talking about Le Grand’s delicious sauces.  (Read here for an introduction to Le Grand’s gourmet raw sauces.)  Yesterday, we made braised meatballs in sun-dried tomato pesto, today we’re going to try something different:

Cucumber “Fettuccini” with Le Grand Garden Pesto Sauce

So I think in my intro, I said I was going to be making cooked food with Le Grand’s array of gourmet cold pressed, raw sauces.  However, the more I got to thinking about it, the more I wanted to make a raw meal with from the raw sauce.  So, I did!

This is a take on raw stroganoff that we made at the SolFud raw tasting dinner.  However, I took this dish from Russia and sent it to Italy with the help of Le Grand Garden Pesto sauce.

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Braised tofu.  For some reason, the very concept terrified me.  In fact, despite doing some very good braised dishes in my life (if I do say so myself), the whole technique seems exotic and difficult.

Then again, sometimes you have a meal (like the Fire Bird from Blue Koi made with braised tofu instead of duck) that forces your hand and suddenly you find yourself trying a dish you never thought you would.  Like

Asian Braised Tofu

… and finding it’s actually really easy.

Braising?

For those who are not familiar with braising, it’s a wet cooking method (meaning there’s a lot of liquid).  The most often used wet cooking method is boiling where food is completely submerged in liquid.  This tends to be a harsh cooking method and is good for leeching starches and flavor compounds out of the food.

On the other hand, when braising, the food is usually browned first and then covered halfway in a flavorful cooking liquid.  Having one half of the food (usually meat) uncovered allows for different flavors to develop while the food absorbs flavors from the cooking liquid.

It’s a great technique for tougher cuts of meat or for slow cooking dark meat chicken.

Braising Tofu

However, in this case, I decided I was going to braise tofu.  Because tofu is essentially a soft protein, I knew that cooking it for a long time was going to result in a big soy mess.  So I did three things:

• Used firm or exra firm tofu
• Precooked the tofu
• Cut down the cooking time for the tofu

Ready for the recipe?

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If you’re looking for the giveaway, scroll down!

Okay, tomorrow starts perhaps the most impressive spectacle in sports: 64 teams, 1 goal.  That’s right, it’s college basketball championship time.  The Big Dance.  The Big Show.  The brackets.  The munchies.

So while I’ve noted that basketball doesn’t really have it’s quintessential meal, it does have snacking!  Lots of snacking on chips, wings, nachos, dips, and all the usual suspects.   So yes, lots of snacking and lots of sitting to boot!

While I would never hope to end snacking and basketball, I do have a thought.  Instead of gorging on chili cheese fries and hot dogs, why not snack on

Matt’s Munchies

Matt’s Munchies, made by Chef Robert’s, are “fruit leathers”, which I think is code for fruit rollup, but instead of being made with dyes and corn syrups and junk, they are made from things you want to eat like mango, bananas, real chocolate, and ginger.  They are also all-natural and gluten, nut, egg, and dairy free.

And oh yeah, they’re AWESOME.

They sent me six flavors:

• Choco Nana
• Apple Pie
• Island Mango
• Ginger Zest
• Mango
• Banana

In packs that were basically about 70 calories each.  I dutifully tried each one and they were great.  If Matt tasted as good as his munchies, I’d eat him.

I think my favorite was the Island Mango.  It was a blend of mango and coconut and had a great texture I wouldn’t expect in a fruit leather.  In close second, though, was the Apple Pie because it tasted like apple pie.  I’ve had a lot of gluten free, all-natural, dairy free snacks that claim to taste like something and they end up tasting kinda like what they’re supposed to.  Not the Apple Pie.  It tasted like honest to goodness cinnamony apple pie.

I think my least favorite was the Ginger Zest, but that’s because I am just not a huge ginger fan.  Nothing against Matt and his munchies, but the Ginger Zest were REALLY gingery.  They weren’t bad, I think they just require someone who likes that flavor.

Matt’s Munchies and Basketball

So I’m absolutely serious.  If you can find them in your local store, when you sit down to watch some hoops, tear into Matt’s Munchies instead of fried hot wings.  Well maybe try Matt’s Munchies instead of only hot wings?  I promise your tastebuds and your waist won’t regret it.

And…I’m Giving Some Away

Chef Robert’s was nice enough to send me a second pack that I can give away to one lucky reader.  All I want you to do is leave me a comment and tell me your favorite healthy snack or a snack you want me to make healthy by March 25th and I’ll draw for a winner.  That person will have a full set of Matt’s Munchies to snack on by the championship game.

Now, get to commenting and enjoy!

(Image from ChefRobertsDirect.com)

So my friend @Nightblooms and I got on the subject of tofu one fine night on Twitter when she told me about this amazing tofu/tomato sauce she made for her family.

Never one to pass down the opportunity to let others do my work for me, I begged her to do a guest post on BlogWellDone.com.  She graciously accepted with the vaguest promise of a post from me in the near future (more on that later.)  But without further ado…

Creamy Tofu-Enhanced Tomato Sauce

Contributed by Marie Oliver

Food as medicine is a practice that is easily taken for granted growing up with restaurateur parents.  Living away from home for the first time as a young adult was when the ingrained habit revealed itself. I found myself grocery shopping for sometimes obscure foods and spices that supposedly improved health when consumed as a beverage or used as an ingredient in foods.

There is nothing obscure about the tomato, but did you know it was once considered poisonous?  The tomato is among a wide range of plants that are a part of the deadly nightshade family, avoided due to their toxicity.  Eggplant, peppers and potatoes are among the nightshade plants we relish as dietary staples.

The health  benefits of tomatoes are numerous, whether eaten raw or cooked.  There was a fascinating study initiated by a couple of Harvard scientists over 20 years ago that examined the effects of tomato products on prostate cancer in about 48,000 participants. Data was gathered and reviewed over a 12 year timeframe.  Although they claimed the study to be inconclusive, in the same breath it was asserted that there was a definitive reduction in the risk of prostate cancer in men who consumed tomatoes – about 45%.

The red pigment found in tomatoes is lycopene, an antioxidant or cell damage neutralizer.   Lycopene has also been said to inhibit growth of breast, lung and endometrial cancer cells.  However, for some who are allergic, tomatoes may be a health hazard.  If you suffer from hives, headaches or asthma symptoms after consuming tomato products, then step away from the fruit. Tomatoes also contain the chemical salicylate, which is an active ingredient in aspirin. So, if you have an aspirin allergy, talk with your physician about whether you should avoid food salicylates as well.

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