Tofu Rules! at 1177 West Hastings by Roland

Tofu + chocolate?  Must be unResolution Month’s Vegan Week and

Vegan Tofu Chocolate Pie

Yes, that’s right tofu chocolate pie.  Seriously.

Oh, real quick.  Welcome to the second-to-last day of unResolution Month!  It’s been an educational, enriching, delicious, resolution-breaking month!  I hope you’ve enjoyed the recipes as much as I have!  Plus, don’t worry, we’ll do it next year, too!

Anyway, back to tofu chocolate pie.  This whole concept may sound weird.  I know when I was first vegan, the whole concept of blending chocolate and tofu sounded about as sane as mixing chocolate and Velvetta.  Then I had chocolate soy milk, which is mixing soy + chocolate and that’s really good.  I highly recommend it. 

So if a little chocolate mixed in with some soy milk is worth a try, I guarantee this pie filled with delicious chocolate, margarine, and sugar is really, really worth it.  Oh, and tomorrow, I promise I’ll give you that vegan ice cream recipe so you can have vegan pie a la mode!

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And we continue Vegan Week of unResolution Month with

Vegan Hot Wings with Match Chicken

So, for the past few days we’ve been doing delicious vegan versions of classic hot wings and we ain’t stopping!  Today, we’re going to continue this trend with these hot wings and finish up tomorrow with Asian Zing wings.  Then, I’m thinking some homemade vegan ice cream and who knows what the unResolution Month grand finale will look like.  All I can say is that it will be delicious and anything but healthy.  Promise!

Now, on to the hot wings.  This is another recipe that was inspired by Buffalo Wild Wings and thanks to a cool blog, I got the recipe.  Of course, I swapped out the real meat for  Match chicken (since they sent me some of their awesome vegan faux chicken) but I bet you won’t care about the difference! Continue reading →

And now for another vegan wing recipe…

Caribbean Jerk Wings

You know, you can neve have enough of a good thing.  So, why stop with two wing recipes when you can have three or four or five?   Right?

I mean, I have got a whole bunch of Match chicken from Match Foods, Inc., so I might as well keep frying it up and serving it as hot wings.  So tonight, we’ll make some delicious caribbean jerk “wings” out of Match vegan chicken, tomorrow we’ll go nuclear, and then we’ll wrap up vegan wings with a vegan adapation of Buffalo Wild Wing’s Asian Zing.  It’s going be great and it will leave us two more days of delicious vegan junk food (I am thinking ice cream and something else decadent.)

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Buffalo wings aren’t just for carnivores when you can make

Match Chicken Wings

Welcome to Vegan Week, the very last week of unResolution Month 2010!  It’s a bittersweet time here at BlogWellDone.com HQ.  Bitter because unResolution Month is quickly coming to an end.  Sweet because there are still seven recipes left, like this one for Match Chicken Wings.  Oh, even better, happy #MeatlessMonday!

So, it’s really no secret I love me some chicken wings.  Love them.  So, when I went vegan, I still wanted my fried chunks of “chicken” dipped in a spicy sauce.  (Who ever said anything about vegan food being healthy??  Ha!) Anyway, my main go-to “chicken” when I started being vegan was tofu, but that never really worked because of the texture.  Then I tried seitan and believe me, I love the seitan.  However, one thing I’ve noticed is that seitan wings get tough when they sit out.

Enter Match Foods Gourmet Qualty Vegan Meat Alternatives.  If you’ve not seen me blog about Match Meats,  they are amazing.  Completely and totally amazing.  My first experience with them was at Mokabe’s in St. Lous, MO.  On their vegetarian Sunday brunch, they had amazing “crab” cakes that were so good, I had to stop the waitress and make sure they were actually vegan.  After being assured they were, I asked what they were made from…I was told Match Meat, which was available at the local Whole Foods.

We drove from Mokabe’s to Whole Foods.  It was 45 minutes out our way.  I didn’t care.

Anyway, since that time we’ve been back to St. Louis several times, each time buying more Match until I finally found @MatchVeganMeats online and begged them to send me some product.  Which they did.  And then I fried it into chicken wings.

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It’s not mine, but it looks freaking awesome

Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

I borrowed this recipe (after begging permission of course!) from my friends at the Culinary Media Network  (CMN).  I don’t talk about them enough, but I should.  CMN is, as far as I am concerned, the destination for the best food podcasts and videos on the Internet.  They’ve also got a fine, fine recipe section–parts of which morphed one day into a cookbook.

So anyway, I knew when unResolution Month came a’ calling, I should feature something from CMN since their food explorations always tend to awaken in me a sense of culinary wonder, hunger, a little jealousy, and a whole world of emotion tied to Sex on a Plate that this mostly PG blog won’t get into.  (Hi Mom!!)

So anyway, I asked CMN CEO Jennifer Iannolo (AKA @foodphilosophy) if I could feature a recipe.  In return, she sent me this recipe list.   It took all of about the 2 seconds to figure out which recipe I wanted to use. 

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I wasn’t kidding when I said I was going to need to hit the gym.  Wow.

Well, Kansas City Restaurant Week is two days old now and already I have had four memorable meals and one radio interview (check in a day or so for today’s show) where I discuss two of them.

Quickly, I’d like to recap where I went, what I had, and hand out some early awards.

Lunch Friday:
75th Street Brewery
Duck confit salad <— best salad I ever had
Scallops with rice, celery broth, and white balsamic

Dinner Friday
Blanc Burgers and Bottles
Butter lettuce salad with apples <– darn good salad
Bison burger with pepperdew relish <– Better than Ted’s
Christopher Elbow chocolates

Lunch Saturday
Webster House
Maryland Crab Cake
1 Bite of my wife’s Roasted Chicken with Boursin Potato Cake and Chive/Ouzo buerre blanc <–  SOOO GOOD
Vegetable Risotto
Sticky Toffee Pudding <– Thank you Gordon Ramsey for teaching me to love this dessert

Dinner Saturday
West Chase Grille
Diver Scallops <– extra sampler because they sounded so good
Pork Chop with Apple Chutney and Cream Sauce
Profiteroles with vanilla bean ice cream

Number of pounds gained: 200

Two Day Restaurant Week Awards

It’s like the Oscars, only in blog form…

Award for the Best Salad/Starter: 75th Street Brewery’s Duck Confit Salad.  Best. Salad. Ever. 
Award for the Best Main Entree: Webster House’s Roasted Chicken.  I want more.  Now.
Award for the Best Dessert: Sticky Toffee Pudding.  I hate toffee.  But I love sticky toffee pudding.

Also, I have to give out two special awards because I want to give credit where credit is due.

Award for the Best Food Salesman: Chef John Westerhaus of the West Chase Grille.  He sat us and explained his menu indepth and had both my mom and I drooling.  (BWD, Jr. was playing with my iPhone.)  In the end, Mom ordered the filet on his recommendation.  Also, he was so good he inspired the next award.

Award for the Dish I Had to Try In Addition to the Prix Fixe Menu Even Though It Wasn’t On There: The Scallops at West Chase Grille.  Chef Westerhaus said they were amazing, so the table got them to share in addition to the Restaurant Week menu meal.  Chef, they were as good as you said.  Perfectly cooked.  Bravo.  Oh, and don’t get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with the menu options, but Chef Westerhaus made the scallops sound like treasure.

So, even Hamburger Week and unResolution Month can be a little hoity toity with

Caramelized Onion and Brie Burgers with Gruyere

Okay, you’re never going to believe me but one of my all time favorite pizzas is take some nice pizza dough, baked in the oven until it’s done.  Then while the crust is still warm, slather that thing with some nice goat cheese and then top with caramelized onions and mission figs.  See, I don’t believe it myself.  I really should be more of a Super Supreme fan.

But I do like those pizzas and I like to serve them when I throw parties.  I find they are the nice elegant, nose-in-the-air appetizer that complements the pigs in a blanket so well.  (People who have read a few of posts don’t know if I am kidding or not.  My long time readers know I’m dead serious.  In a comedically light kind of way.)

But anyway, when I got to thinking about what burger I would serve if I was running a fine dining establishment (yes, I actally spent time pondering this question), it came to me.  If caramelized onions, goat cheese, and figs were hoity toity enough for the other great American snack food (pizza), they’d be good enough for the greatest American snack food: burgers.*

And so I present caramelized onion, fig, and goat cheese hamburgers with gruyere for this, the final day of Hamburger Week because if we’re going to go out, let’s do this thing all white tablecloth-like.

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