crock pot challenge!

Ladies and gents and other variously gendered friends, come one come all to the mad tasty challenge of the season!

On behalf of our collective cooking think tank, we challenge you to a CROCK OFF!!!

The fine print?

• Competitors will include both mad tasty and any outside challengers who choose to!
• Please announce your intentions to compete in the comments below this post, with a link to your blog if not a mad tasty contributor.
• You will have two weeks to pot your crock!
  
• After that point I will schedule posts to be over the following few days, with "link out" posts for extra-blogular competitors.
• A poll will be posted to determine the winner!
• The winner shall receive gratitude, acclaim and possibly notoriety!
  

MEATBALL CHALLENGE: a champion!

I hereby crown Mairead the winner of the meatball challenge!

Congratulatons!





Um why didn't more of you vote for me? I didn't even beat JaBootaay.

Whatever, I'm over all you people.

MEATBALL CHALLENGE: call for votes!

(this great photo was stolen from ann mah's food blog, where they have a recipe for porcupine meatballs!  check em out!)

A call for votes!  Please check out our four entrants and come back to vote!  

The winner will be heaped with praise!

MEATBALL CHALLENGE! fourth entry

Super Italian / Juicy-as-HELL / Better-Than-Dave Meatballs

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Gimme Lean ground tofu
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup minced fresh flat leaf parsley
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup toasted almond slivers
  
• 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup grated parm cheese
• 1/4 cup cream
• 1 large egg
• 1 to 2 tsp salt
• 1 to 2 tsp pepper
• 2 to 3 tsp chili powder
• 2 dashes of nutmeg
• 2 dashes of garlic powder
  
• 1/2 to 1 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375f
2. Spray 9x13 or larger baking dish with non stick spray
   
3. In a small bowl beat egg and cream together (omit cream if you are using real meat)
   
4. In a large bowl add and mix thoroughly the meat, almonds, all cheeses, salt, pepper, parsley, nutmeg, and chili powder
5. Mix together egg/cream mixture into the meat mixture
6. Add breadcrumbs half at a time until main mixture is able to form peaks and hold its shape
7. Using your hands scoop out golf ball size amounts of mix and roll into ball and place in your greased baking dish
8. Cover with foil and bake for 15-20 minutes
9. Remove foil and bake for another 5-10 minutes
10. Serve hot ;-)

Commentary:
I make pretty damn good turkey meatballs, but havent be able to make them in ages....coughcough. These meatballs are BANGIN!! I was so impressed with myself!! The only veggie meatballs I have had have been made by dave and mine are better. daves are good, but mine are better! Its totally the ricotta cheese and the cream. I was inspired to try those two ingredients from a few Italian style cooking shows on the Food Network. I am glad I gave it a shot b/c now I make veggie meatballs like the ones I used to make :-). I encourage EVERYONE to give this recipe a try. I used the larger amounts of pepper and chili powder to give it an extra kick. I think adding minced jalpeno to this would be a good replacement to the chili powder.

To go with them, I made a simple pasta casserole and an even simpler cucumber side salad.

Hope yall enjoy!

MEATBALL CHALLENGE! entry two

So for our second entry, I'm nominating a dish over at deglaze me, where Christina Kim has made some really tasty looking meatballs based on a recipe by E. Lee at Bacon Concentrate. So this recipe has certainly travelled. Please link through to see all of Christina Kim's lovely photos, and check out E. Lee's food blog for similar inspiration.

MEATBALL CHALLENGE! call for entrants

(photo stolen from here, where there seems to be a yummy pasta sauce recipe)

A new challenge, albeit not very hot on the heels of our last one.

Keep your eyes out over the next few days for our entrants in the MEATBALL CHALLENGE. A few tradition breakers coming up! And be sure to vote when all the entrants have posted.

If you have a meatball recipe of your own (with pictures please!), either email or say so in the comments and we'll consider you an intermural competitor!