I knew a just had to eat a dove or two when I heard the doves were released as part of the torch relay before this year's Olympics. Yes, they are peaceful creatures, but there's also a brand of chocolate also called Dove and I knew I had to combine the two together.

My initial idea was to stuff a meatloaf inside doves, but seeing as the doves are so tiny, it wouldn't make sense to brown a pound of ground meat, end up only using an ounce of it, and disposing the rest. So I stuffed it with kimchi(because the Olympics are in South Korea and kimchi is a national dish of both Koreas), Sno-Caps candies(those nonpareils, because it is the Winter Olympics going on, not Summer), Dove chocolate, pizza chips(I had a couple left and I wanted to use them all up, but alas, I could only stuff 1/2 a chip per dove, and panko breadcrumbs. 

However, doves, like many wild game, are lean in fat, so to bump up the fat content, I wrapped them in bacon. 

The ultimate goal for every Olympic athlete is to win a gold medal and hear their country's national anthem on the podium(except if you're an Olympic Athlete from Russia, so no Russian national anthem for you). Fittingly enough, Hershey's started selling gold chocolate bars, which is essentially a caramelized creme bar and that was the basis for the sauce I made to douse the doves in. I used ketchup seasoning as the rub for the doves because I gotta root for team USA(who basically suck this year, save for only 5 gold medals won so far and all of them were either in snowboarding or skiing). 

Let me tell you, handling those dove carcasses, combined with the ketchup seasoning, made the plate the meat it was on look like a bloody crime scene. Disgustingly, the ketchup seasoning stuck onto the meat thanks to the blood on it! I made a hole in one of the doves but then I found there was already a cavity there. 

The dove meat tasted like really dark meat chicken combined with liver pate or calf liver(the meat looked like pate and had a metallic, irony taste to it). I felt like a giant vulture digging into the doves because you have to break apart the carcasses to get to the edible meat. 

My dad was too disgusted to dry the doves. He said they're peaceful creatures not meant to be eaten, those "poor little doves". 

HELPFUL LINKS: Doves: www.exoticmeatmarkets.com/Dove-Meat-2-Birds-Farm-Raised-for-Food-p/dovemeat2-birds.htm

Kimchi: www.amazon.com/Mother-Laws-Kimchi-Vegan-Cabbage/dp/B01HTHK7FE/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1518972810&sr=8-2&

Ketchup Seasoning: www.amazon.com/Gourmet-Fries-Seasonings-Bottle-Ketchup/dp/B005SSM4V2/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1518972846&sr=8-2&

You will need: 

For the cooking equipment: 

A large plate
A bowl
Aluminum foil
A lasagna pan
A medium saucepot

For the doves: 

2 doves(see HELPFUL LINKS)
Ketchup seasoning(see HELPFUL LINKS)
2 pieces of kimchi(see HELPFUL LINKS)
2 pieces of Dove chocolate
2-4 tbsp. Sno-Caps nonpareils
1-2 tbsp. panko breadcrumbs
1 pizza chip
2 slices of bacon
Pinch of garlic powder
Pinch of onion powder
Pinch of salt

For the gold chocolate sauce: 

1/4 cup rose wine
1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup bouillon mixed in 1/2 cup hot water
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 Hershey's Gold Chocolate Bar, 

Serve with croutons(optional)

To cook the doves: 

1. Wash the doves thoroughly and put them onto a large plate. Find the cavities on the bottom of each dove and remove as much blood and organs as possible from the cavities. 
2. Coat each dove in ketchup seasoning. Stuff each dove with a piece of kimchi, a piece of Dove chocolate, 1-2 tbsp. of Sno-Caps nonpareils, 1/2-1 tbsp. of panko breadcrumbs, and 1/2 a pizza chip. 
3. Wrap each dove in a slice of bacon and season the outside with the garlic powder, onion powder, and salt. 
4. Wrap each dove in aluminum foil and put the wrapped doves onto a lasagna pan. 
5. Bake the doves in a 300 degree Fahrenheit oven for 30-45 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches at least 170 degrees Fahrenheit. 

To make the gold chocolate sauce: 

1. Put the rose wine and rice wine vinegar into a medium saucepot and cook the mixture for 3-4 minutes, or until it has a syrupy consistency. 
2. Add the broth and thyme to the mixture. Break apart the gold chocolate bar and put it into the saucepot. Stir the chocolate into the sauce until it melts. It's normal to see chunky peanut and pretzel pieces in the sauce, as those were in the bar. 

Take the doves out of the foil and onto a plate. Pour the sauce over the doves. Serve with croutons(optional). 

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A coconut is an amazing plant. It can give you milk, water, butter, oil, aminos, flour, and meat. Cows can't give you flour, aminos, or water! 

This recipe utilizes all the products made from a coconut and turns it into one amazing, vegan meatloaf! 

Yea, you might be thinking this is a one-note dish and the only thing this meatloaf tastes like is coconut. But you'd be kind of wrong. Yes, this meatloaf tastes like coconut but it also has a variety of textures, from the fresh coconut chunks that taste better when dipped in something like coconut milk, coconut aminos, or ketchup, to the powdery exterior of the meatloaf from the coconut flour. Nobody likes eating flour out of the bag, but if you dip the flour and the soft parts of this meatloaf in ketchup, you get something that tastes like scrambled eggs(seriously!).

I'm surprised nobody has thought of using coconut flour, coconut pieces, and ketchup as a vegan egg substitute. If that isn't turning lemons into lemonade, I don't know what is! 

This meatloaf was kind of hard to shape though since it was falling apart as I was putting it into the lasagna pan. 

Even my dad loved this meatloaf. He said it tasted like the coconut pie my family has every Thanksgiving(my favorite holiday because it's only a few days apart from my birthday). 

HELPFUL LINKS:

Young Coconut Meat in Syrup: www.amazon.com/AROY-D-YOUNG-COCONUT-alloy-coconut/dp/B00582HJEK/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1517159410&sr=8-2&

Roasted Coconut Butter: https://eatingevolved.com/products/sweet-salty-roasted-coconut-butter

You will need:  

For the cooking equipment: 

A frying pan
A spatula
A large bowl
A lasagna pan 
Coconut oil nonstick cooking spray

For the meatloaf: 

1/2 an onion
Coconut oil
​2/3 cups unsweetened applesauce
Fresh coconut chunks
3 oz. coconut chips
1 tbsp. coconut milk
1 tbsp. coconut water
1 tbsp. roasted coconut butter(see HELPFUL LINKS)
1 tbsp. coconut aminos
Pinch of salt
Pinch of black pepper
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup coconut flour
2- 15 oz. cans of young coconut meat(see HELPFUL LINKS)

1. Melt coconut oil in a frying pan and saute the onion in the oil until translucent. Put the sauteed onion into a large bowl.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the large bowl except for the young coconut meat. 
3. Drain the syrup out of both cans of young coconut meat. Cut up the young coconut meat to a ground meat consistency and put that into the large bowl.
4. Mix all the ingredients up until you get a firm meatloaf mixture. If the mixture is too powdery, add additional coconut milk. 
5. Spray a lasagna pan with coconut oil nonstick cooking spray. Form 2 loaves from the meatloaf mixture. 
6. Bake the meatloaves in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 15-20 minutes. 

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This curry has all the colors of the rainbow and a whole lot more! 

A simple Wiki and Amazon search for curry pastes sparked my idea to make a rainbow curry. I mean, there's red curry, yellow curry, green curry, so why not add all the other colors too to make a delicious, colorful stew? 

This recipe is one of the more complex ones I've done in a while- there's 19 ingredients in this stew. 

I would get a frying pan that would fit every single ingredient in this curry but my stove isn't big enough to fully cook the contents of the pan, so I had to do the sauteeings in three different batches and combine them plus the rest of the ingredients into the large saucepot, which brings me to another point: curry is not supposed to look like stew. It's kind of like rice, where it ain't done until the rice absorbs all the liquid, but I was pressed for time, so I drained the liquid out of the curry and disposed of most that liquid. 

Off camera, there were some hiccups in making this dish. I cut my thumb cutting the ham and tomato. The original plan was to use baby corn but the jar was impossible to open. It took a wrench to open up the blue soda bottle since it was in the fridge in I don't know how long. 

There's a whopping 3 tbsp.of curry paste in this curry, so one would think this is one spicy dish. But it's tempered by the usage of the blueberries, peanut butter and apricot jam in the curry, as well as a glass of milk to help wash it down. 

Still, part of the dish didn't taste good and that was the ham. It turns out ham is not meant to be sauteed since it's already processed. I picked out all the ham pieces and replaced it with pork floss. 

The black garlic provided a nice smokiness to this curry. I definitely got a lot of bubblegum flavor from the blue soda. 

Due to the spiciness, my dad didn't try the curry. 


HELPFUL LINKS: 

Curry Pastes: www.amazon.com/4oz-Green-Yellow-Curry-Pastes/dp/B000QU3JM0/ref=sr_1_4_s_it?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1517760045&sr=1-4&

Purple Pasta: www.amazon.com/Cybeles-Free-Superfood-Veggie-Purple/dp/B0764MRN74/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1517760062&sr=8-1-spons&

Black Garlic: www.amazon.com/Peeled-Black-Garlic-Kosher-Certifed/dp/B013EM8IRW/ref=sr_1_6_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1517760077&sr=8-6&

Blue Soda: www.jonessoda.com/collections/jones-beverages/products/blue-bubblegum

Pork Floss: www.amazon.com/Cooked-Dried-Pork-Product-Large/dp/B0086XSQRM/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1517760503&sr=8-2&

You will need: 

For the cooking equipment: 

A frying pan
A spatula
A large saucepot
A colander
A large bowl

For the curry: 

1 large tomato
1 tbsp. red curry paste(see HELPFUL LINKS)
1 tbsp. apricot jelly
10 oz. corn
Pinch of turmeric
Ghee(I used buffalo milk ghee)
1 tbsp. yellow curry paste(see HELPFUL LINKS)
10 oz. green vegetables
1 tbsp. green curry paste(see HELPFUL LINKS)
Pinch of furikake
12 oz. blue soda(see HELPFUL LINKS)
10 oz. blueberries
1 cup cooked purple pasta(see HELPFUL LINKS)
15 oz. drained pink beans
8 oz. ham or pork floss(see HELPFUL LINKS)
1 tbsp. peanut butter
1/2 tsp. fish bouillon and 1/2 cup hot water
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
2 black garlic cloves(see HELPFUL LINKS)

1. Chop up the tomato and ham. 
2. Pour ghee into a frying pan and heat the ghee up. Add the green vegetables, red curry paste, and peanut butter. Saute the vegetables until the curry paste and peanut butter melts onto the veggies. Put them onto a plate. 
3. Pour more ghee into the frying pan and heat the ghee up. Add the tomatoes, green curry paste, and cocoa powder. Saute the tomatoes until the paste melts onto them and they're coated in the powder. Put them onto a plate. 
4. Add just a little more ghee into the frying pan and heat the ghee up. Add the ham or pork floss, yellow curry paste, apricot jam, and black garlic cloves. Saute the ham or pork floss until the curry paste and jam melts onto the ham or pork floss. Put them onto a plate. 
5. Mix the fish bouillon into the hot water until the paste dissolves to get a fish broth.
6. Put the blueberries, corn, furikake, turmeric, pasta, and pink beans into a large saucepot, along with everything that's been sauteed. Pour in the blue soda and the fish broth. Mix all the ingredients up. 
7. Cook the curry on the stove on medium-high heat for 25-30 minutes. 
8. The curry will still be liquidy by then so drain the curry through a colander with a large bowl underneath the colander. Only reserve some of the liquid. Dispose of the rest. Serve with milk(highly recommended) and garlic bread(optional).

​