Nutloaf and Mole' Sauce

Greetings, food threadies!

For Christmas dinner, our son decided he didn't want to bother cooking a turkey. Instead, our daughter tried out Milady's "nutloaf" recipe. topped with Milady's first-ever mole' sauce. Side dishes of potatoes, and beans, home-grown sweet potatoes, and son's mulled wine rounded it out.

So, we actually had a vegetarian Christmas dinner. You might think, where's the beef? but the nutloaf was really hearty - we were quite stuffed.

Reminded me of a big family reunion many years ago. My sister came to Milady, saying, there was some kind of mystery-meat BBQ on the grill she wouldn't touch. Milady said, no, that's my BBQ Tofu. So, my sister ran back to have some ... only to find that the rednecks and cowboys had already consumed it all.

We don't do tofu anymore - I concluded soybeans are not meant for human consumption - but, a good BBQ or mole' sauce, you can make almost anything taste great.

Milady has handed me the nutloaf and mole' sauce recipes, so I guess I'll pass them along. The nutloaf recipe came out of some health food store magazine 30 years ago, hence the kelp and other oddities. :-)

Nutloaf
Preheat oven to 375°F.

Process together until finely chopped:
1 medium onion
1 carrot
2 stalks celery
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
Remove to a large bowl.

Process together until coarsely ground:
1 Cup pecans
1 Cup walnuts
Add nuts to vegetables.
Add 1 & 1/2 Cups dry crumbs
(bread,cracker, or tortilla chip).

In a small bowl, beat
3 eggs.

In a larger bowl, mix:
1 Tbsp kelp powder
2 Tbsp liquid aminos or soy sauce
1 & 1/2 Cups plain yogurt

Add the eggs to the yogurt mix.
Mix liquids into the nut mixture.
Mix very well.

Spread into a greased loaf pan, ring mold, or muffin pan.
(Or make into burgers and cook like burgers.)
Bake ~1 hour until loaf pulls away from sides of pan.

Warm a platter while you let the loaf cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Use a damp knife or spatula to loosen the edges if necessary. Invert onto warm platter.

Serve with lemon parsley sauce, mushroom gravy, or...

Mole' sauce
Lightly adapted from The Gluten-Free Gourmet. (Milady highly recommends all the Gluten-Free Gourmet cookbook series.)

Saute together until translucent:
3 medium onions, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
Remove pan from heat.

Combine:
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp dried oregano
1 & 1/2 tsp salt
2 & 1/2 tsp rice flour

Stir spices into the onions.
Add:
1 16oz can tomato puree
1 Cup water
1 to 3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 tsp cinnamon
Dash or two of ground cloves

Adjust the last 3 ingredients, and the salt and sugar, to your taste as you cook.

Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, stir occasionally for 30 min.

There y'go. I often tell Milady she should share her recipes and cooking experience on the food thread. Hope this was okay. (And that I didn't mess up copying the recipe!!)