Happy Belly Baked Polenta

I pulled two leeks out of my otherwise empty garden this morning and deciding what to do with them led me to make this soothing baked polenta dish. There are so many ways this recipe could be varied so I'm going to include all the ingredients I think you could put in it.

First, make the polenta (recipe to come soon!). Pour your hot polenta into an oiled pie pan or other ovensafe dish. If you want to make this even quicker, you could also use one of those tubes of prepared polenta. Just slice it into rounds and cover the bottom of your baking dish with them. Set the polenta to the side and let it firm up while you prepare your toppings.

Next choose your toppings. I'd recommend picking at least 4 of these in some combination that sounds good to you.

a couple cloves of garlic, minced

2 thinly sliced leeks (well washed, please)

1 small carrot, sliced into thin rounds

3 or 4 collard leaves, sliced into thin ribbons (or chard, kale, spinach, etc...)

*4 or 5 canned artichoke hearts, halved

*1/2 cup chopped olives

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped broccoli

*1 cup garbanzo or white beans

a link of veggie sausage, thinly sliced or chopped

You also want a jar of your favorite marinara sauce, about 1 1/2 to 2 cups worth.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add any ingredients you've chosen, unless they have a start beside them which means you want to wait to add these til just before you put it all in the oven. Saute your toppings for about 10 minutes, until nicely softened and browned. Now you can stir in any starred items and cook for another minute or so, just to heat them through.

Pour all of this evenly over your polenta. Pour the marinara sauce over everything.

Cover your dish with a lid or aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.


Sloppy but good. : )

Indian Dinner

I found a new vegan website called paku paku that's full of delicious sounding ethnic recipes and I finally got around to trying one tonight for Dal, which you may know is an Indian lentil dish. Its in the bottom right hand corner of the picture above, cozying up to some pear chutney baked tofu and a rice dish from Passionate Vegetarian called Katherine's Ghee Rice with Cashews and Melting Onions. That's a long way of saying rice with too much butter. I don't know how it would taste with earth balance or oil in place of the butter but if I try it out I will let you know. The tofu was my own creation and I think it could use a little work before I put it on the blog but the Dal was quite tasty and I'd like to share it with you.

The recipe on paku paku didn't have exact measurements so I wrote down the amounts I used.

Dal

Ingredients:

1 cup red lentils (I'm sure brown would be fine too)
3 cups water
1/4 t. turmeric
1 t. fresh grated ginger
1/2 cup finely chopped collard greens
1 roma tomato, chopped
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. garam masala
chopped cilantro, optional

First put the lentils in a large pan with the water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower the heat to a simmer and stir in the turmeric. Continue simmering and stirring occasionally until the lentils begin to absorb most of the water, about 15 minutes.
Add the ginger and collards. Continue stirring and simmering for another 15 minutes or so, until the lentils are done to your liking. If they begin to dry up you can add more water.
When lentils are pretty much done, add the tomatoes, salt, and garam masala. Simmer for another few minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in cilantro, if using. Serve as a stew, over rice, or alone. Makes about 3 servings.

No more fake cheese

After making two more block cheese recipes from the Uncheese book and having them both turn out pretty inedible I have decided that there is no room in my life for fake block-style cheese. I've had much better luck with cheesy dips and sauces, and from now on I swear I will never make another solid fake cheese.

I nearly ruined a perfectly tasty pizza tonight with the "provolone" I made a few days ago. Luckily it never melted so I scraped it off. It even smelled awful!

So make this pizza, but skip the fake cheese. It doesn't need it anyway.

Broccoli, Kalamata, & Almond Pizza

First the pizza dough:

I use a recipe off of Allrecipes that I love. It's technically a recipe for foccaccia but it works fine for pizza dough.

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I use spelt sometimes, whole wheat sometimes)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 pinch ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup water

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, salt, sugar, yeast, garlic powder, oregano, thyme, basil and black pepper. Mix in the vegetable oil and water.
When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Punch dough down; place on greased baking sheet. Pat into a 1/2 inch thick circle. Add toppings.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Toppings:

small handful chopped almonds

1 to 1 1/2 cups chopped broccoli

15 oz. can diced tomatoes, well drained

small handful diced kalamata olives

minced garlic

The Ultimate Uncheese

Swiss Cheese...sort of

Peanut Butter Fudge Pie...Yum!

How could one resist checking out a book called the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook? Cheese is one of my weaknesses...its one of the foods I can't seem to give up no matter how hard I try. So, after having such great success with the smoky cheese dip I was really excited when I found this book. So far I've made 3 recipes out of it: Swizz Cheez* and Peanut Butter Fudge Pie with a Granola Nut Crust. I was particularly excited to try the cheese recipe because I've never tried to make a vegan block cheese, nor do I know anyone who has. Unfortunately I felt that the final product was a bit too lemon-y. It definitely resembles swiss cheese in flavor but the lemon juice seemed a bit strong. The pie was much tastier and the crust was even better than the filling in my opinion.

*I can't stand it when vegan dairy & meat substitute recipes have such cutesy titles. I realize its not real cheese but come on, did you fail 5th grade grammar?

Vegan Pot Roast

Ok, so I made this vegan pot roast the other night for dinner. I got the recipe out of the book Vegan Lunch Box by Jennifer McCann (the link is to her blog of the same name). I'm not going to include the recipe for it because honestly, it wasn't my thing. I think I'm just not a huge fan of homemade seitan dishes, at least not yet. I did, however, think it looked very much like a pot roast and after spending hours driving from store to store to buy my new camera that day, I had to take pictures of it to put on the blog. So, if it looks like something you would like, check out her book or blog and try it for yourself.