Making Polenta

Vegetable stock and polenta

In the last month or so, we've been eating a lot of greens: the arugula and turnips have done incredibly well in our community garden plot, and once the CSA season began, we started getting spinach, chard, mustard greens, three different kinds of kale, and more arugula. This sudden abundance has challenged our creativity--we've made curries (both Indian and Thai), used greens in pasta, had wilted greens as a side, but still sometimes had more greens than we knew what to do with, and wanted to expand our repertoire. Every now and then, we'd buy pre-made polenta in the plastic sleeves, at about $2.50 per pack. Matt would

Garlic scapes and green onion

slice it up and fry it in a pan with garlic and olives, adding the greens at the end, and wilting them--and it makes for a very good light lunch or appetizer. And then one day, I had an epiphany: the "grits" (also known as coarse-ground cornmeal) sold in the bulk section of our coop is polenta! I don't know why it took me so long to realize this--maybe because I don't like grits (something about the mushy texture), and have never associated squishy grits with the crispy-on-the-outside and savory polenta. Whatever the reason for my previous oversight, I'm glad that I've made the (mental) leap because polenta is incredibly easy to make and so cheap!

Quick sautee in olive oil and salt

Adding stock

Not only is polenta cheap, but versatile, too. The spices and the liquid ingredient can be varied according to the occasion. What I had on hand were green onions, garlic scapes, and vegetable stock. (Remember when I said that I "wasn't thrilled about canning the stock?" I take it back. I've used up almost all of the seven quarts of stock--some has gone into soups, but my polenta discovery will have me using stock much more often, for sure.)

The basic thing to keep in mind about polenta is that the liquid to grain ratio is about 3 to 1; you could use water for the liquid, and as long as the polenta is organic and good quality, the final result would probably be wonderful. As I was making this particular polenta, I kept thinking of the flavor combinations that I could make in the future; sun-dried tomato and basil (or oregano); cilantro and jalapeno; pumpkin and thyme...

Polenta gets pretty thick; keep stirring!

Allowing the polenta to firm up

All this talk about polenta, and no recipe yet. What can I say, I got carried away contemplating it!

Recipe:

• 2 green onions, white and green parts, chopped
• 2 garlic scapes (or a clove or two of garlic), minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil (or other herbs)
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 2/3 cup of water (as needed)
• 1.5 cups polenta/ corn grits/ coarse-ground cornmeal

Sauté the onions and garlic scapes in olive oil for a few minutes, just until they're starting to cook. Add the salt and herbs, stir to combine flavors; pour in the stock and bring to a steady simmer over medium-high heat. Once the stock is simmering, add the polenta in a slow and steady stream, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon or spatula for 25-30 minutes. As you're stirring, be sure to stir from the bottom of the pot, as the polenta will become quite thick quickly--and you want to both keep it from burning and keep it cooking for the full time, or else it will be too gritty. Add as little as 1/4 and as much as 2/3 cup of water during the cooking process--the polenta should be quite thick, but not too thick to stir effectively. At the end of the cooking time, taste and adjust spices; take the polenta off heat and transfer into a greased 8"x8" (or a 9"x9", depending on how thick you like it) baking pan, and allow to cool for a couple hours.

After the polenta cools, you can slice it and store in an airtight container for up to a week, refrigerated. As I mentioned earlier, to fix it, just fry some up with more garlic, onions, and greens. You can also decrease the recipe and use 1 cup of polenta for 3 cups of liquid, but (personally,) I like a thicker slice of polenta.

Polenta is also something that is often sold locally, and thus could be a delicious platform for an almost all-local meal.

African Yam Soup

There are many foods and flavors that systematically avoided until I became vegan. Until about three years ago, I refused to eat greens (raw or cooked), beans, peanut butter, popcorn, onions, anything spicy...(the list is quite long--too long and embarrassing for me to flesh it out here). When I became vegan, that all changed, almost overnight; when I stopped eating meat and dairy, I suddenly wanted and loved all those things that I'd previously refused to eat. From the way that I lovingly talk about massaged kale salad, you'd never be able to tell my previous mis-inclinations. Every now and then, however, when I read a new recipe, I am filled with the old qualms--especially if it's a soup recipe that includes ginger, garlic, cloves, cardamom, allspice, cinnamon, cumin, chile powder, cayenne pepper, orange juice, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, miso and peanut butter. Oh, did I mention that once I categorize a spice as either sweet or savory, I have a hard time using it for its opposite purpose? So when I saw the African Yam Soup in The Artful Vegan cookbook (the ingredients of which are, for the most part, listed above), I was intrigued, but very hesitant. How could orange juice and cinnamon ever go together with onions and tomatoes?!

Here's the truth: I'd recommended this soup to a friend a couple months ago, when she'd gotten into a food rut, and had all these extra sweet potatoes sitting around. I thought: this soup sounds so adventurous; maybe she'll try it and tell me how it tastes! Well, my friend loved the soup (and at the time I thought she was crazy). It took me these couple of months to work up the courage to try making it, and I'm sorry that I've waited this long. Once everything is cooked together, the soup gets blended, and served with cilantro and roasted peanuts. We stirred some leftover black beans into it--just for added texture--and ate this soup for lunches last week. It was spicy, and tangy, and satisfying; the orange juice and cinnamon that I was worried about so much gave it that extra depth and interest. 

And the soup also gave me a chance to use one of our last jars of spicy tomatoes that we put up last summer. Next year--as I've told myself numerous times already--I'll put up more tomatoes, and keep the recipe to this soup marked and on the ready once autumn begins.

Dessert at a Moment's Notice

Canning has changed the way that I look at food in several ways: for one, I am more used to having food around. And even if what comes out of a jar isn't the centerpiece of a meal--the sauces, condiments, jams, and pickles have become indispensable in the every-day. Multiple times a day, I open jars--either something from the pantry or something in the fridge--to add to a meal. Canning has also made cooking easier, with some of the decisions about ingredients made months prior, at the moment of canning conception.

When I got a craving for dessert on Monday night at 9:15 PM, I knew that I could turn to the pantry to provide for me. I plucked a jar of apple-cranberry relish, and looked at it for a few seconds before declaring that it would be just right in a galette. In fact, The Millennium Cookbook has a recipe for something very similar to this. I used their recipe for a walnut pastry crust, plopped down some apple cranberry relish, and thirty minutes later, we had (an albeit late) dessert. If it's been a while since you've had a galette, I highly recommend it: it's easier than a pie, less messy than a cobbler, and still a great platform for the fruit filling.

Banana (Peach Butter) Bread

I am a person who was brought up to firmly believe in the importance of breakfast. My family would gather at the table promptly and sullenly, and eat breakfast no matter what--and no one ate breakfast alone, either. It wasn't an on-the-go affair--we all sat down and ate breakfast together, always.

Even before I got married to M., I would make muffins, or quick breads, and surprise him with the food for breakfast. At the very least, I'd make sure that we had some cereal. My favorite days are when we can have a leisurely breakfast of toast, scrambled tofu with vegetables, and hash browns from scratch (with a good bit of home-made hot sauce all over everything). But the leisurely breakfast only occurs a few times a month, which leaves many more mornings unaccounted for. And although we don't make as big a deal of it as my parents did, we have a good breakfast every day. Recently, I made some fantastic cocoa hazelnut granola, which we have been enjoying quite thoroughly--especially with some cherry soy yogurt (chocolate and cherries for breakfast? yes!). And as that is now running low, yesterday I made a banana bread that I adapted from several different recipes. I know that banana bread recipes are ubiquitous. I know. But this banana bread has several qualities that make it outstanding, in my opinion: it's both sturdy (sturdy enough to hold up to buttering, or Earth Balanc-ing), and delicate. It can incorporate a wide variety of flavors, too: I've tried making it with everything from apple sauce to jam, to peach butter. (Peach butter was a fantastic experiment from last summer, but it's something we haven't been eating fast enough for some reason. I can also imagine this banana bread with something like blueberry butter, too!) That, and it'd just delicious, and easy. And not too sweet. It's a recipe that I keep coming back to, over and over. I haven't gotten bored with it yet. Here it is:

• 3 very ripe bananas
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 3/4 cup soy milk
• 1/3 cup peach butter (or applesauce, or...whatever)
• 2 tablespoons agave syrup
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 cups flour (I use white whole wheat, but a mix of that and all-purpose would work, too)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1(+) teaspoon cinnamon
• dried fruits and nuts of your choice, up to 3/4 cup, combined (I used dried cranberries and walnuts in the most recent batch)

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8"x4" bread pan.

-In a medium bowl, mash up bananas with a fork or a potato masher. Add the liquid ingredients and sugar; stir to combine and allow to sit for 3 minutes to sour the soy milk.

-Combine the dry ingredients, except the fruit/nuts, in a large mixing bowl, and stir to distribute the spices and baking soda/powder.

-Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until everything is well-combined, and fold in the fruit/nuts.

-Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50-60 minutes.

And that is all.