Last night's dish was Polenta Pizza. The toppings turned out excellent, but... the polenta crust was rather mushy. I think I might have added too much water, and will keep playing with the polenta- I'm only a beginner with the stuff, after all! When M and I reheated it in the oven tonight, the crust turned out better and more crispy, but the toppings were burnt quite badly! Although... they were still tasty.
And another dish called Cashew Asparagus came on the menu for dinner. Actually, since green beans are in season, they posed as the asparagus, but they are both long green things, right? Anyway, I dunno what went wrong, but the dish didn't turn out as good as last time- although that might have been because the beans were rather tough... Oh well, it still tasted decent!
Oh, a very depressing story. I was provided lunch today by the group I was with, and they had pizza. Just the smell of greasy pizza makes me natious... and for snacks, they had more chips. Again, lovely, fattening oil! So, I ended up with a blueberry muffin for lunch, really late. It was not at all good- greasy and 8 grams of fat in one, unfilling muffin. And the group leaders said the food was actually going to be healthy. Go figure!
Well, here are the two recipes. Muchly improved, might I add.
Rosemary, Mushroom, and Olive Polenta Pizza
Adapted from
Polenta by Brigit Legere Binns and
Whfoods.com
4 servings
Ingredients
• ½ cup polenta
• Salt
• 1 ½ cups water
• 2 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
• 2 tbsp veggie broth
• 1 1/2 cup mushrooms
• 1 small onion, sliced into half-rings
• 10 black olives, sliced
• ¼ cup reduced fat blue or feta cheese
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
• 1 tbsp sun dried tomatoes
Preparation
1. Bring the water, lightly salted, to a boil in a medium pot. Slowly pour in the polenta, stirring with a wooden spoon. Add the 2 tsp rosemary, and continue stirring for 20 minutes, or until the spoon can stand up for a couple of seconds by itself.
2. Preheat oven to 350.
3. Pour polenta into a pizza pan, and spread as thin as possible.
4. Bake polenta in the oven for about 20 minutes, until it begins to brown. Remove and set aside.
5. Meanwhile, heat the broth in a frying pan coated with non-stick spray over medium heat. Add the onions, cook for 4 minutes, and then add the mushrooms. Continue cooking until tender, and remove from heat.
6. Top the polenta with mushrooms, onions, olives, cheese, tomatoes, and 1 tbsp rosemary, and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until the cheese is melted and toppings are done as desired.
Cashew Green-Beans-Posing-as-Asparagus
Adapted from
Better Homes and Gardens
4 servings
Ingredients
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp teriyaki sauce
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tsp corn starch
• 2 tbsp broth
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 lb green beans
• ¼ cup chopped red bell pepper
• ½ lb mushrooms, sliced
• Pepper, to taste
• ¼ cup cashews
Preparation
1. Mix together the soy sauce, teryaki sauce, mirin, and cornstarch. Set aside.
2. Heat the broth in a wok coated with nonstick spray over medium high heat. Saute the onion and garlic for 2 minutes, and then add the green beans. After two more minutes add the bell pepper and mushrooms. When the mushrooms have begun to soften, add the sauce, and cook until all the vegetables are tender. Stir in the cashews, season with pepper, and serve.
This green bean casserole is quite different. It's red, for starters, because of the paprika. And the sauce is pretty different, too, I think, because it's not just plain condensed cheese soup. It's a bit more than just the average green bean casserole, with a unique look and flavour. I also really liked the onions that covered the whole thing. Gotta love those carmelized onions!
As for the pie- well, it doesn't have a lot of different flavours, and the yogurt really dominates the dish. So, the quality of yogurt plays a really big role in how good this will taste. I really liked how the pie turned out, probably because I really like that sort of thing. It's simple enough to make, too, even with the extra work of making the pie crust. I actually liked this one just as much as a different onion pie that I had made a few months back, which was also quite good. The vanilla flavour is different from anything that I have ever eaten before, and the seasonings on top add a nice bit of flavour.
I really don't think that there is anything spectacular about this dish that really makes it stand out. But, it's still really good. Not to mention so simple to make, like most things similar to these types of dishes. And it has coconut milk, which I still seem to be addicted to. This is another dish that goes well with pretty much any veggies, and is a good fridge cleaner-outer.
Heat a wok over medium high heat. Add the onion and carrots, and saute for 2 minutes, and then add the green beans. Saute for another two minutes and add the bell pepper and broccoli. Saute until almost tender, about 4 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and sauce, and cook until heated through and well mixed, about 2 more minutes. Serve.
I feel like for the past few weeks, ever since school started again after Christmas break, all I have been focusing on is GPA. It's king where I live, and life seems so cutthroat lately. Obviously I still cook, but it seems like that's all I have time for- cooking, excersise, and schoolwork. Which kind of stinks, but I guess things could be worse. So lately I have been very grateful of anything that is easy to cook, and will get dinner on the table faster, and will get me an extra ten minutes of sleep or so. Because it's getting to where I fall asleep standing up. I feel so pathetic. Some people I know can run on 6 hours of sleep a night, but I need more than that... Ugh. My excuse it that I work out, but still. Life is ruthless.
Adapted from Nourishing Meals
Honey Orange Green Beans
Ah, the weather is getting colder, and my cooking is quickly meeting the bill. I was inspired by a post on I Eat Food, mostly because it had veggie dogs in it. I don't know why, but I had a yen to make something with those. They're so cute! Although, I was thinking as I cut the weiners up, the real things are gross. I'm sure you know all the random parts that end up in what seems to be a staple in the American diet. Just the other day I saw some of my friends eating them at lunch, because the cafeteria was serving hot dogs. And I thought schools were supposed to be converting to healthier food. Go figure. What I think would be really neat is if the cafeteria served vegetarian food once a week. Although that would probably cause more than a few complaints.
For some reason, lunch stir frys never seem to turn out really good. This one was certainly the exception to that rule. Both M and I agreed- we would certainly make this dish again. The sauce was especially delish and special. I think it was the yellow bean paste that added the unique flavour that I find so hard to put words to. The veggies were really nice this time around too, and they seem to fit very well with the sauce. And the tofu is really different, too. If you have never tried pressed tofu, I highly recommend it. It's kind of firm, and feels a little like tofu, only with more substance. I thought they looked almost like pieces of mushroom, not tofu, because of the colour. M said it looked like cheese with that plasitc on the outside. Whatever. It was so good, and such a nice change from normal tofu. Now that I think about it, I really haven't been eating much tofu at all recently. Have I moved beyond tofu? Impossible! There's just so much to explore in the vegetarian frozen section of the Asian market, it's incredible. 
Inspired by Passionate Eater
Ah, lentils. They seem to be one of the most finicky foods that I have ever worked with. But a small bag had been sitting in our pantry for quite some time now, and I think fate was calling with I stumbled across this posting on Vegan Dad's blog. And I'm so glad I did, because it turned out to be something quite different from what I normally end up making. The first night M and I had it over a bit of rice, because that was all the food in the house that was ready to eat. (We finally finished off our monster 5 lb bag of rice... and got another one. It's good stuff, that rice.) Anyway, this stew is a lot like soup. It gets more flavourful as time goes on, so the first night I wasn't all that impressed. But the next day the flavour seemed to have doubled, and it tasted so much better. M was especially fond of the stew- I thought it was good, but nothing to dream about. I really liked the peas and potatoes, though. They seemed to go extremely well in the dish- not to mention it looks a whole lot prettier with them.
