Polenta, finally!

About a year ago, E and I met up with some friends in Houston. We all got dressed up and made a nice Italian dinner, spaghetti with mushroom tomato sauce, salad, and polenta. Except the polenta gave us trouble. Or maybe we gave it trouble. One way or another, E and I found ourselves eating bits of gloppy polenta from the pan at 11PM in our pajamas. We were not impressed. Food that takes over five hours to prepare should taste better than that.

I braved the stone-ground cornmeal a few weeks ago and gave polenta another try. Wow was it good. I think E and I used too much liquid. And we stirred too much. Polenta is one of those foods that people are always warning you to stir often (and only clockwise!) The recipe I followed (from the Bittman of course) said to whisk the cornmeal into the water in small batches. And then don't worry about stirring much until it starts to thicken. Not only was this easier (I did some dishes while I waited), but it tasted great. I can't really attest to how well it thickened because I ate most of it hot from the stove. It reminded me of the taste of toast and eggs. I have no idea...

P.S. E has photos of the two of us making sushi including a shot of the world's largest avocado. Bug her to post them!

Aromatic Tomato Sauce and Sesame Asparagus

This is actually the third Bittman sauce that I've made. The one I didn't blog about is the butter variation. That variation was butter instead of olive oil. It was good, but not all that different from the basic. And I didn't make all the mistakes I made in the first one. This time, I used a smaller pan, so there wasn't any burning. And I cut the tomatoes with my kitchen scissors instead of squishing them with my hand. Squishing is more fun, but cutting means less tomato juice splattered all over my kitchen.

Anyway, Aromatic Tomato Sauce. This version has equal parts carrots, celery, and onion added to the tomato sauce. I'm not crazy about it. It's pinkish instead of red. And it just doesn't taste saucy to me. I guess it would be a good way to trick a kid into eating veggies. But I don't have any problems eating vegetables. Ooo, important part. I got to use my hand blender for this! I love my hand blender. Who stirs when you can blend? But it still wasn't saucy enough. It was. . . gritty? course? I want a smooth sauce. I'm still waiting to find the perfect one.

The Sesame Asparagus was amazing. This is a recipe La and I made in college. We both had a huge stack of asparagus recipes we wanted to try. We'd wait all year until asparagus was affordable, and then we'd gorge. Well, this week asparagus was $1.50/lb. Yay! So, Sesame Asparagus is steamed asparagus, cooled, with a sauce of sesame oil, white wine vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar. All sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds. Except this time I used rice vinegar and I added edamame. It was so good. I'm looking forward to leftovers.

Black Bean Soup

Edit: This is a guest post by my friend Sarah

Last week I made wonderful black bean soup. I boiled a cut up head of cabbage and a can of black beans in a pot of beef broth. To this, I added oregano, basil and salt to taste. After 40 min, I stuck the whole soup in the blender to create a really thick creamy soup (only because I don't like big pieces of cabbage, I suspect this would be just as good without blending). It has been a yummy lunch/snack for a week now!

Tempeh Sausage

This is another great recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. And this is my second try cooking tempeh. I took a block of tempeh, broke it into little pieces and cooked it in some water. It expanded, kinda like oatmeal. Once all the water was cooked out, I added fennel, sage, basil, red pepper flakes, garlic, olive oil, soy sauce, and lemon juice. Then I just cooked it until it browned up again.

I ate the tempeh with some jeera rice that I learned to make in my Indian cooking class and a cucumber-carrot salad that wasn't really that great. Jeera is just fancy talk for cumin seed.

I liked this a whole lot better than the last tempeh recipe I tried. I'm having a hard time not eating it all right now. Cooking it in water first really made a difference I think. It's time to go distract myself now, because the leftovers are calling my name.

P.S. At the moment, it looks like photos aren't going to happen, but I'll keep trying.

Creative Chicken Salad Sandwich

Edit: This is a guest post by my friend E

So, this one is really like a salad stuck between two pieces of bread, but it's refreshingly light and simple.

Basically, throw some grilled chicken pieces, some diced apples, whatever kind of nut you have on hand, spinach leaves and balsamic vinaigrette in a bowl. Mix it up, spread some herbed cheese (or cream cheese with some Italian seasoning and garlic salt mixed in) on both pieces of bread, and then do your best to get the stuff in the bowl in between the pieces of bread. Voila, you're done.

My friend Kristin likes it with the CapriSun, but she's pregnant, so who knows if it's really any good.

Mark Bittman's Basic Tomato Sauce, Mustard Greens with Lemon Juice, and a Cutie

I finally located my camera! But not in time to charge it before dinner finished cooking.

I want to make all the vegetarian pasta dishes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. There are something like 38 pasta recipes, not including the Asian dishes. Here's the first. Basic Tomato Sauce really is basic. Open can of skinned, whole plum tomatoes. Cook until saucy. More or less, that's it. Except, mine was threatening to burn. And it took much too long to get saucy. I'll have 5 or 6 more times to get this right though because there are variations.

On the side, I wilted some mustard greens in a little oil and then sprinkled with salt and fresh lemon juice. I even garnished with some lemon peel. It looks real pretty. Too bad you can't see it.

And finally, a cutie. No, not me. It's some kind of citrus fruit. Like a satsuma or a tangerine.

Cauliflower and Tomato Pasta

Edit: This is a guest post by my friend E

I'd give this one four out of five stars, but it's a nice pasta variation. So, saute some crushed garlic in olive oil, add cauliflower pieces and cook a little longer. Then, poor in seeded and chopped tomatoes and let them get all soft. Add a bit of hot water to the skillet and let the whole thing cook awhile while you prepare the pasta. Once it's done, you throw everything into the skillet, add black pepper and fresh, chopped parsley. Slide it onto a plate and top with your choice of grated cheese. I also suggest some extra salt.