Wednesday, November 30, 2011

A Current Favorite Recipe

This recipe is one I've adapted from one I received in a recipe tree about a decade ago.  For many years, it sat, unused in my recipe folder.  A few months ago, I came across it and decided it looked good.  And it is.

The original name is greens over cornmeal mush, but I might go with something like African Greens over Polenta.  Sounds fancier, no?

Here is the recipe as I've been making it.

Polenta

6 cups water
dash of Braggs
2 TBS nutritional yeast
2 cups polenta

Bring the water and Braggs to a boil in a large pot.  Add the nutritional yeast, then the polenta in a stream as you stir.  Turn the temp down to low and stir nearly constantly for about 10 minutes.  

We usually end up with some leftover polenta, which we then put in a square tupperware and store in the fridge until we're ready for some polenta fries (cut it up unto slabs, season and bake).

African Greens

2 bunches kale or other green of your choice, destemed and ripped into pieces
1 onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, smashed
1 TBS curry powder
1 TBS Braggs
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
2-3 cups cooked garbanzo beans
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tsp crushed red pepper

Saute the onion and garlic in a little water until the onion is limp - 4-5 mins.  Add the curry powder and saute for another minute.  Add the Braggs and tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Add the greens and cook, stirring frequently for about 10 minutes or until the greens have reached you desired level of done-ness.  Add in the garbanzo beans and peanut butter, stir until integrated.  Add crushed red pepper and mix well.  You can taste and adjust seasonings at the point if you like.

We each dish up our own to get our own desired ratio of polenta to greens.

This is seriously yummy.  In fact, I made it twice the week because we had a craving.

Last week, Davan and I made it for lunch and left out the garbanzo beans, but added diced mushrooms in the beginning.  Anthony is not a mushroom fan, so we don't do that for dinner, but that was good, too.

What changed between when I first got this recipe and now?  A lot, actually.  We weren't vegans then and didn't actually eat much green beyond broccoli.  So, mostly I'd say our tastes changed, changing the way I look at recipes.  I don't know why it didn't jump out at me earlier, but I'm glad it did now.

(Mom - this might be a good one to do while we're there.  We'll probably have to double it, though, as we eat most of this ourselves, usually!)

1 comment:

  1. It looks yummy and I think I have the polenta makings already. I will check.

    ReplyDelete