Fun with grains

This entry is mainly due to a request for the Broccoli Polenta recipe. If you haven't tried this yet, do yourself a favour! The broccoli gives the polenta a gorgeous texture and a sweet, nutty taste. It's great served with a marinara or Puttanesca sauce, or just aside proteins instead of rice or mashed potato. For extra oomph, you could add finely grated parmesan and chilli flakes to taste, but in my humble opinion, it works beautifully as it is. There are about a gazillion clever molding and cooking methods to decide between here too!

* Grease empty clean tin-cans and press mix in. Refrigerate for 2 hours, then slice into 2 inch rounds and griddle...or even worse, crumb and shallow fry:-)
* Grease a muffin tin, spoon mixture in, refrigerate for an hour and bake at 180 degrees for 10-15 mins.
*Grease a square cake tin and spoon in mixture. Refrigerate for an hour and then cut into squares/rectangles/triangles and griddle or char-grill.
* Serve as is (after boiling) for a more traditional soft polenta mash.

Personally, I usually cut and griddle as I have a penchant for lovely griddle lines on the finished product, and using my endlessly awesome George Foreman grill means I get the prettiness with no added fat!
Anyway. anyway, the recipe!

BROCCOLI POLENTA
Original recipe from "The Veganomicon" (Moskowitz & Romero 2007).


Serves 4-6

3 1/2 cups vegetable broth or water
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup polenta
2 tbsps olive oil
4 cups very well-chopped broccoli, stalks, florets and leaves (if you can get them).

Bring the water and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the polenta in a slow, steady stream, mixing with a whisk as you pour it. Add the broccoli and olive oil, and reduce heat to low. Beware hot lava-esque spatters!  Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring often. Turn off the heat and let sit for 10 more minutes, stirring once or twice. Refrigerate as per chosen method.

I'm only including the Chilli Rice recipe because I rediscovered it yesterday and am currently in obsessive throes. It's spicy, crunchy, flavourful, extremely nutritious (B-vitamins galore, thiamin, fibre) and has absolutely zero fat content. If you're worried about salt, just use a low-sodium soy sauce instead of the full throttle variety. I have been known to have this for breakfast, lunch and dinner :-)

CHILLI RICE


Serves 4


1 cup brown rice
4 tbsp Savoury/Nutritional Yeast Flakes (you can find these in most health food stores)
2 tsp chilli flakes or 2 small fresh chillies, finely chopped
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp massel chicken stock
3 cups water
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 shallotts/spring onions finely chopped

Add all ingredients bar celery and spring onions to a microwave safe pyrex bowl and nuke for approximately 30 minutes (depending on your microwave power). leave to sit for 5 mins then add celery and spring onions.
If you want a touch of naughty (and who doesn't?), add 1/3 cup of crushed peanuts to the mix. Yes, it ups the fat content, but it also ups the Omigod-that's-delicious factor considerably :-). if you'd like to add some serious calcium with your fat, substitute the same quantity of roasted sesame seeds (crushed). I will often just serve this with steamed bok choy or gai lan with 3-2-1 sauce...(3 tbsp soy, 2 tbsp mirin, 1 tbsp brown sugar) and as I usually add 2 tbsp of roasted sesame seeds to the sauce, I skip it in the rice.