Eggplant P--olenta!

This is a gluten free, vegan take on the boring old Eggplant Parmesan we've all had a billion times.

Okay, so a billion's an exaggeration; I've actually only had Eggplant Parmesan once. But I think Polenta, also known as corn grits, is a huge improvement over Parmesan cheese.



So I REALLLLY freestyled these ingredient quantities. I was trying to get the right consistency, adding small amounts of this and that, etc. With that being said, these ingredient quantities are approximations, and might need some tweaking, but they'll give you a general idea.

ingredients:

1 cup almond milk (soy milk would work, too, or hemp milk, etc.)
1/2 cup polenta
1/3 cup Gluten Free Flour (I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free all purpose flour. Bob, by the way, recently gave his company away to his employees. This is a great company to support.)
2 tablespoons non-dairy butter substitute (Earth Balance is my favorite)
2 tablespoons milled flax seed (Bob's Red Mill, see above)
1 eggplant, sliced width-wise to make lots of 1/2 inch thick disks
olive oil
fresh basil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine "milk," polenta, flour, and flax seed in a fairly shallow, yet wide, with a flat bottom, bowl. Melt "butter" and mix this in as well. The consistency should be runny, but not too runny, so you may need to add a little more milk.

Dip each piece of eggplant in the mixture, ensuring that some polenta is stuck to each side. Heat a pan, and lightly fry each side of the eggplant pieces in olive oil for about 30 seconds, until polenta turns a golden brown. Repeat until every piece has been treated in this manner.

Place eggplant pieces on a large tray. Leave in oven for about 15 minutes.

Top with chopped basil. Serve with pasta (I used a gluten free, Quinoa and corn based pasta) and marinara sauce.

Pumpkin Sweet Curry

This dish is a sort of hybrid between Thai and Indian Curries, mostly Indian, though.



Ingredients:

1 chopped red onion
3 chopped carrots
1 chopped red pepper
1 block tofu, pressed and cut into cubes
1 head of cabbage, chopped
2 chopped apples
1/2 cup apple sauce
1 can of pumpkin
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (I would've added more, and less tofu, if I had more than pumpkin seeds, but I didn't have any more than a quarter cup. Oh well, next time.)
2 tablespoons Garam Masala
1 1/2 tablespoons yellow curry powder (I used Simply Organic brand curry powder, but any of the sweeter yellow curry powders will do fine)
2 teaspoons coriander
1 teaspoon nutmeg
4 cloves chopped garlic
1-2 inches chopped ginger root, depending on how much you like ginger
3- 5 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive oil--not very eastern, I know)

Combine oil, onion, garlic, ginger, coriander, and applesauce in a pan and simmer on medium-low heat for about 7 minutes, until onion is slightly translucent. Add carrots, cabbage, pumpkin seeds, and the remainder of the spices. Cover and cook for another 7 minutes until carrots are slightly tender and cabbage is no longer crispy. Add red pepper, tofu, apples, and pumpkin. Cook about 10 minutes, making sure pumpkin becomes evenly dispersed throughout.

Serve with rice, or go crazy and enjoy this dish with raisin bread :). This would go great with your favorite chutney as well.

Hot and not quite hummus

This is a fairly easy creation I came up with a while ago, shortly after making homemade hummus for the first time. enjoy



1 can garbanzo beans
1 red onion, sliced
1 cup carrots, sliced
1 cauliflower, chopped
1 yellow squash, sliced
1 bell pepper, chopped--I used the equivalent of approximately one bell pepper, but actually used some from yellow, red, and green peppers to add color and a wider variety in flavor subtleties.
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 cup Tahini
juice of a lemon
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped Basil
olive oil
1 tbsp paprika
1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper (optional)
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Whole wheat pitas, rice, couscous, quinoa or any other grain you see fit

In a large pan set to medium heat, combine olive oil, garlic, and onions. Simmer until onions start to become soft, about 2 minutes. In a separate pan add the cauliflower.

Cauliflower takes longer to cook fully than most other vegetables, so it must be precooked prior to adding the other ingredients. This can be done in a variety of way. One is to cover it, and add a little bit of water and lemon juice (so that it covers the bottom of pan but is 1/8-1/4 inch deep) to essentially steam it for a few minutes. Leave covered, adding oil to pan when water evaporates because steaming it fully could eventually lead to an entirely too soggy dish. You can also cook cauliflower in the oven for about 20 minutes. This method is easier, but takes a little long, so you must plan when you will start the onions and garlic.

Once the cauliflower is close to tender, combine it with olive oil, onions, and garlic. Add the carrots, squash, and bell pepper along with paprika, cayenne pepper, half of the lemon's juice, and pepper. Cover and cook on medium-low heat until everything is tender, about 5 to 10 minutes. Turn heat down to low. Now add other half of the lemon's juice, garbanzo beans, tomato, basil and tahini sauce. Before adding these ingredients, especially the tahini, make sure everything in the pan doesn’t appear to be dry, because attempting to spread the tahini throughout a bunch of dry vegetables will be very difficult. Cook long enough for beans to become warm, stirring to ensure tahini evenly coats the mixture.

This can be served on a bed of couscous, quinoa, rice, or any other grain you’d like. I’ve stuffed pita pockets with it, too. I’ve held off on adding the tomatoes until after cooking this, and just used them as a cold topping, this worked well, also.

This recipe will serve 2-4 people, depending on how much grain you eat it with.

And, like the name suggests, this recipe is a derivative of hummus. And, like hummus, you can add/change this however you’d like to get a variety of flavors. Just off the top of my head, I can think of roasted red pepper hummus, chipotle hummus, sun-dried tomato hummus, spicy cilantro with jalapeno hummus, horseradish hummus, and edamame hummus. Use your imagination.

enjoy!

peace, and love