And now, I am saying, wow, it makes a big difference in making polenta.

The few times I have have made polenta on the stove top (I have also made it in the slow cooker), it has been grainy, and ok, but I have not been able to do anything with it. Reason, I was cooking it wrong.  I would dump the water and corn meal into the pot at the same time, and cook them, and not understand why it wouldn’t come out quite right. It would get thick, but stay grainy.

Yesterday, I decided to make the Polenta Lasagna again, and do it right. (I will write more on that tomorrow), and the first thing I decided to do was to follow the directions on how to make polenta.

Here is the way you do so. Put the water on the stove and boil it first, before you put the polenta in. I figured, why not, and did that, and by gosh, it came out smooth, and when I spread it out on the backing pan to cool, it didn’t fall apart when I scooped it up later to make the lasagna.

Wow, what a concept, following directions. What will they come up with next?

Cooking the Polenta

I don’t know why I keep trying to make things with polenta, as I must be doing something wrong. It does not get all stiff with me, no matter how much I cook it.

Still, this looked like a cool gluten free lasagna, and I was open to that, as well as having an excuse to use up more tomatoes.

I put the 4 cups of polenta to boil on the stove, and set to getting the tomatoes ready by peal. (even though the recipe called for canned tomatoes.)

This was another recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics.

Preparing the tomatoes

Here is what the recipe called for :

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cups chopped onions
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons dried bail (I used fresh)
• 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/12 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 cup chopped red bell peppers
• 1 cup chopped green bell peppers (I used red, as that was all I had)
• 3 cups crushed tomatoes (I used fresh)
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 3 tablespoon tomato paste (I didn’t have this)
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt

As usual, all these things had to be done in order. I sauteed the onions, then added the garlic, basil, etc through red peppers. Then added the tomatoes and wine, and set that to cook for about 30 minutes.

And, while all this was cooking, I had to put together1 cup of cream cheese, one egg, and and mix those togehter.

And while all this was going on I was supposed to put the polenta in the fridge, and spread it out., which I did. And, I was supposed to saute the chopped kale (to cups worth), which I did as well. I could have used Cartoonist, but she wasn’t around, so I had to do this all on my own.

finished lasage

When I took the Polenta out of  the fridge, it wasn’t stiff, as described, so I just used it as is, and layered out the lasagna.

First layer was the tomato mix, then the polenta, then the cream cheese, then the polenta, then the tomato mix again, with graded Parmesan cheese on top (which I actually had from a recipe I didn’t end up making.

What is my verdict? Would I make it again? Only if I could get the polenta right. It really needs a stiff polenta, and I think I am not doing it quite right. The book says if it isn’t stiff enough, cook it longer, which I may do next time.

Mixing it all together

OK, another recipe from the Healthy Lunchbox. True, we had already made a brown rice pudding, but what the heck, we thought we would do another one.

Only problem was, we didn’t have any rice milk or almond milk or soy milk in the house. I thought I had goat milk, but when I picked it up I discovered it had curdled. What to do? I took some powdered milk and made the milk with that. I was trying to cook with what I had at home, and not run off to the store.

Here is what the recipe called for

• 1 1/2 cup of nut or rice or soy milk (we used powdered dry milk)
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup of honey
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 cup of raisins
• 2 cups of brown rice
• 1/2 cup chopped almonds

We cooked it at 350F for about an hour, as they suggested.

Finished Rice Pudding

For some reason, our stuff never looks showroom perfect, but it ends up tasting fine, most of the time, as this one did.

which one did I like better? I’m not sure, since I wasn’t the one eating the brown rice, but this one tasted fine. Not sure if we’ll make it again or not.

Unlike me, Cartoonist gets sick of eating the same food all the time, so we have to rotate through a lot of food.

carrots and coconut milk

Wow, this was a great recipe, and we loved how it came out. We discovered this one because Cartoonist has to make her lunches, this year, in high school, and we wanted a cook book that was made for lunches, and packable lunches. What we bought was “Vegan Lunch box” by Jennifer McCann. We figured it was a good place to start. (and I spend far too much on cookbooks, but oh well, we all have our vices)

pre mix

Cartoonist started leafing through the book, and found Coconut Carrot Rice Pudding. We had all the ingredients, so figured it was a good one to make. The only problem we ran into was that it called for 3 cups of brown basmati rice. Brown rice takes about 2 hours to cook, vs. white rice, which is 20 minutes. So, I put the rice in the rice cooker, and went on to do other things. Cartoonist kept saying, “Aren’t we going to make the rice pudding” and I kept saying, yes, when the rice is done.

Although the recipe called for grating the carrots, I ended up putting them into the food processor. Here is what was needed.

• 1 pound of carrots (peeled and grated (3 cups worth). I didn’t peel them.
• 1 can of light coconut milk (I just used the regular kind
• 1/2 cup of pure maple syrup (we used a quarter of a cup, as it is so sweet)
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon
• 1/2 cup golden raisins (we used black raisins)

So, We took the carrots, coconut milk and maple syrup and put them on the stove and cooked until it was all soft. Then we put in the rest of the mix and kept cooking until it was thick.

finished

When it was all done, we tasted it, and thought it tasted quite good, even though it didn’t look too good. Once it was cool, it still looked odd, but tasted great.

A keeper.

Cartoonist took that as well as the chilled apple soup, to school for lunch.

Finished Riceball, in mid-bite

Cartoonish loves Usagi Yojimbo comics, and one of the things Usagi is always eating is riceballs. So, the other day, Cartoonist decided to make riceballs. I told her to do some research on the web, and once she knew the ingredients, we would set to it.

Turns out they are incredibly easy, if all you want is something simple, and sometimes simple is best. I loved the recipe, and instructions that we found on the Just Hungry website.

The main ingredient, of course, is rice, but not just any rice, sushi rice, which we went out and bought, along with nagri, the king of seaweed wrapping commonly found around sushi, as it is sort of like a giant sushi ball.

We put the rice in a rice cooker, and then read the directions that Cartoonist had found. The recipe said that riceballs were a sort of comfort food, and so there were many ways to make them. You could put anything you wanted in the center. So, I found that we had some cucumbers from the farm, and cut them up for putting in. The recipe also called for putting plastic wrap in a bowl, with a little salt, and forming the riceball that way, then sticking your finger in the center to make the hole for the cucumber. After that, we grabbed the pieces of seaweed, and wrapped it around the rice. Viola.

Riceball for lunch

This worked out well, and we were able to make about three or four balls, which were completely eaten. The last one, however, was saved for lunch, as Cartoonist was helping out at the Art Center summer camp, and needed something to eat while there.

With a rice cooker, which takes about 20 minutes to cook white rice, this whole thing took all of a few moments once the rice was done.