Vegan Grilled Polenta

I have raw alfredo and raw pesto sitting in the fridge, and became suddenly possessed by the idea of cooking polenta the other day when I saw it at the store. Or really, when I saw the pricetag of it in the store (2.50).

So I invented this recipe which is really, superbly great tasting. If I don't say so myself, and I am saying so myself *gentlemanly wink* It makes a great summer appetizer.

I'm a lazy f*** so I bought the pre-cooked Polenta. Really, who wants to sit and stir polenta for 45 mins in a (specifically) copper pot? I might have on another day, just because I think it is hilarious all the recipes say a "copper" pot.

What would happen if I cooked it in a steel pot?? The world may never know.

Vegan Grilled Polenta
1/4 cup walnuts
1 package pre-cooked polenta
canola oil
vegan pesto
vegan alfredo
3/4 cup julienne sundried tomatoes
1/2 cup red wine
salt
cracked ground pepper
4 gloves minced garlic
parsley to taste




-First, soak the sundried tomatoes in the red wine. Leave it for later.

-Next, sautee garlic, salt and pepper in canola oil. I used an electric frying pan to do this.

-Chop polenta into thick pieces. The thin ones don't do too well during grilling. Throw them into the frying pan to singe them - this will not take very long.

-Next, lay the polenta onto a cookie sheet and cover with dash salt/pepper, parsley, pesto, walnuts, and sundried tomatoes.

-Put these homies in the oven on 350 for 10 minutes.

-Cover with vegan alfredo and serve warm! nom nom nom

Raw Vegan Zucchini 'Alfredo'

This is the most amazing recipe, so quick and easy and absolutely delicious. There's only 1 semi unavailable ingredient in this, and it's the Nutritional Yeast (most disgusting name of anything ever), and you should go out for it (usually only 5$ at places like Whole Foods) because it really makes this dish.

The awesome thing about recipe is that it's veritable proof you can take something that is normally nine trillion calories and horrible for your body and abusive to your poor digestive system and turn it into something 101% good for you.

In less relevant news:

Indiana Pwns! He also must eat a ton of zucchini (wink wink) to get a physique like that (nudge nudge)

                                                                       (frantic shake)

Raw Vegan Zucchini 'Alfredo'

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup nutritional yeast

2 tsp white pepper

dash black ground pepper

dash nutmeg

1/2 cup olive oil

splash almond milk

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup cashews

2 cloves garlic

3 medium-sized zucchinis, peeled (for 'spaghetti')

-if your sauce comes out a little heavy on the olive oil taste, add more lemon juice and a splash more almond milk. Add all ingredients (except zucchinis) into the food processor and voila

-Next, use the "grate" tool to grate 3 peeled zucchinis, in order to make the "pasta." Zucchinis make really good 'pasta' because they have a very neutral taste.

Mix the two together, and there ya go, partner.

Raw Vegan Chocolate-Coconut Ice Cream

Ummmmmmmmmmmm, yeah I made ice cream. The cool thing about vegan food is that all you have to do is substitute the dairy/meat fat for some other type of vegan fat and normally you get just-as-good (or better, ahem) dishes than non-vegan plates!

Also, I just used like three different words for "food," trying to be all savvy and writer-ly and cool, and you know what, I just ended up sounding mentally deficient ("non-vegan plates!"). That's a lesson for you: if you try to sound like you know what you're doing, you're probably going to fail, unless you're pretty. In that case, Please, come in, can you start on Monday?

Anywho, here's a nice recipe for y'all bemoaning the lack of ice cream in your life, the same way I'm bemoaning the lack of Wolverine in mine.

Raw Vegan Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

1 cup cashews (bless you)

1 cup pecans

3/4 cup fresh, shredded coconut

1 3/4 cups water

1 cup maple syrup

2 1/2 tsp vanilla flavor

1/4 cup dark cocoa powder

1/4 tsp ground coffee

- Blend everything in the food processor until smooth and if you don't have an ice cream machine (who the fuck has an ice cream machine? people who suck that's who), just put it in the freezer overnight and enjoy!

Taz reallyyyyyyyyy wanted to lick up the droplets of chocolate ice cream, but I narrowly avoided disaster and saved the day!

Fine, fine. Pushy, pushy.

Roasted Corn with Basil-Shallot Vinaigrette

So today was a massive cooking day. I set out to make one thing and actually made four. But no one really cares about that, or me, so let's just move straight on then, shall we:

I got this recipe from the fantabulous Eating Well website. I used up all my fresh basil on the Scalloped Tomatoes from the other day, so I substituted in dried basil. Straight up I think that and the lemon juice are the biggest things I changed, but this recipe was really light and tasted a lot like sour cream and onion chips (random).

Roasted Corn with Basil-Shallot Vinaigrette

barely adapted from original

3 1/2 cups sweet yellow corn (about 2 cans)

2 tbsp olive oil

dried basil to taste
2 tbsp chopped shallots (green onions)

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1/4 tsp salt

cracked black pepper to taste

1/2 tsp lemon juice

Basically, all you do is preheat the oven to 450. Toss the 3 1/2 cups corn with the olive oil and spread it on a baking ban. Bake for 25 mins, stirring once or twice, until the corn browns a bit. It'll smell soooo much like popcorn. Nomnomnommm.

I was just reflecting on how much I ate today. Fail. Okay next: chop/dice the shallots. Whatever. Dicing is way too involved for me, plus my cutting knife is about as sharp as my wit. That is to say... not very sharp.

-Now homie, mix the vinegar, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and basil in a dish.

-When the corn comes out of the oven, first be careful because 450 degrees is one hot motherfucker, and I burnt my hand even through my oven mit. Like I said, real sharp. Toss the corn and vinegar mix all together and eat it hot or coooold. Done!