Marinated Tempeh and Cauliflower Polenta

When I got home last night, I made up a quick marinade for some SoyBoy soy tempeh (cut into four triangles). After the girls were finally asleep, I cooked the tempeh, and started chopping cauliflower for my polenta.

Jacqui is in the final stages of potty-training. She wears underwear during the day and hasn't had an awake accident in more than a week. Yay! The last stage is sleep. Some days she wakes up dry from her nap, some days she wakes up wet. Of course, the days she wakes up wet are the days I foolishly allow her to nap without a diaper over her underwear. Sigh. She has yet to wake up dry from overnight sleep. And, over the last week, her body has determined that she needs to poop between 8:30 and 9:00 pm. When she should be in bed, going to sleep. Instead, she is sitting on the potty, pooping. "Mommy, I want to be a big girl, I don't want to pee and poop in my diaper." What can you say to that entreaty? "Ok, ok, go sit on the potty." Even if it's the third time since going to bed that she's asking to go. Even if I'm the only one home with the girls and Adrianna is on the verge of falling asleep. Even if I'm starving because I haven't gotten to eat yet. I just can't say no to the "I don't want to pee or poop in my diaper because I want to be a big girl" plea. Bedtime is just becoming later and later and dinner time for me is becoming much more of a Spanish-time dinner... but I don't get an afternoon siesta. Sigh.

I based the marinade on a tempeh marinade recipe from Veganomicon. I omitted the maple syrup (didn't have any) and only used 1/2 the liquid smoke. I used 1/3 of a bouillon square plus 3/4 cup hot water to make the vegetable broth. The tempeh marinated for a bit more than an hour, then I cooked it in my handy dandy (but a little too large) non-stick skillet. I used some of the marinade to cook with the tempeh, but saved half of it to use again for marinated tempeh sticks. (I cut up another block of tempeh, into small finger-sized strips, and put them into the marinade and the whole container into the fridge last night. I'll cook them up tonight, so the girls have something new for lunch on Friday.)


As I cooked and ate my tempeh (yum yum), I started the polenta. I've been dreaming of making polenta for some time now. (Is is odd that I dream of making certain food? I don't think it's too odd...much better than some of my other dreams!) My first attempt to cook polenta was thwarted when the polenta had grown a thick layer of green mold on the top. Eck! I took it back to the farmers market and got a new bag. No mold on this one. Phew!

I based the polenta on a recipe from Veganomicon (Broccoli Polenta). I subbed cauliflower for the broccoli -- although I didn't have any broccoli, I had a huge head of cauliflower waiting to be eaten in the fridge. :) Four cups chopped and I still had enough for 3-4 more. Instead, I ate maybe half raw while cooking the polenta. So I've got a little bit of raw cauliflower left in the fridge for another night. I chose to use my brownie pan for the cooked polenta -- after taking out some of the polenta-cauliflower slop to eat immediately! I topped it with some large sea salt and nutritional yeast. Yum!




Here's my pan of cauliflower polenta. It looks eggy, no? The bowl of freshly cooked polenta really looked eggy to me. After the pan cooled a bit, I put it into the fridge to firm up. This morning before I left for work, I cut into squares and gave Dave directions on how to make it for lunch. Fry 2-3 squares in the skillet, add a little olive oil if necessary. Top with tomato sauce and coco rose or white beans (both are sitting cooked in the fridge). The girls will have a yummy lunch!

Beans and Cauliflower Stew

Two types of cauliflower, two types of beans. And a whole lot of goodness.

The seasoning is weird (although I like poultry seasoning, I don't normally cook with it, and I usually use other herbs) because the pantry here at the house we're staying at (on VACATION!!!) is heavy on the granulated garlic and baking powder and light on everything else. Including measuring spoons! But I'm on vacation and it's snowing, so trying to make the most of what I've got.

Ingredients
Romanesco cauliflower, cut into small pieces (it's neon green with spires)
Orange cauliflower, cut into small pieces
1 large sweet onion, minced
3 gloves garlic, minced
olive oil
3-4 cups cooked garbanzos (cooked with shallot and garlic), and any remaining cooking water
1 cup dried Sangre de Toro beans (Rancho Gordo - Xoxoc Project beans), cooked with garlic, with cooking water
1 potato, thinly chopped
lacinato kale
poultry seasoning
basil
salt
black pepper
2 heaping T nutritional yeast
water
1/2 cup organic rice
handful of angel hair pasta, broken into two inch pieces

What to do
I cooked the garbanzos last night with shallots and garlic, and saved the remaining (not much) cooking water for the soup today. (As I found, this house, while large, is lacking in the kitchen department -- despite the size of the kitchen. No vegetable bouillon. Not many spices at all...)
This morning, with breakfast, I hard boiled the Sangre de Toro beans with 3 cloves of minced garlic for twenty minutes, then let them sit for 1 1/2 - 2 hours before cooking them.
While the beans were cooking, I minced the garlic and onion for the soup and sauteed them in some olive oil.
I washed and cut up the two heads of cauliflower. (I didn't use all of the cauliflower in the soup though).
Last night, I had washed and chopped all the kale when I was making the Christmas Lima Lasagna, so that was ready already, but if you haven't prepared it, wash and chop the kale.
Wash, peel, and chop the potato.
Once the Sangre de Toro beans are finished cooking, add the garbanzos and cooking water, the sauteed onions and garlic, several handfuls of cauliflower, handfuls of kale, the potato, some poultry seasoning (because it's the spice here!!!), dried basil (the spice I bought yesterday for the lasagna), salt, and black pepper, and water. As much water as you need to cover everything. Also, add the rice and broken angel hair pieces. Cover the pot and let it all cook.
After 30-40 minutes, taste and check the cauliflower to see if it's finished. Add more spices.
When it tastes good and the cauliflower is finished cooking, take off the heat and add the heaping spoonfuls of nutritional yeast. Let it cool a bit, and Lunch Is Served!!!

Cauliflower Potato Soup

update 10/14/09: I ate this soup for dinner last night with some brown rice and Daiya cheeze mixed in. So yummy! Nothing needs to be changed in the recipe at all! Woo hoo!!

I bought the cauliflower to make this soup last weekend when we discovered Fairways. It was orange-yellow and organic. I've never seen cauliflower that color before. And yes, the soup really is that color (it's not just my sad blackberry and the weird lighting in my kitchen, like most of my photos).

Ingredients
1 head organic cauliflower
2 medium organic potatoes
1 red onion
3 large cloves garlic
1 Rapunzel sea salt vegetable bouillon block
olive oil
water
soy milk
1/4 - 1/3 cup nutritional yeast


Prep: Chop the cauliflower and potatoes. (I didn't peel the potatoes, but I'm sure you could if you wanted to.) Chop the onion like I described yesterday (based on this tutorial) and mince the garlic.

Cook: Heat a heavy bottom pot; when warm, add ~2 T olive oil. When that is warm, add the onion. Saute until translucent. Then add the garlic and saute the garlic and onion until fragrant. Add the chopped cauliflower and potatoes. Add enough water to cover the veggies, but some potato/cauliflower should still be sticking out of the water level. Add the bouillon. Stir, and cover for 5 minutes or so to bring to a boil.
Once boiling, remove the cover and stir to beak up and distribute the bouillon. As the vegetables soften, add the nutritional yeast. Once the veggies are soft, if too much water remains, turn up the heat and let it boil off.
Use your handy-dandy immersion blender to blend everything together. Add the remaining soy milk (probably 1/4 cup) to the soup and stir to blend. After tasting, I added a little black pepper. Not much, just a little bit.

Thoughts: The soup was good, but I feel like next time I need to do something a little different. The recipes I looked at when creating this soup called for additional things like sweet peppers, roasted red peppers, cashews, miso, leeks... Maybe next time I will add one or more of those. But it was good as I made it. Hopefully J will like it today. (D taste-tested with me last night and approved of the soup.)