Yesterday Matteo decided to "veganize" a recipe that takes him back to childhood: cotechino servito con polenta e lenticchie (sausage served with polenta and lentils). We've bought this vegan sausage from Fry's Vegetarian a few days ago and he was excited to try it in the Italian dish (that's usually served for Christmas but he wanted to make sure it would be good first).
It's really an easy dish, fast to prepare and the result was amazing (don't let the pic fool you, it's delish!). All you need is to cook some polenta (instant polenta works fine), make your favourite lentil sauce (we used canned lentils - 2 cans would be better than one if you're cooking for two people) and cook and fry the sausage. Put all together and you're done!
I really enjoy cooking (or in this case just eating) meals that take us back home, to all these memories and reconstructing them in a vegan way is an wonderful way to keep memories alive and to build new memories, suitable to the choice we've made, the choice for life.
(Here's a picture of the original dish)
Have to start this post saying I'm having a great week. Good news coming, first one being that my Master results came today and I'm approved with honours and this makes me feel very happy cause it wasn't that easy to do a Master in different country, about this country that I don't know that well and in another language. My dissertation name was "Food and Media: How the Irish Press Covers the Subject of Food". I'll write more about it someday here.
The second news are the BIG news that I was waiting a appropriate moment to share here. Me and Matteo are expecting a baby boy! I have no words to describe how happy we are and I have some information prepared to share with you about my experience being a vegan pregnant. I'm with 22 weeks now and I'm feeling great! And this big news brings me to the topic of this post: polenta. I'm not craving nothing strange but I'm eating a lot of food that I didn't like that much before and this would include polenta.
For those who don't know, polenta is a popular Italian dish (made with ground yellow or white cornmeal) and it comes from Lombardia, the region where my husband is from. And polenta is one of his favourite dishes ever. And I never loved it and I know how frustrated he always was about it but I couldn't do anything about it. Until last month. When we're deciding what to cook, from time to time he suggests polenta (and my answer was always no!) but one day he asked me and I say myself saying a shy "yes". And for my (and his) surprise I ate it and I really enjoyed. And I had it again and again and I'm enjoying it even more. I'm sure this half milanese boy I'm carrying has something to do with this!
I'm not the one who's cooking the polenta but I'm glad to share two recipes that Matteo is making to us: polenta concia and polenta with beans. As some other Italian dishes, the secret of polenta is in the sauce. The polenta itself is easy to prepare, even more considering that today you can find instant polenta to buy and it tastes as good as the traditional one (which take at least one hour to cook).
Polenta concia: originally this polenta is cut on half while very hot and filled with butter and gorgonzola and on top there is an egg and parmesan. The vegan version has margarine and your favorite cheese in the middle (if you live in Europe and can get Vegusto cheese to use on it, please do it!). Usually Matteo eats it just with nutritional yeast on top but you can make some scrambled tofu too. I'm still not a big fan of polenta concia but this is Matteo's favourite for sure!
Polenta con intingolo di fagioli: this fancy Italian name means polenta with beans sauce! This is the one I'm eating and all you have to do is to cook some white beans (or even red beans) with tomato sauce, garlic and onions and serve on top of the polenta. Pretty easy, no?
Do you like polenta? Have you ever had any of these Italian ways of eating it? How do you prepare it usually?
