Thursday, January 10, 2008

Polenta Casserole

Last night I revisited Eat, Drink & Be Vegan for polenta casserole. Wow, what a simple dinner, and full of ingredients that I almost always have available. This casserole is a combination of beans (I used a combo of cannellini beans and black beans that I had previously frozen), frozen corn, onion, tomato sauce and some spices (thyme, oregano, dried mustard, salt and pepper), all topped off with shredded polenta and mozzarella cheese. The recipe of course calls for vegan cheese, but I loathe vegan cheese.....I'm pretty ok with foregoing the dairy, except when it comes to cheese, nothing compares to the real cheese. Now, I do buy rennet free cheese whenever possible, but soy cheese and rice cheese will never be served in my house. Anyway, I digress, back to the casserole. It's good, it's really, really good. Not my favorite, but good, and it will definitely become part of my rotation. Rob, who is generally not a fan of beans (which is unfortunate for him since I cook with them more often than not) even went back for seconds on this dish, and he took left-overs to work today. Stella gobbled her up, and our hungry, adventurous Mairin has left us. She took one bite, decided she didn't like it and and asked for a granola bar and a bowl of Oatios (oh well, can't win 'em all, and I guess there are worse things she could have chosen to eat) .

We've also been lovin' the vegan muffins here, and I had to whip up another batch last night. They are definitely becoming a breakfast staple for us. This time I made them a bit healthier using white whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. I also filled the muffin tins only half full, so we have normal, manageable sized muffins this time! I think I may try to sub out some of the sugar for agave next time around and see how that goes.

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