MoFo 10 Polenta: Made Martha's Method or GiGi's Way

I'm giving you a couple of options today. Let's say you've got oodles of time in the kitchen, an organic greenhouse on your estate, boy toys who massage your feet while you wait for your manservant to serve your casserole piping hot and bubbly direct from your "Wolf" oven. You savor this fragrant bit of magnificence that you have created while your winning show dog, (who has not come from the pound), fetches your slippers. If I have just described you, then Option 1: "The Martha Method" is for you.

Are you sweating it out with a day job that barely pays the bills? Do you work crazy ass ridiculous long hours on calloused feet? Is the only time you get to sit during a 15 hour day is when you blog for MoFo? Is the only garden you see an aloe plant you artfully placed on your garbage can? Would you love to gaze at this aloe plant through your kitchen window but your kitchen has no window? Do your domesticated ferals shed all over your Salvation Army chairs? Do people often confuse your apartment with an MRI machine? Then hurry up and make this quick and wolf it down, and post the recipe for MoFo or "GiGi's Way" is the one for you.

Polenta Casserole Option 1: "Martha's Method"
Martha's Polenta
10 cups cold water
1 heaping tablespoon coarse salt
1 dried bay leaf
2 cups coarse-ground polenta meal
Freshly ground pepper


Directions


1. Put 6 cups cold water, the salt and bay leaf into a Dutch oven or a heavy stockpot, and bring to a boil. Bring remaining 4 cups cold water to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add polenta to large pot in handfuls, separating your fingers to let the grains slip through and whisking constantly until combined. Reduce heat until only a couple of large bubbles appear at a time.
3. Whisk 2 ladlefuls of simmering water into polenta, and cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, until water has been absorbed, about 5 minutes. Continue to add 2 ladlefuls of water every 5 minutes, stirring often and waiting for it to be absorbed before adding more, until polenta is creamy and just pulls away from sides of pot, about 45 minutes. (It may be necessary to adjust heat.)
4. If not serving immediately, reduce heat to lowest setting, cover pot and keep warm until ready to serve. (Up to 1 hour). Remove bay leaf. Season with pepper.
5. For soft polenta only: Stir in butter. Sorry GiGi. Earth Balance. Use a damp spoon to serve. Top each serving with Parmigiano-Reggiano. Sorry I didn't mean that, GiGi! I mean nutritional yeast, GiGi!
6. For set polenta only: Pour into a slightly damp medium bowl (or a 13-by-9-inch baking dish). Let stand until no longer steaming, about 10 minutes. Refrigerate, uncovered until cold and set, about 1 1/2 hours. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until ready to serve. (Up to 2 days). Turn out polenta. Using plain dental floss, cut horizontally in half, pulling string toward you. Cut in half crosswise, pressing string downward. Cut each half lengthwise into 1 1/2 inch-wide strips, cut strips crosswise into thirds, and then into triangles or squares if desired. (Alternatively, cut polenta with a knife.)


Option 2: "GiGi's Way"
ZzzzzzOh come on Martha, I mean I really appreciate you blogging with me but, dental floss? Dental Floss!!?

For the polenta part, "GiGi's Method":
Purchase one cylinder premade polenta and slice into rounds, then half moons. That's it. Your turn Martha.

Option 1: Sauce "Martha's Method"
Be sure to pick the ripest greenhouse tomatoes. Remember how you lovingly tended to the vines while the pool boy watched.

I'm sorry Martha. Again I really appreciate you helping me blog here, but me and the readers have to get some sleep and we haven't eaten yet. And your revery as delightful as it may be is just taking a little too much time. Say good night Martha :)

Sorry folks no more options tonight. Let's cook this baby up. I can't believe Martha was about to use real parm...what was she thinking? And dental floss?

GiGi's Fast and Effective Polenta Casserole continued from above.
1-2 Cups marinara sauce
2 C roasted broccoli (spray foil lined roasting pan with olive oil and bake at 450 degrees about 15 minutes)
1/2 C pitted and chopped kalamata olives
1 C Daiya mozzarella
1/4 C nooch (nutritional yeast)
1 tsp dried oregano

Pre Oven Polenta

1. Lightly spray casserole dish with olive oil. Place rounds or moons in dish layer with 1 T sauce per round, and one piece of roasted broccoli per round. Layer until there is no more polenta :(
Top with Daiya. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
2. Eat.
3. Now would be a good time for you to use use Martha's floss.
4. Go to bed.
5. Tomorrow's is another day of Mofo.Sweet vegan dreams. Lalalala.

Post oven Polenta

MoFo 5 Veganizing Martha

October 5th. Thank God October 4th is over. Before we get to veganizing Martha today, I gotta come clean here. This has been weighing heavily on me. I have a confession, two actually. Two confessions. 
Confession 1-  I don't do yoga. At all. Unless lying on the couch in a fetal position is a yoga pose. There probably is something called Fetal couch yoga but I don't know since I don't do yoga. I think I could like the shvitzing part of Bikram yoga. I'm used to ovens. Sylvia Plath probably should have tried Bikram yoga a couple of times instead of using her oven.

Confession 2-  I hate nature and the great outdoors. What's so great about it? Being bitten alive by things buzzing around your head in a swamp is not a fun time. And I have never camped. Ever and never. I've heard there is no room service for tents. I know these confessions are un-vegan of me, please believe me when I say...
I am an ethical vegan for health reasons. I'm glad I told you. Phew.
GiGi: Oh look who's here.

GiGi: Come on in Martha.

GiGi: Shit. Sorry wrong Martha. How is George these days? See ya.
GiGi: Oh good you're here.

Martha S: Thanks for having me, GiGi.

GiGi: You are very welcome. Thank you! It's a good thing. You always say, "it's a good thing", ha ha, right Martha?

Martha: Yes, I always do say "it's a good thing", GiGi. What are we making today GiGi?

GiGi: We're making Chocolate Glazed Gingerbread Cakes.

Martha: Oh it's a good thing. From my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook.

GiGi: Hahahaha Martha. Yes you wrote that recipe before you did time in the big house. Not a good thing, Martha.
Martha: Had I not done time we might not have met GiGi.

GiGi: Yeah... well right Martha uh, let me give the folks at home a list of ingredients here.

5 T Earth Balance

Martha: Earth Balance?

GiGi: Yes Martha. It's a vegan butter so to speak.

Martha: What's wrong with organic home churned butter?
GiGi: Come on Marty. Mind if I call you Marty, Martha? Certainly Marty, you are aware of how exploited the animals are..

Martha: But it's a good thing.

GiGi: What?! Let's move on to the recipe.
1.5 C organic unbleached flour

1 tsp baking soda

2/3 C boiling water
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 C packed brown sugar
2/3 C unsulphered molasses
1 tsp ground flax seed made into a slurry with 3 T water
Ganache and crystallized ginger.


Martha: Where is that organic egg?
GiGi: Marty, you came here to veganize. I used groudn flax seed instead of an egg. I don't want to proselytize, but I happen know what happened to the chicken who laid that organic egg last time you had the flu.
Martha: Farm raised organic chickens make the best soups, GiGi.
GiGi: Oh God help me.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You can take it from here Marty.

Martha: Generously butter...or Earth Balance and flour a 6 Cup jumbo cupcake pan, tapping out excess flour. In a small bowl, (perhaps an heirloom), stir together baking soda and boiling water. Set aside. In a medium bowl, (perhaps one you've bought at a country store), sift together flour, baking powder and spices. Set aside.

In bowl of electric mixer with a paddle attachment, beat butt, I mean Earth Balance with brown sugar until light and fluffy.

GiGi: Awww. Fluffy I had a cat named Fluffy. Now add the flax seed slurry. Beat well. Add molasses, fresh ginger and reserved baking soda until well combined. Divvy up the batter amongst the prepared muffin pan, filling each about 1/2 way. Bake about 25 minutes rotating halfway. Transfer to wire rack and cool for 15 minutes.

Martha: Invert cakes onto rack to cool completely. Here's an interesting thing GiGi. I came up with this recipe while practicing my daily yoga inversion headstand. I glanced at a rack of marmalade muffins and thought wouldn't it be priceless if they were actually upside down cupcakes.

GiGi: And here I thought I would have to pour ganache over them while standing on my head.

Martha: See GiGi, yoga. It's a good thing.

GiGi: Well thanks for stopping by Martha.

Martha: You are welcome. Thanks for having me.

GiGi: Yeah. Yeah.

Hey I didn't forget about the ganache. Martha had to leave to go camping.

Ganache

1/3 C vegan chocolate chips

1/3 C coconut milk or soy creamer

2 T agave

Boil coconut milk in heavy saucepan. Add vegan chocolate chips and agave and stir until melted and ganachey. After the cupcakes have cooled, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place cupcakes, (still on wire rack), above it. Drip about 1 T of ganache over each cupcake. Let ganache run down sides.  Refrigerate until set.

Hey I wonder who else will stop by to help me cook this week. Who do you want to help in your kitchen? Thanks for stopping by. Off the record...do you camp or do yoga?

MoFo Day 2 Wedding Anniversary and a Theme Within a Theme Within a Theme

Guess what? Today is me and Psycho Boy's 21st wedding anniversary. We got married kind of young. We both were ten years old, but we had fake proof. Isn't it funny how our wedding anniversary coincided with World Veg Day? Today we are going to World Veg Day and then having dinner at Gracias Madre. Gracias Madre is the Mexican food sister to Cafe Gratitude, the vegan raw joint where every meal starts with an affirmation.

I would like the "I am phenomenal" almond shake please.

Then the wait person, repeats back to you., "Yes, you are phenomenal". Then you say, "you are phenomenal."  No, you are. And they say, well you get the picture, because "You are phenomenal!".

Here's something else about affirmations I really should tell you about. Never repeat an affirmation in the negative. For instance, do not say,"I do not suck as a food blogger". Instead say,"I am the queen of food blogging". Even though you may not  think that. If the universe hears you say, "I am the queen of food blogging" enough, you might begin to think that you rule the food world and one day you might even become infant Jesus' personal chef. Ever notice how Chef jackets and straight jackets look remarkably alike?

You might be thinking....Where's the food on this freaking blog today, GiGi? Well. Seems like some photo genius whiz blogger just posted about "Gracias Madre", the very restaurant I was going to take some less than average pictures of. Check these crazy ass pictures out. OMG. They are featured over at the drool worthy Vegan Culinary Crusade blog.
I suck! Whoops I mean I am the queen photographer of below average pictures .Maybe I'll take a photo essay of me jumping off the Bay Bridge today.

Here's the other thing. Yesterday while reading all 850 MoFo blogs I saw that most of the  smarty boots bloggers have come up with themes for MoFo. I might not be the sharpest measuring spoon in the drawer but I thought MoFo was the theme. I think that these bloggers' themes are themes within a theme. Ohhhhh. I get it. I think.  So if we can drive past the Bay Bridge safely today, here are a few themes I will include in the month of Vegan Food.

GiGi's Theme within a Theme

Martha's Peas

1. Veganizing Martha- I will veganize some of Martha's recipes from her pre-jail bait days, (pre 2005). I will also include a few recipes Martha came up with while she was in the can. Who can forget how Martha made eyeliner out of peas for the other pen gals?
1.a. Peas might also make a good theme.

Martha walking towards the yard to pick some veggies.

Inmate with green pea eyeliner, Martha whipped up in the pen.

2. Ripping off Rip- You know Rip Esselstyn the writer of the Best selling, "Engine 2 Diet"? His diet is more of a plan, plant based of course. It includes, no sugar, no white flour, no oil. Today is day 21 for us on the plan. Shorthand for this plan is E2, but since I will be ripping off most of Rip's recipes, let's call this the G2 plan.

Fireman Rip and his fruits.

3. And back by unpopular demand, I will include more Video footage of inanimate objects. Happy Mofo Day 2. And Happy Anniversary, Baby!