Wednesday Food Blogging

Butternut Squash and Black Beans with Polenta Triangles

Butternut Squash moves to the Southwest and spends its days in a spicy red pool.

Dinner dilemma: I had some frozen polenta pieces, and a butternut squash. I also had chipotle chiles from a can I'd opened earlier in the week that needed to be used.

Southwestern Butternut Squash and Polenta? Why not, I thought? Butternut squash would look really striking with black beans, sort of Halloween-y. Earlier in the week I'd experimented with a chipotle sauce that would provide a pool for the polenta to rest upon. And for the top, I could quickly whip up a creamy dollop-y sauce with the coriander (cilantro) and lime I'd bought at the Asian food store.

Within minutes, I was in business, chopping, whizzing, roasting, and simmering. The chipotle sauce is very quick to make, and while the butternut was roasting I defrosted the polenta and sauteéd some onions.

Altogether, I spent less than an hour making dinner (admittedly shorter since I'd already made the polenta). But it tasted like I'd spent hours in the kitchen. There's something about the texture surge of the crisp-fried polenta bathed in the red sauce, speared on a fork with the bean mixture and topped with silky cilantro cream that really wakes up the taste buds and even causes sentences to run on. Whew!

This is a great dish to make ahead: Freeze the polenta, make the Chipotle Sauce and the Cilantro Cream a day before serving time, and all you need do is roast the squash and warm up the bean mixture and serve. 

Beware, though: You'll want to season according to your needs. Those chipotles are mighty fierce, but the creamy cilantro-tofu sauce tames them somewhat.

Review: World Food Cafe

World Food Cafe, near London's Covent Garden

I've complained in the past about the scarcity of vegan food in Britain, but maybe things are looking up. Literally.

World Food Cafe is located near Covent Garden in Neal's Yard, on the second floor of a building bearing a blue plaque proclaiming it the home of Monty Python—or at least where several of the shows were recorded. The short climb up a flight of stairs is worth it. World Food Cafe, the same cafe featured in two books of the same name, is a funky, friendly little place, with several vegan items on its chalkboard menu, including a couple of daily specials and at least one vegan dessert.

We ordered the West African and the Maldivian specials, then took our seats at one end of a large table overlooking Neal's Yard. It was a warm, sunny day, so the window was open. The food arrived quickly, so we turned our attention away from the activity outside and dug in.

Digging is appropriate, for both plates were piled high. My West African dish was topped with leaves and slivers of carrot and beetroot. It also had three decorative strips of banana, which only added to the exotic meld of flavors. The stew was served over brown rice, which was dry and bland. Perhaps millet, a grain grown in Africa for thousands of years, would have been a more authentic choice. Or couscous, which  would have soaked up the stew much better than the dry grains of rice.

But that's a minor quibble. My daughter's Maldivian dish was Indian in its origins, with coconut milk-based curry, sweet potatoes, potatoes, chickpeas and the ubiquitous rice. She also ordered a fresh lime soda, which was sparkly and tangy.

Neither of us wanted dessert, though we were assured the carrot cake was vegan. I avoid cakes in Britain unless I have a completely empty intestinal tract—nothing like a sweetened brick on a full stomach for making you wish you'd Just Said No. We could also have had one of the date balls in a jar near the till, but those didn't sound too exciting either.

Prices were reasonable, especially for London: £5.95 and £6.95 for our meals. With drinks, we got out of there for less than a twenty pound note. Not bad for good food.

World Food Cafe doesn't seem to have a website, but they do have two vegetarian cookbooks, which are available for flipping through at the restaurant. The photos were gorgeous, and really get you in the mood for enjoying a global meal.

To find World Food Cafe from the Covent Garden tube stop, walk two blocks down Neal Street and follow the signs to Neal's Yard and look up.

Free Food News!

We gave away our St Patrick's Day vegan cupcakes and all I got back was this photo.

That's right; there's no charge for this installment of Food News. So keep reading.

You've heard about pathogens in our pork? This applies to my readers in the US, where the deadly bacteria MRSA (pronounced "mersa" in the US and MRSA in the UK) is primarily found in meat, particularly pork. It results from high levels of antibiotics that are routinely given to farm animals, which encourages the worst bugs to become antibiotic resistant. Here in the UK, where antibiotic use isn't as prevalent, MRSA is found in dirty hospitals. Food for thought.

Cilantro: love it or hate it? Or perhaps you call it coriander. Either way, it appears that if you hate it, perceiving its taste as soap, you may lack a taste receptor that allows the rest of us to perceive its fresh goodness. Trust us; eating cilantro is NOT like eating Irish Spring! Although, like Irish Spring, it may kill some bacteria.

Against obnoxious recipes. Sign me up.

This is why you're fat.

Speaking of fat, the Fat Duck reopens after making people sick. Hey, I tried to warn you guys about snail porridge.

Best Flickr comment:  "The first time a bowl of soup has reminded me of US Airways Flight 1549."

Obesity can take years off your life.

Try consuming a little less salt. Well, okay. Maybe.

Someone you know have a birthday coming up? (Ahem.) "The Face on Your Plate" would make a great gift, wouldn't it?

Speaking of birthdays—I have to go make a birthday cake now.

Vegan Mushroom Gravy

The search is over: Vegan Mushroom Gravy

For a long time, I was on a quest for vegan gravy. Those little packets of gravy mix sold at the health food stores were okay in a pinch, but I wanted something homemade, rich and thick. I found several recipes, and soon realized there were many different techniques and approaches to vegan gravy—far more than the old "add flour to the drippings" approach of regular gravy.

And here's a thought...there's no reason why non-vegans wouldn't appreciate this gravy. And with healthy ingredients, rather than simply fat, flour and water, this gravy shouldn't be forbidden from any dinner table.

I served this with some seitan slices (I'm still searching for the perfect seitan recipe), which I smothered in amongst the tiny button mushrooms. While I was cooking, I kept sneaking pieces of seitan to eat, and realized it was the gravy, not the seitan, that was so tempting. So that's the recipe you get, at least until I perfect a seitan recipe.

This made almost two cups of gravy, plenty for four people. The ingredients cook down quite a bit, so don't be deceived by the amounts. I used button mushrooms, but if you use larger mushrooms, chop them roughly instead of slicing, for smaller, less obtrusive pieces.

Edamame Salad

Edamame Salad springs eternal from the freezer.

The eternal question: What to serve with a stir-fry? Well, it's the eternal question in my house, where stir-fry happens a lot. This time, I was invited to a friend's, and wanted to help out by bringing a side dish. But I also didn't want to brave a trip to the supermarket on the weekend—it's a real nightmare here, where parking is at a premium at the best of times; impossible on the weekend. And my local grocery store is small and doesn't always have what I need.

But I remembered I had two bags of frozen edamame in my fridge. I wasn't sure if one bag would be enough; it's hard to judge how many beans are left after the pods are discarded. But two turned out to give me roughly a pound (or 500g) of bright green beans.

Other than removing the pods, the dish was a snap to prepare—ready in less than an hour.

If you're looking to increase the soy in your diet (edamame is soybeans—you knew that, right?) or if you simply want a dish to go with a friend's stir-fry, try Edamame Salad. It's also, I must say, rather spring-like, with its bright green beans.

Which can lead to all sorts of corny captions.

Fat-free food news

Does this pantry make my butt look fat? Actually, I love that pantry. My next house is going to have a huge walk-in larder. Of course if I call it a larder I'll just get fat thinking about it. Good article, though, on how to organize your pantry to avoid getting fat.

Say no to pot!

Seriously, you really should say no to pot roast: Too much red meat may increase age-related blindness.

Also, if you eat less you may remember more.

But on the other hand, if you want your pre-schoolers to eat more, give their vegetables catchy names.

Maybe you could try this: Hamburger = Hummer.

And finally, if it's not your pantry making you fat, maybe it's the recipes.