Vegan mushrooms and polenta

I had a long break indeed, but yayy, finally! Here I am with this beautiful vegan mushrooms and polenta recipe, a dish that we love having on regular basis.
Holiday in Italy was lovely, loads of beautiful food, good family times and togetherness. It is now time to get back in track. School, work, my volunteering and of course sharing recipes with you here.

A new year, a new decade so, will take this opportunity to wish you all again a happy, healthy, joyful and balanced 2020!

January diet…?

Hmm, I’m pretty sure the most searched recipes in January must be healthy diets and detox recipes. January diets to me sound a little like trying to get drunk with drinking water. I do not believe in fad diets and quick fixes. Losing weight and being healthy it’s all about a lifestyle.

Detox, yes, cutting down and eventually eliminate the bad habits, yes, lifestyle changing habits, yes, that’s what I do believe in.

Everywhere you turn you see and hear it’s all about Veganuary word! Well, I can’t become a vegan but I have definitely cut down on meat consumption. Eating good food,  wholesomeness, cutting out the takeaways, cutting down the portions, going to the gym, exercising it’s all about going in the right direction.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done diets in the past, quite a few times. I had to. After two pregnancies, dieting it’s a must and they did help but the help was very short-lived. The weight comes back in no time, in fact, it all comes back double or more if not careful.
It helps initially. You lose some weight, then you hit a plateau, the disheartening kicks in, the diet gets ditched and the weight starts piling back up. It piles back pretty fast.

My point is, changing the lifestyle and ditching the bad habbits it’s the key and the answer. We all know what we do wrong so initial little changes will start working pretty much straight away. Little steady good habbits being employed will also make us feel good.

Good habits …..

Portion matters, eating early enough in the night, binging on vegetables, cutting the meat, trimming fats, ditching sugary and processed foods, it’s not as hard as it looks. Just making pertinent choices that’s all shifting weight it’s all about.

I always say, eat the rainbow every day (my kids know this expression since super young), hydrate well enough, no junk and seriously the benefits will not fail to appear.

Glowing skin, great energy, feel-good mood, less bad moods, fewer colds and illnesses and the benefits list can go on. I don’t say nor believe that skinny means healthy or fit at all.

Feeling good means being happy with ourselves and not following others and body shapes that might suit them but not us.

Ultimately, eating healthy and balanced is the key to happiness and can play a huge role in living a longer life.

Coming back to this recipe now. It can be kept vegan, could be made a vegetarian version with adding dairy products or eggs to it or if you eat meat, add some meat to it. Any kind of meat you like – grilled, oven or pan cooked.

This is a beautiful and versatile gluten-free recipe suitable for vegan, vegetarian and any meat lover. I have added some bacon in the past and topped with a pan-fried egg. Oh, delicious!

Other variations you could consider in this recipe:

Vegan: tofu, beans, chickpeas, any grilled vegetables, other types of mushrooms, tomato and herbs sauce;

Vegetarian: any pan fried fish ( see this delicious sardines recipe), any nice creamy, full-fat cheese, pan-fried, boiled or poached eggs.

Meat: chicken, bacon, beef, any pork cut, particularly pan cooked with a drizzle of garlic sauce (see sardine recipe-link above)

My favourite version is polenta served with crumbs cows or goats feta cheese, the mushrooms topped with a soft pan cooked or poached egg. Love it with some pan fried lardons too. Yummm.

Let’s get cooking this delicious light and totally gluten-free vegan mushrooms and polenta dish, shall we?

Oh, I almost forgot! If you would like some more mushrooms dishes, here are some more mushroom drooling recipes that I am adamant you will greatly love.

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5 from 8 votes

Vegan mushrooms and polenta

A vegan mushrooms dish can not get any better than this. It is easy to make, gluten free and super delicious.

Course Dinner, Lunch, Main Course, Side Dish, Starter

Cuisine Eastern Europe, Italian, Mediterranean

Keyword blue cheese, feta cheese, gluten free, main dish, mushrooms, polenta, side dish, vegan, vegan cheese

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 4 people

Calories 461kcal

Author Ramona Sebastian

Cost £2.25

Ingredients

For the Polenta :

• 300 g Polenta flour cornmeal
• 1 l water
• 1 tsp Salt

For the mushroom sauté:

• 500 g Mushrooms
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 4-5 sprigs Dill
• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 100 g Vegan cheese to serve.

Metric – US Imperial

Instructions

• Put the water into a deeper cast iron or nonstick pot, add the salt and place on medium fire. When the water begins to simmer, add the cornmeal, whisking constantly to homogenise but also to avoid lumps. The polenta will begin to thicken fairly quickly. Whisk or stir it fairly often. It may form a crust which is absolutely fine.
• While polenta cooks, place a pan over medium fire, add a good drizzle of olive oil, the crushed and finely chopped garlic, and the sliced mushrooms. Cook for about 10-12 min till they begin to brown on all sides. Add a little salt, pepper to taste and garnish with dill.
• When the polenta is ready dish it out into the desired individual plates or onto one big servin plate and top with the mushrooms. Sprinkle some crumbled vegan cheese and serve while warm.

  Enjoy along with some homemade chips just like we did. Yummmyy!

Notes

I recommend you add the cornmeal little by little as you will need to learn about how this behaves. Some will absorb a lot more water than others. If you have added too much cornmeal (polenta flour as I call it) do not worry, put the kettle on, boil some water and add to the polenta until you get the consistency you wish. For this kind of dish I like it a lot runnier than usual. 

Enjoy it and please let me know how it came out for you. 

Nutrition

Calories: 461kcal | Carbohydrates: 66g | Protein: 12g | Fat: 17g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Sodium: 1145mg | Potassium: 648mg | Fiber: 9g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 77IU | Vitamin C: 4mg | Calcium: 38mg | Iron: 3mg