Tag: vegan polenta

Whenever my friends and family inquire about what Cos and I eat as vegans, I assure them that we (mostly) eat healthy and fresh as much as humanly possible. But, despite his assertions to the contrary we are both human and therefore prone to mistakes. We have thirty-plus years each of succumbing to overeating, chocolate, sugar, fat, cheese and all the rest of it and turning to a plant based died can’t undo all that in…almost 18 months.

We have our lazy days where we need to eat something and we need it now, but we don’t have any prepackaged food in the house and finding vegan deliver is damn near impossible. So I try to keep things on hand for when that happens, most often it’s ingredients for a quick veggie noodle dish or a burrito bowl. But since we are in Romania and he had a craving for mămăliga cu brânză which is polenta with cheese.

It’s something we ate often during our animal consuming days but I’ve been harder to convert to vegan cheeses which means we haven’t had it often. Until we got to Romania.

What to do about the hubs craving in a place where vegan products are hard to find? You get creative.

I found this tofu in water that has the same texture, consistency and briney-ness as this super salty, crumbly sheep’s milk cheese only it’s tofu. Think of it like Feta only this is tofu. I wasn’t a fan but he loved it and shredded it onto his plate like it was any kind of cheese.

As you can see, I opted for my go to quick & easy vegan option: veggies and protein. Today I just chopped up some smoked tofu and seasoned it right along with the onions, bell peppers and garlic with basil, oregano, cayenne pepper, cumin and a pinch of turmeric. It was spicy and delicious and it took all of 5 minutes while Mama took care of the mămăliga.

And the best part of all? She liked (sort of) the mixture. It wasn’t salty enough for her but she didn’t make a face when she ate it so I’m considering that a win.

I’ll admit that I did use a splash of oil to cook this because I was in a hurry. We’d gone out to play a few games of pool an it turns out that the gaming center had Air Hockey which I’m proud to say I am reigning queen of and I was happy to introduce my husband’s friend to the game. Which I totally dominated. And then we went bowling and had drinks (Long Island iced tea because what else do you have at the bowling alley) and two hours turned into four.

So a splash of oil to cook faster and in about 7 minutes, it was all seasoned and ready to go.

 It was tasty, it was fast and that’s how we do dinner when we’re running behind schedule.

Washed down with, what else, but an Ursus, retro!