Vegan Polenta Bake

 

Hey there!

 

Today I’ve got another vegan dish for you. This time it is one which makes a perfect meal on a weeknight, since it is fairly easy to prepare and includes vegetables as well as some carbohydrates into one dish, which safes you having the effort to prepare multiple components to create a lovely dinner.

I am talking about my version of a polenta bake. Today I was feeling Italian so I used lots of rosemary as well as capers, olives, artichoke hearts, tomatoes and zucchinis. To add a special something to the polenta I used a sachet of saffron to flavour it, however if you find this to be a little too fancy you could totally leave it out. I am just a saffron lover, so I could basically eat saffron flavoured dishes every day that is also the reason why this ingredient is surely never missing in our pantry.

Moving on away from the saffron, I also added some nutritional yeast, to enhance the polenta with a slightly cheesy flavour. This way you are keeping this meal a hundred per cent vegan. You could however add Parmesan cheese if you aren’t putting any value on this dish being vegan. I didn’t have any Parmesan though, so I used the nutritional yeast.

Since I am using polenta this meal definitely fills you up, but is still suitable for a summer night because you are using fresh tomatoes and zucchini, which carry quite a summery vibe.

 

 

You will need:

 

• 200g polenta
• 1 sachet saffron (optional)
• 2tbs nutritional yeast
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 onion
• a few sprigs of rosemary
• 700g tomatoes
• 3 zucchinis
• 30g pitted olives
• 30g capers
• 240 g (1 can) artichoke hearts
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper

 

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and prepare polenta according to packaging directions, just don’t forget the saffron to the boiling water

2. Add the nutritional yeast to the cooked polenta and mix it through, then spread the polenta evenly into a casserole dish, let it cool

3. Cut up your tomatoes as well as one of the zucchinis into 1 cm cubes and put them aside

4. In the mean time, prepare the topping. Chop up your garlic, half of your rosemary as well as the onion and fry it in about a tablespoon of olive oil until lightly browned

5. Then add the chopped tomatoes and zucchini, let it cook over medium high heat for about 5-10 minutes or until the vegetables reach a soft consistency

6. Meanwhile chop up the pitted olives, the capers and the artichoke hearts, add to the tomato mixture

7. Let the mixture thicken up slightly by letting it simmer over medium high heat for another 5-10 minutes, salt and pepper to taste

8.While the mixture is reducing down, slice the two leftover zucchini in very thin slices, I used a mandolin to achieve the requested thickness

9. Spread the tomato mixture, which should have thickened up by now over the polenta that has been cooling

10. Distribute the zucchini slices on top of the tomato mixture and brush them with a little olive oil, the add salt to taste and distribute the leftover rosemary sprigs on top

11. Bake in the preheated oven for around 20 minutes or until the zucchini layer is well done

Voila, a perfect Italian inspired vegan dinner. This dish is absolutely delicious and very versatile you could easily substitute any of the vegetables I added with something else and create your own version of this dish. This is just how I prefer it, since I adore the combination of olives, capers and tomatoes.

 

Bisous

Fanny, the foodie