I had a lovely ladies brunch to attend last weekend and wanted to tackle the challenge of making a savory dish that was still vegan and easy. A friend suggested something with polenta and a lightbulb went off… I had some Whole Foods roasted red peppers in a jar, a can of black beans… and a trip to my fantastic local market, Bi-Rite to look for something like pesto but not quite like pesto yielded a small container of their house-made Chimichurri sauce. Not familiar with Chimichurri? Me neither. I asked what it went well with, and got “it’s great on steak!” Hmm. I muttered something about polenta and trusted my instinct that it would work with my idea, and I was right. I’ll try to make my own someday, but for now, Bi-Rite has me hooked on their version. Ingredients: Italian parsley, Champagne vinegar, garlic, serrano peppers, EVOO, S & P. If you don’t have access to or feel like making the sauce, the rest of the ingredients can stand on their own. Try with a bit of fresh pepper, olive oil and balsamic instead. Maybe some chopped fresh basil?
Ingredients:
Polenta – I used one of those long shelf life tubes and cut it up into 3/4 inch rounds
2 roasted red peppers, chopped
1/4 of a red onion, diced
1 can of black beans – drained and rinsed
Chimichurri sauce - about 1/4 cup or to taste
Directions:
Slice polenta and place on a cooking-sprayed cookie sheet. Broil on both sides (took about 10 minutes on each side). Keep a close eye on it, you don’t want it really browned. You can either serve the polenta with a pepper/bean/onion mixture on top, crowned with a bit of sauce, or cube the polenta and mix everything up. Option one has more curb appeal, but for the brunch I went with option two and it was easier to serve and still worked. If going with option two, however, it occurred to me later that it might have been better to roast the polenta in cubes, rather than cutting up the rounds post-roasting which was less clean looking.
