Vegan Polenta with Red Wine Mushrooms and Sauce

I love Pinterest. One reason is because there must be millions of Vegan and Whole Food, Plant-Based recipes. We recently began our journey of eating mainly whole food, plant-based, so of course you cannot find a recipe that for the most part is not also vegan.

We love the choices that we have. In the past we ate pretty healthy, we thought, which included some meat, chicken, seafood, eggs, some dairy. How wrong we were!

Being from Kentucky I learned to love grits and cornbread. A few years ago we found where we could buy grits and cornmeal ground fresh online. We ordered from Louisana Pride Grist Mill. It was ground fresh after you placed your order and the price was reasonable.

So for this recipe I ground ¼ cup of grits at a time in our little coffee grinder to come up with 1 cup of course ground corn meal as called for in the recipe. We were out of cornmeal and we wanted to prepare this recipe this Christmas eve, 2018.

We found the basic recipe at Rabbit and Wolves but had looked at so many recipes then adapted it to suit our taste. Thank you for the idea!

Delicious Vegan Polenta with Red Wine Mushrooms and Sauce

Ingredients:

Creamy Polenta

• 4 Cups Water

• 1 1/2 Teaspoons Salt

• 1 Cup Corn grits and ground into course meal

• 3 Tablespoons Vegan butter, we used this homemade butter

Red Wine Mushrooms:

1 Tablespoon Coconut oil

• 4-6 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped

• 24 Ounces Mushrooms, sliced, we used portabella mushrooms

• 1 Teaspoon Rosemary, dried and ground in our mortar and pestle

• 1/2 Cup Red wine

• 3/4 Cup Vegetable broth

• 3 Teaspoons Einkorn flour

• ½ cup Holland or pearled onions, may find frozen or in jar

• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. First, start the polenta. Bring the water and salt to a boil in a medium sized sauce pan. Then pour the corn meal into the water in a slow steady stream, whisking the whole time. Make sure it is very slow, or the corn meal will clump together. Make sure it is all combined and there are no lumps.

2. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes. Stir every few minutes. It is done when it is nice and thick and has absorbed all the liquid. 

3. In the mean time, make the red wine mushrooms. Heat the coconut oil on medium high in a non stick skillet or cast iron skillet. Add the chopped garlic. Saute for a minute. Then add the sliced mushrooms. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper.

4. Saute for about 5 minutes or until the mushrooms have released their liquid and are starting to brown. 

5. Then add the rosemary and red wine. Simmer for about 5-7 minutes, reducing heat as needed. Or until the mushrooms have absorbed most of the wine. 

6. Now, whisk together the veggie broth and flour. Then add it to the mushrooms with the onions. Simmer for a few more minutes, or until the sauce thickens slightly. Season with another pinch of salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning. Remove from heat.

7. Once the polenta is nice and thick, add the vegan butter, and stir to melt the vegan butter into the polenta. Taste and adjust seasoning. Remove from heat.

8. Now serve immediately with the creamy polenta in a bowl and top with the mushrooms and red wine sauce. We put it on a plate (notice the pic) but the bowl would be better. Delicious! Unbelievably good!

Should you share this meal  with a couple of friends you might want to double or triple the recipe then serve with a vegetable.  We had roasted veggies.