Polenta Pie

In a previous post I mentioned a Sausage Polenta Pie that was made in the slow cooker. It tasted good, but was by no means a pie and looked a mess. Not that I expected a pie to come out of my slow cooker. Anyways, I decided to adapt this recipe into an actual pie.

Vegan Sausage Polenta Pie

2 Vegan Italian Sausages, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 bunch swiss chard, chopped
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 cup cornmeal
3 3/4 cups veggie 'chicken' broth
1 TBS margarine
1/4 cup vegan parmesan cheese

In a saucepan, combine cornmeal and broth. Bring to a boil; cook while stirring over medium heat until thick, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in margarine and half the parmesan cheese. Let this rest as you combine the rest of the ingredients (from sausage to oregano) in a bowl.

Lightly oil a pie pan. Spread 1/3 of the polenta in the bottom of the pan. Add Sausage/tomato mixture to pan. Top with the remaining polenta and sprinkle with the remaining parmesan cheese.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 10-15 minutes until it starts to brown a bit on top.The pie is kind of soft. Not so firm that you can cut a perfect piece, but that could possibly be fixed by using a lower vegetable broth to cornmeal ratio when making the polenta. Or cooking the polenta longer to make it thicker. You can also replace the tomatoes with roasted red bell peppers or even try other veggies instead of the swiss chard. I used Julie Hasson's Italian sausages and Bryanna Clark Grogan's cashew sprinkle for a Parmesan substitute (from Nonna's Italian Kitchen).

Here is a picture of a lunch we had the other day. I wanted to roast some cauliflower I had, so I decided to fill the oven with all kinds of things while I had it on at 400 degrees. I made roasted cauliflower, broccoli and fingerling potatoes. I also roasted some chickpeas and some tofu nuggets. The veggies and chickpeas just had olive oil and salt and pepper on them. Then I made a 'cheese' sauce from a recipe I've been using for a long time from VegWeb.