Beetroot polenta, red velvet and vegetarian Cubans

Curried adzuki bean sprouts with creamy beetroot polenta

Today's Food Diary

Breakfast: Rolled oats with jam and cocoa

Lunch: Curried adzuki bean sprouts with creamy beetroot polenta

Dinner: Soya beans in tomato sauce with flat bread

Baking/sweets: Double chocolate coffee daim cookies

Some days ago I made beetroot risotto and it was a great combination. I thought if it works with rice it will work with polenta since the sweetness from the beets would complement the creamy polenta. The theory seems logical, practice was another issue. The beetroot polenta wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. The chunky bits of beetroot didn't go well with the polenta, and the sweetness was muted. Perhaps mashed beetroot would complement polenta better. Maybe but I won’t be experimenting with this in the foreseeable future. I hope someone else does for me! However the beetroot polenta did look beautiful, if only the taste matched its good looks.

It wasn’t all bad news. The curried bean sprouts were excellent, I have eaten this many times before and love it. I bought fleur de sel yesterday, a brand I never tried previously and in the excitement I used it a bit too liberally with the sprouts. The polenta did help balance out the salty sprouts.

Today's Favourite Photo

Source: Lulu’s Sweet Secrets

Red velvet cupcakes. I have been seeing a lot of velvet cakes recently. Maybe because of Valentines. Food coloring generally does not appeal to me but the velvet cakes do look absolutely beautiful. 

Today's Favourite Blog

Huffington Post

There’s an interesting article discussing the challenges Cuba is facing with ‘pushing’ its population to eat more healthy vegetarian food. For Cuban’s eating vegetarian meals brings back negative memories. Meat was scarce during the 90’s and Cuban’s were forced to eat vegetarian meals. Convincing people to reduce meat intake is challenging, to do so when vegetarian food brings bad memories is even harder. I travel often to Central Asia which is a carnivore's paradise, and a vegetarian's nightmare. I understand the challenges Cuba is facing, though the underlying reasons are slightly different. Central Asians just love meat and fatty meat warms the body during the harsh winter months. Vegetarian food does not have negative associations, its just not considered food in that part of the world!

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