Vegan Ice Cream Pie & Walnut Basil Pesto & Polenta Verdict

How can I not start with this. I made this pie in about 4 minutes last night. I glanced at La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer and came across a recipe for easy ice cream pie that I liked and completely modified though. Instead of crushing my own creme-filled cookies, I took a pre-made graham cracker crust by Arrowhead Mills (that's been in the pantry for months) and lined the bottom with a small spread of organic almond butter. That would have been fantastic on its own! Next, I got out my food processor and combined about 2T maple syrup (organic, grade A) with about a handful (I have small hands) of chocolate chips and an even bigger handful of raw organic pecans. Blend until it's all combined. Then since I always have ice cream on hand, I grabbed a bigass container of So Delicious (used to be Soy Delicious) Cookies n Cream, my favorite kind, and added about 4c ice cream (1/2 the carton) to the food processor. From there I blended until everything was homogeneous and looked sooo good. Next, dip your spoon in it a few times just to make sure it really is as good as it looks, if not, better! The original recipe didn't have nuts and called for mint or any extract, and I omitted that completely. Next, I dumped the mixture onto the pie crust and spread it evenly. Then I topped it with hemp seeds because, well, that's just what I do with most things. Then the top of the pie still looked a bit boring, even though I knew there was awesome stuff going on within it. I decided to get out the Organic Santa Cruz (like hersheys) syrup and I topped it with that. You can see that the spout is bigger than my liking, and I had a few globs of too much here and there. I took this photo after the pie was frozen for about 2 hours. The active time in the kitchen was only 4-5 minutes (yay) but you have to patiently wait for it to firm up. I didn't. It was somewhat firm, and it is now 16+ hours later and all this "talk" has made me want to check and see how it is now... and eat it. I know it will only get better.
Now this is what I decided to do with the leftover basil (2c) I had. Yeah, yeah, it's another pesto, and I appreciate all the non-pesto advice, I just wasn't up to anything major. I used a recipe for Walnut Basil Pesto from Dreena's Vive le Vegan and served it cold (we usually eat cold and late on Tuesday nights with minimal ingredients). I topped it with pine nuts because I like pine nuts a lot and had them on hand. This pesto wasn't as good to me as the sun-dried that I tested for the new book, but I think it's because I didn't know it was going to be "creamy" and I don't really like creamy things. Even when I was a vegetarian that ate a lot of cheese (when I was a kid and young teen) I still didn't ever like creamy dishes or creamy soups. Therefore, I think it still holds true, and even though the creaminess is due to the crushed 1c walnuts, I didn't care for the milk in it. I did though, like the overall taste of the recipe, it was just too creamy for me. If you like pesto and you like creamy, go for this recipe!
Polenta verdict: I am going to make this as short as possible. I mapped out on paper what I was going to do with the polenta. This is how it goes: First on the bottom, a layer of polenta with blue corn chips all around the plate. The polenta was to be fried in olive oil on the pan with some garlic and nutritional yeast. Then there would be a layer of canned organic black beans with chopped red and yellow (frozen) bell peppers mixed with cumin, lime, cilantro, cayenne, s/p, and more garlic. Then there would be a top layer of jarred organic salsa with more cilantro on top.
I finally got out the tube of polenta (biggest mistake right there, after everyone's advice on homemade) and cut it open. It scared the shit out of me because I didn't know it was going to be rubbery. Yuck. So I just went with it. I took out a can of black beans and did the prepping according to plan. The black beans got overcooked while sitting in the pot for a while when the polenta was frying in oil. The polenta didn't get brown (after a really long time) so I stopped it to try it. It felt "done" in my mouth but I didn't like the texture. I stopped the heat on everything and attempted to try it all mixted together (just on my fork, not set up on a plate) and it tasted like complete crap. I've had this idea in my head for a week, mapped out on paper for 3 days, and it was such a disaster. By the time I thought about a photo, most of the polenta was in the drain and the black bean mixture was getting debated on getting tossed or not. It was a bad disaster and it may be another while before I have polenta unless I make it myself. I am never buying anything in a tube again (besides toothpaste and chapstick).

I'm going to have some ice cream pie for breakfast now...