Polenta: A Blank Canvas

I've had polenta, and made it a couple times but have never really been blown away by it. Polent, as he calls it, I'm pretty sure is like my Grandpa's favorite food. He talks about it, and you could see it just brings him back to a different time, he told us most recently how he used to eat it for breakfast, fried with syrup over top (I can't wait to try it like that, I would eat just about anything if syrup is involved). It's definitely an old school dish and is one that would be considered sort of lower class. A lot of bang for your buck with polenta, a little bit certainly goes a long way, and would have been a mainstay in depression era italian homes. I feel like by itself it's not really much, but I have come to realize it is a good vessel for just about anything you want. Take for instance the polenta I made the other night, sausage, caramelized onions and portabella's with a simple and tasty sauce over top. It was really good, I was actually surprised how good it turned out, now I'm excited by the possibilities that polenta holds, and what other flavor combinations I could come up with. Give this recipe a try or come up with your own, and let me know what you think.

Eat well, Live well

Polenta with garlic basil sausage, caramelize onions and portabellas w/ fire roasted tomato cream sauce

serves 2

8 tbs instant polenta

24 tbs water or chicken stock (cook the instant polenta at a 3:1 ratio liquid to polenta, I just put the polenta in a cup and fill the cup up 3 times to the level the polenta was at)

1 sweet onion; 1/2 diced; 1/2 sliced thinly

1/2 c baby portabellas; 1/4 c diced; 1/4 c whole

1 garlic clove; minced

1 sausage link of your choice

1 14.5 oz can of fire roasted tomatoes

1/8 c red wine

3 tbs heavy cream

1/4 c chicken stock

1/8 c parmesan cheese

a pinch of red pepper seeds

salt and pepper

Cut the sausage in half and take it out of the skin. Bring a frying pan with about a tablespoon of olive oil in it to medium heat. Break up the sausage and add the onions to the pan and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the diced mushrooms and cook for about another 5 minutes or so.

While the sausage, onions and mushrooms are cooking bring the liquid for the polenta up to a boil. When it is starts to boil take off the heat and add in the polenta. As you stir it will thicken, you can go from on the heat to off the heat while you stir to help thicken the polenta, but if you keep it on the heat for more then a couple seconds it will start to bubble and splatter and make a mess, so be careful.

As the polenta thickens, add the sausage, onions and mushrooms, as well as the parmesan and season with salt and pepper.

When it is fully thickened pour into a buttered baking dish and set in the refrigerator. The polenta can be cooked, at least a day ahead of time I would think, I made it a couple hours before I had dinner.

For the sauce take the other half of the sausage, crumbled, and the thinly slice onions and cook in a frying like before for about 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for an additional 7-8 minutes. Then add the garlic and cook for 1-2 more minutes.

Deglaze the pan with the red wine, and allow it to almost completely evaporate. Then pour in the can of tomatoes, the chicken stock, heavy cream and red pepper flakes. Allow to reduce and thicken, to a desired thickness, stirring it every once and a while. I allowed it to reduce for about 20 minutes.

While you are preparing the sauce in an oven preheated to 400 degrees, drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the polenta and bake pretty much for as long as it takes you to make the sauce. Just be sure it doesn't burn (it shouldn't).

To serve place a slice of polenta with the sauce over top, with a little bit of grated parmesan on the side.