Friday, October 24, 2008

Polenta with mushrooms




Mushrooms are one of those things that I don't buy regularly. But I'm constantly reading recipes that sound delicious and I think, I should write this on my shopping list and plan to make this! But then I don't. On the other hand, when I do buy mushrooms, but don't have a specific plan for them, they tend to wind up in the compost a couple of weeks later. I took that risk earlier this week, though: I bought a package of baby bella 'shrooms without a plan.


Thursday is the night Jon has class, and so I usually throw together whatever for dinner for the kids and me . . . but this week I sort of forgot that he wasn't coming home for dinner that night, and had the brainwave to make creamy polenta with sauteed mushrooms on top. When I remembered that I'd be eating it solo (no way would my kids touch this), I thought, oh, so what. It's what I want to eat, so I'm going to make it anyway.


And then I sliced polenta and fried it up with eggs for breakfast for the next few days. Yum!


Polenta

2 cups coarse cornmeal (I use Bob's Red Mill)
6 cups water (broth is excellent: think chickpea, or cannellini . . . darker bean broth will make it a little dingy-looking [though still delicious])
1 tsp salt
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar (optional, but yummy)


Mix all in a 9 by 13 pan. Put in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. Stir, then bake another 15 minutes. It's a miracle -- delicious, creamy, slow-simmered polenta with No Stirring.


Mushrooms were just sort of thrown together -- onions, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper.

2 comments:

BlueJ said...

I like the idea of baking the polenta (and not stirring it)! Do you mix the water and cornmeal particularly carefully to avoid lumps?

Tall Kate said...

Hi, bluej! This method is awesome: totally foolproof. I do not mix particularly carefully -- but I do use coarse cornmeal. I have never tried it with finer meal and it might be different with that!