polenta

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It might just be the perfect Thanksgiving side dish. Easy, flavorful, vegetarian, and versatile, polenta dishes are the perfect creative outlet for the home cook. Saturday afternoon we went on a huge shopping spree for fresh groceries; previous weekends away in San Francisco and Portland meant we had very little food in the house. I had a week of cooking and blogging all planned out.

When my sister called Saturday night to let us know our nephew would be coming sooner rather than later, my first thought was to pack my suitcase and to get ready for a drive to New Jersey. My second thought at 10:00 at night? Make polenta.

I knew that once I got to NJ there would not be much time for blogging or cooking, so I went to work on one of the dishes I had planned for the week. I started with local mushrooms from Siena Farms, cleaned, chopped, and set aside.

mushrooms

mushrooms

I also chopped a whole shallot from Siena Farms. I added the shallot to a tablespoon of Kerrygold butter and started to cook the shallot on low.

shallot

After a few minutes, I added the mushroom and a bit more butter.

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While the mushrooms and shallot sizzled gently on the side, I added 6 cups of boiling water from my electric tea kettle (a wedding gift and one of the BEST inventions ever!) to my Le Creuset French Oven. We use the electric kettle for everything from making tea to boiling pasta water. It is much quicker than boiling it on the stove.

cornmeal

Making sure the water was at a rolling boil, I added a cup and a quarter cornmeal, a generous shake of sea salt, and a pat of Kerrygold and stirred, stirred, stirred with my whisk. The cornmeal grew in volume very quickly. I lowered the heat and let it bubble away for about 10 minutes.

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I forgot to take photos of the rest. Embarrassed smile By the time the dish was finished, it was after 11:00, and I was both nervous for my sister and exhausted.

As the mushrooms and shallots were cooking, I added about 3/4 cup of   Venge Late Harvest Zinfandel.

Venge Late Harvest Zinfandel

Note: I did NOT add in any of the Whisker Lickins behind the bottle Winking smile 

This Venge dessert wine added the perfect amount of sweetness to the mushrooms and onions, and once these ingredients were combined, I stirred them into the cornmeal and added another 1/4 cup of the wine, stirring everything until creamy. I was loosely trying to recreate some of the flavors from the Americano mushroom soup from Foodbuzz Festival, and while the polenta was of course different, it definitely had similar flavors.

I only got to eat a few bites before packing the polenta up for my husband for the week, but it was the perfect comfort food. I would eat it by itself for a meal, but I can also see it going great with a pork roast or turkey.

And since everything but the cornmeal was local, I am including this as one of the recipes I am making for Chef Robin White’s Fresh and Local Thanksgiving Challenge. I am working on a few more for Thanksgiving as well as a couple of holiday recipes for a Kitchen Play assignment. I can’t wait to get back to Boston and into my kitchen for some hands-on research!

Are you cooking Thanksgiving dinner or any part of it this year?

Tags: cooking with wine, holiday side dish, holidays, mushrooms, polenta, recipe, Vegetarian, wine, Zinfandel

Phew. . . feels good to have the Monday after a holiday over with, doesn’t it? I had a great day! It started with a good workout and ended up being a quiet work day listening to Christmas music and getting a lot done. I am grateful for good work days. After work, the weather was raw and rainy, and I wanted something warm and comforting. Polenta was the perfect choice. I decided to make it with toasted walnuts, gorgonzola cheese, and roasted garlic. Ingredients 1 tube of organic polenta 1/2 cup to 1 cup crumbled gorgonzola 5 cloves of roasted garlic (roast in skins at 400 until soft and easily squeezed from skin) 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted in a dry skillet image image image image image gorgonzola I cut the polenta into discs and placed them in a pan of sizzling olive oil, then seasoned with ground black pepper.

polenta

My plan was to neatly top each disc with crumbled cheese, sliced roasted garlic, and walnuts, but that fell apart quickly. It didn’t look very pretty, but it tasted good!

polenta with cheese

I served this over a bed of romaine lettuce which, though I bought it only yesterday, is rapidly going bad. I don’t know if the lettuce was the perfect pairing for the polenta, but I hate wasting and wanted to use it up. It ended up tasting good and providing a nice crunch.

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The mix of polenta, lettuce, and walnuts makes for a constant change in textures, and the gorgonzola and roasted garlic provide strong but complementary flavors. Polenta is another one of those ingredients that is extremely versatile and it sort of feels like a luxurious treat but only costs $2.99 for the entire tube. Next up, making my own polenta. . . but maybe not this week.

Tags: cheese, dinner, polenta, recipe

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