Polenta and veggies, take II

Last time I tried this, the recipe came out so salty it was nearly inedible, so you'll probably understand when I say it took me a while to get back to the idea. But last Sunday, feeling exhausted after a long run the previous day, I wanted something delicious and easy, so I tried them again, this time with more success.

Ingredients

(for polenta)

• 1 c. yellow corn meal
• 1 tsp. salt
• a handful of raw spinach, about 1/2 c.
• 3 c. water

(for sauce)

• 1/2 zucchini
• 1/2 summer squash
• a few florets of broccoli
  
• 3-4 mushrooms, to taste
• 1/2 small onion
• 1/2 to 1 tin diced tomatoes
• a few cloves of garlic
  
• oregano, basil, chili powder, paprika

Methodology

1. Boil water, add salt. Pour in polenta, stirring constantly. There will probably be lumps. I'm sure there's a way to deal with this, but I just resign myself to it. When polenta has cooked into pudding (this is very quick), add in the spinach and stir until it's wilted. Divide into 12 muffin tins (or fewer if you want thicker cakes). Put in the fridge for about an hour.

2. Chop veggies. Put some oil in the bottom of a pot and add the garlic, then put in the onion and mushroom. Season. After a few minutes, throw in the squash, zucchini, and broccoli. When that starts looking cooked, add the tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste.

3. Split a polenta cake in half and warm it in the microwave. Spoon sauce over it and top with grated cheese (if desired). Eat.

Notes

*Very easy and ridiculously healthy - each polenta cake is about 40 calories, and the sauce is not much more. In fact, the main fat in this meal comes from the cheese.

*The polenta cakes keep well in the fridge for about a week, and are good with salad (I put vinegar and salsa on my salad, then leave it in the fridge at work until lunch, so it marinates), or with bottled pasta sauce if you are not feeling up to making sauce.

*You can actually make this "sauce" with any collection of veggies plus tomatoes. Experiment, it's fun. For a different twist, use whole tinned tomatoes (cut in half if you want).

*2/7 (if only I could get the lumps out of the polenta...)

Polenta with Grilled Veggies and Canollini Bean Humus

Polenta recipe from Mario Batali, found here.

Ingredients

Polenta
4 c. water
2 T. salt
1 c. yellow corn meal

Grilled Veggies

3 zucchini, sliced
1 smallish eggplant, sliced
1.5 green peppers, sliced

Canollini Bean Humus

1 tin canollini beans, drained
2 T. olive oil
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
salt, pepper, paprika


Methodology

1. Put water in a pot with salt. Bring to a boil. Stir in the corn meal. Keep stirring, lowering heat until corn meal is thick. Ladle into greased muffin tins, a little more than 1/4 c. polenta/tin. It makes 12 very full or probably more if you're not lazy. See note.

2. Put polenta tins in fridge. Wait. When cool, remove from fridge.

3. Slice veggies and put on grill. Brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put polenta cakes on grill also.

4. Put beans, oil, and garlic in food processor and hit go. Add spices.

5. Serve ensemble.

Notes

*On Polenta: This cooking methodology is problematic on two accounts. One is that I think 2 tablespoons of salt is too much - I would recommend maybe half or a quarter of that. The other is that "put corn meal in pot and mix with a spoon" doesn't really convey a) how lumpy the stupid corn meal is and b) how it's kind of scary when it boils and spits hot grits at you.

Cooking this might be much easier to deal with if you are not sick and your brain makes sense of complex inputs like the boiling of a pot and is capable of looking at a recipe and saying, "Two tablespoons seems like too much!", so feel free to disregard this advice. Warning. Thing.

*One polenta cake = ~40 calories, assuming you made them all the same and not, you know, some really huge and some quite small. I don't know. Maybe you don't understand the idea of dividing things equally. I'm not judging.

*This was really good, but it would have been better if the polenta hadn't been so salty. Seriously, don't make this recipe like this.

*5/7 on the disaster index.