Archive for Polenta and Grits

Zucchini Polenta

June 12, 2008 at 4:12 am · Filed under Recipes, Polenta and Grits

Regardless of how it may appear, I promise that this is not a picture of a bowl of parmesan cheese. The picture is awful, I admit it, but we all have our days. However, there comes a time in the life of every food blogger when we must decide if the awful picture is enough to prevent us from sharing a recipe. To this, I say no: I will share this recipe with the world, even if the picture is only appetizing to people like my brother, who like to eat parmesan cheese out of a bowl with a spoon.

If you look closely, you will see that there is, in fact, something green under all that cheese. It’s zucchini. And under that zucchini is something delectable: freshly made polenta.

Polenta is a weird comfort food for me. It’s not something that I had growing up, but as soon as I made my first bowl, I fell in love with it. In the past year, I haven’t made too much, as cornmeal is not a terribly popular product in French supermarkets, but before I left my Paris apartment, I was trying to clean out my pantry, and I found a half-empty bag of cornmeal from when I made cornbread at Thanksgiving. I had only one thought: polenta.

Zucchini Polenta

¼ cup cornmeal
1 cup milk
salt and pepper
2 tsp. olive oil
1 zucchini, sliced
½ onion, diced
½ cup parmesan cheese

Heat the milk in a saucepan over medium heat. When hot (not boiling), add the polenta, stirring constantly. Cook until the polenta has thickened, adding water if necessary. Stir in half of the parmesan cheese, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cover.

In a frying pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the diced onion and a pinch of salt and cook until translucent. Add the slices of zucchini. Cook on one side until browned, about two minutes. Switch sides. Stir the zucchini and onion mixture into the polenta. Serve with extra cheese on the side for sprinkling (or dumping, if you’re me).

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Peaches and Cream Polenta

May 13, 2008 at 9:36 am · Filed under Polenta and Grits

Sometimes, I get really wacky ideas. I’m not even all that sure where this one came from. One minute, I’m nosing around my pantry trying to find something I can call dinner, and the next I’m at the grocery store buying peaches: a girl with a plan.

For some reason, I decided that peaches and polenta would go really well together. I don’t eat polenta too, too often. As my brother says, “We’re not mangioni di polenta.” (Mangioni di polenta just means polenta eaters, but as far as my bro, and most Southern Italians are concerned, it’s an insult directed towards Northerners.)

However, I almost always have a bag of cornmeal in my pantry for cornbread and the like, and as I’m cleaning out my kitchen to head off on my summer adventures (Cannes, Mallorca, and Paziols), I decided to pull a few dishes together with polenta. Last week, I was eating it plain with sugar on top, like my mother used to make Cream of Wheat and Cream of Rice in the morning, but yesterday, I decided to have some for dinner.

This isn’t a sweet dish by any means: you could certainly sweeten the polenta itself to make it an adequate dessert, but for me it was dinner, so the only sugar was the natural sweetness of the fresh peaches (by the way, am I the only one who prefers yellow peaches substantially to white ones? I bought some white peaches by accident this morning, and while I ate them, I was horribly disappointed.)

I can’t wait to start eating all this fresh produce that’s out in stores now. Try this for a breakfast treat (or if you’re strange, like me, for your dinner.)

Peaches and Cream Polenta

1 cup 2% milk
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, grated
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 4 oz. container plain, lowfat yogurt
1 peach, cut into sections

Heat the milk over low heat and add the cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Slowly add the cornmeal, stirring all the time. If you find that the cornmeal soaks up the milk too quickly, you can add a little bit of water. When the polenta is cooked all the way through, turn off the stove and spoon about 3/4 of the yogurt container into the pot and stir. Place in a bowl and top with peach segments and the remaining yogurt. Serve hot with extra cinnamon if desired.

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