Polenta Napolitana

Stir fry and rice or veggies and pasta. My two staples for the days when I'm feeling uncreative, have very little time, and have bunches of vegetables that need to be eaten. My usual go to when it comes to stir fry is a bunch of veggies in some kind of ginger soy sauce served with whatever grain I have lying around that I can cook in the rice cooker. Pasta and veggies is equally simple. Sauteed veggies, red sauce from Trader Joe's and some kind of pasta thrown together and served with some kind of grated cheese on top.

Anyway, I have an awesome dish to add to my culinary repertoire for those days when I'm frantically trying to feed myself and I'm sitting on vegetables that need to be eaten.

While working at a little Italian restaurant in Edmonds, I fell in love with the way they served polenta. As an appetizer they would top a bowl of polenta with creamy gorgonzola sauce, mozzarella cheese and broil the delicious-ness before serving. As an entree they would serve a chicken breast over polenta and grilled asparagus. The sauce from the chicken or veal would soak into the polenta and the melted cheese on top would do the trick...

Tonight I was cooking for my little brother who is a the novice in the kitchen. Over the course of the summer I have been showing him my tricks and hopefully teaching him a thing or two about feeding himself in a healthy manner. I decided to throw tofu into this recipe but it is completely optional... I imagine it could be replaced with some kind of meat (ground lamb would be awesome or even something like tempeh).

Polenta:

2 cups of water
1 cup of milk
2 cloves of garlic (use a garlic press for best results)
1 tsp of dried chives
1 tsp of thyme (I used fresh but dried would work equally as well)
1 tsp of salt
pepper to taste
1 tsp of butter (because butter makes EVERYTHING taste better)

1 cup of polenta (corn meal is what I bought not knowing there was specific stuff just for polenta... this worked great!)

2 oz of goat cheese
1/4 cup of grated extra sharp white cheddar (I love the New Zealand extra sharp white cheddar from TJ's)

In a pot add all of the ingredients except for the polenta and cheese. Bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and vigorously whisk in the polenta. The mixture will thicken quickly. Add the cheese. Keep on low and stir for about 5 minutes.

(Polenta seriously takes less than 10 minutes to make!! So much easier than rice!)

2-3 cups of vegetables
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp of Italian Seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
1.5 cups of marinara sauce
1 package of firm tofu
1/4 cup of grated cheese (mozzarella would be ideal here)

Sautee 2-3 cups of vegetables in olive oil and 1 tsp of Italian Seasoning. Once vegetables have cooks sufficiently (I like them slightly crispy) add 1 whole package of extra firm tofu cut into extra small pieces and 1 cup of marinara sauce. Once this mixture starts to simmer turn it off.

Place the polenta in a deep baking dish. Add the veggie sauce combination on top. Pour another 1/2 cup of marinara on top and top with 1/4 cup of cheese of your choice (I used the NZ cheddar again).

Broil on Hi for 4-7 minutes or until the cheese on top is light brown and crispy.