Recipe 122: Creamy Polenta

The challenge: car shopping before cooking. My poor James totaled his focus last Friday morning, and now we are on the car search. The body shop he'd towed the car to had given him a loaner, but apparently the rental coverage wasn't included. I'm not sure it's worth it in the end. But that's another debate, this blog will be about Polenta. This recipe looked easy enough, but could be tricky. I needed to bring milk with chicken stock and butter to a boil. Boiling milk is always tricky. I'm not sure what happened after I read the directions. I added the milk and stock and butter to the pan. Then the salt and pepper, then dumped in the grits before I turned the pan on. Too late to fish them out now, looks like I'm trying this method. I also thought I had gotten more of a coarse grind of meal, but if this got much finer, it'd be corn flour, not corn meal to make polenta with. After bringing the mixture to a boil, it began to thicken very quickly and did not take the stated 30 minutes of cooking, or the dreaded hour to hour and a half of cooking expected. I think I got a form of instant grits. The directions on the can said mix with water(Boring! and yuck!), and cook for five to ten minutes. That's considered instant in many worlds, not just mine. However, they were close to done, and tasty as grits get without bacon, so I began to grate the parmesan cheese to add to them, and when that was ready, I mixed it in with the mascarpone cheese which may be part of my snack tomorrow with apples. Next, I finished chopping the parsley for the mushroom ragout to be paired with this, and I served some up for my late dinner. I admit, we stopped at Burger King for a quick and dirty meal on our way north for long distance car shopping. May the car venture end soon but well, and only when James has found a good car that satisfies him. The polenta and mushroom ragout made for a much better and more nutritious meal. Happy eating, I may make this recipe again, but I shall begin experimenting with different corn textures and grits to check the differences.