Baked Polenta My Way

It seems like I have been hearing a lot about the ease of baked polenta lately, but nothing really made me feel like I needed to try it.  I guess my family made old-fashioned stove-top-stirred polenta when I was young enough that I never had a chance to develop a fear of the process.  It's really not that hard.  However, I was looking through Judith Jones' new cookbook, The Pleasures of Cooking for One, and I really liked the looks of her recipe for "Baked Polenta with Vegetables."  Mixing the vegetables in with the polenta and cooking everything together is such a nice way to make the polenta dish into a meal instead of a side dish.  That was something worth trying.

Baking polenta was a little strange at first.  Actually, I was a little worried that it wouldn't work.  It felt like I was doing something wrong.  I mean, you prepare the vegetables, mix them in with a watery polenta mixture, and then leave it in the oven for a while.  That's it.  Some cheese sprinkled over in the last couple of minutes, and it's done.  And you know what?  It was a perfectly cooked, warm, and tasty meal.  As I was eating my first taste of baked polenta with vegetables, I thought of all of the different things I could do next time.  I mean that as a compliment to the original  recipe.  It introduced me to a new way of cooking something and it made me want to experiment (with the added confidence that it would actually work).

I decided to simplify, and using ingredients that I found in my fridge I think I came up with a winner, which just emphasizes the versatility of the baked polenta & vegetables idea.  You could even take a kitchen sink approach and mix in whatever bits of cheese and vegetables you have hanging around.  I ended up using feta, spinach, and garlic.  And instead of cooking the vegetables on the stove before mixing them in to the baking dish I just poured some hot water over the spinach to wilt it, and toasted the garlic in the baking dish before I mixed the rest of the ingredients in. 

Just as long as the liquid to polenta ratio is correct, you can add and subtract vegetable as you please. 

Baked Polenta My Way

1/3 cup polenta

1 cup water (warm)

A couple of handfuls of fresh Spinach

1-2 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/2 teaspoon salt

parmesan (just enough to sprinkle over the top)

olive oil

Other things that would have been good:  a chopped tomato, some chopped onion or shallot, some chopped zucchini.  

Pre-heat the oven to 350

Pour some hot water over the spinach to wilt it, then pour cold water over it, squeeze it dry, and chop it roughly.  Put a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of a small baking dish, and add the chopped garlic, place it in the oven and bake it until the garlic is just golden (just a couple of minutes).  Take it out and carefully add the cup of warm water, 1/3 cup polenta, the chopped spinach, salt, and feta.  Stir everything together, and put it back in the oven.  

The mixture will cook for 30 minutes altogether.  After about 15-20 minutes, give it a stir to mix everything up (otherwise the vegetables will be mostly at the top and the polenta will be mostly at the bottom).  25 minutes in, sprinkle a little parmesan over the top, then bake for the remaining 5 minutes.