Making Polenta

Vegetable stock and polenta

In the last month or so, we've been eating a lot of greens: the arugula and turnips have done incredibly well in our community garden plot, and once the CSA season began, we started getting spinach, chard, mustard greens, three different kinds of kale, and more arugula. This sudden abundance has challenged our creativity--we've made curries (both Indian and Thai), used greens in pasta, had wilted greens as a side, but still sometimes had more greens than we knew what to do with, and wanted to expand our repertoire. Every now and then, we'd buy pre-made polenta in the plastic sleeves, at about $2.50 per pack. Matt would

Garlic scapes and green onion

slice it up and fry it in a pan with garlic and olives, adding the greens at the end, and wilting them--and it makes for a very good light lunch or appetizer. And then one day, I had an epiphany: the "grits" (also known as coarse-ground cornmeal) sold in the bulk section of our coop is polenta! I don't know why it took me so long to realize this--maybe because I don't like grits (something about the mushy texture), and have never associated squishy grits with the crispy-on-the-outside and savory polenta. Whatever the reason for my previous oversight, I'm glad that I've made the (mental) leap because polenta is incredibly easy to make and so cheap!

Quick sautee in olive oil and salt

Adding stock

Not only is polenta cheap, but versatile, too. The spices and the liquid ingredient can be varied according to the occasion. What I had on hand were green onions, garlic scapes, and vegetable stock. (Remember when I said that I "wasn't thrilled about canning the stock?" I take it back. I've used up almost all of the seven quarts of stock--some has gone into soups, but my polenta discovery will have me using stock much more often, for sure.)

The basic thing to keep in mind about polenta is that the liquid to grain ratio is about 3 to 1; you could use water for the liquid, and as long as the polenta is organic and good quality, the final result would probably be wonderful. As I was making this particular polenta, I kept thinking of the flavor combinations that I could make in the future; sun-dried tomato and basil (or oregano); cilantro and jalapeno; pumpkin and thyme...

Polenta gets pretty thick; keep stirring!

Allowing the polenta to firm up

All this talk about polenta, and no recipe yet. What can I say, I got carried away contemplating it!

Recipe:

• 2 green onions, white and green parts, chopped
• 2 garlic scapes (or a clove or two of garlic), minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil (or other herbs)
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 2/3 cup of water (as needed)
• 1.5 cups polenta/ corn grits/ coarse-ground cornmeal

Sauté the onions and garlic scapes in olive oil for a few minutes, just until they're starting to cook. Add the salt and herbs, stir to combine flavors; pour in the stock and bring to a steady simmer over medium-high heat. Once the stock is simmering, add the polenta in a slow and steady stream, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon or spatula for 25-30 minutes. As you're stirring, be sure to stir from the bottom of the pot, as the polenta will become quite thick quickly--and you want to both keep it from burning and keep it cooking for the full time, or else it will be too gritty. Add as little as 1/4 and as much as 2/3 cup of water during the cooking process--the polenta should be quite thick, but not too thick to stir effectively. At the end of the cooking time, taste and adjust spices; take the polenta off heat and transfer into a greased 8"x8" (or a 9"x9", depending on how thick you like it) baking pan, and allow to cool for a couple hours.

After the polenta cools, you can slice it and store in an airtight container for up to a week, refrigerated. As I mentioned earlier, to fix it, just fry some up with more garlic, onions, and greens. You can also decrease the recipe and use 1 cup of polenta for 3 cups of liquid, but (personally,) I like a thicker slice of polenta.

Polenta is also something that is often sold locally, and thus could be a delicious platform for an almost all-local meal.

Weekend Project: Potstickers

I love potstickers. Actually, I love all kinds of dumplings, steamed buns, and pretty much anything that is a savory filling in dough. I like making these things, too--there's something great about the process of making the dough and the filling, and shaping the potstickers, steamed buns, pies, etc. It usually takes a few hours for everything to come together, but the resulting food is usually enough to eat several times. Every few months, I set aside a half a day or so for the process; the previous time (a few weeks ago), I made kimchi-filled steamed buns--we liked them so much, there was barely any left over after dinner. I'd never made steamed buns before, and mine were far from pretty, but they were so good! I also like that I could make the dough for them myself, whereas with potstickers, there's just no way that I'm willing to roll out quite so many perfect circles of dough.

Yesterday, Matt and I worked on potstickers with three different fillings--one was tofu and green onion; another had king oyster mushrooms and buna-shimeji; and the third was a mix of mushrooms, napa cabbage, and green onions. We'd gotten the vegetables on Saturday in our CSA share, and although I had wanted to make kimchi, I realized that we still have some left from our last batch; the potstickers took more effort, but I'm glad that we've made them. We also made a batch of the steamed buns with a couple of the different fillings, and put everything away into the freezer for later.

I like doing this--putting away food for later; it's probably why I became so enthusiastic about canning so quickly. And canning paved the way for making more things like this... Not only can I make things that taste so much better than what I can get at the Asian market, but I can also use up the local ingredients that we get from our CSA basket.

Ramps

Before yesterday, I'd only had ramps once. We were on a day-trip to Nashville (three years ago), and saw them on sale at Whole Foods; I didn't think much of them, but Matt knew exactly the kind of delicacy that we'd found. 

Since first tasting them, I'd been on the lookout for ramps, but  hadn't been able to get any until this weekend. As we were digging up the succulent ramps, I couldn't help but be mindful of over-harvesting. I want the ramp spot to provide people with this spring-time delicacy for years to come, and  I feel like we were almost too greedy, taking not just he leaves, but the bulbs, too. 

I hope that this year isn't the last time that we have ramps, but I'm willing to forego them if it means preserving them for the future.

New Year's Eve Dinner

For the last few years, we have tried to have a special dinner planned for New Year's Eve. We like staying in and spending time with each other on food preparation; and we like to make something a little nicer than what we'd usually eat for the last night of the year. Last year, we rolled our own pasta for cannelloni; this year, M. offered his expertise and made nine different sushi rolls. That, folks, is a lot of sushi (also, as you can see from the picture, we had a mountain of tempura vegetables).

I hope that this year, whatever our New Year's Eve dinner is, we can make use of something we grow ourselves.