Corn Grits, Polenta, Fried Polenta!

Polenta or Corn Grits truly must be one of the best comfort foods on the planet! Warm, creamy, filling, versatile, and easy, not to mention gluten free, polenta is one of my favorite foods. Alone, as a side dish, or a starchy base for something else equally wonderful, why don't I make this more often?

6 cups of water
2 teaspoons, or less, salt
1 3/4 cup corn meal
*3 Tablespoons butter

Bring the water to a boil, add the salt and reduce the heat to a low simmer. Whisk in the corn meal till all dissolved, don't worry about the lumps-they're the best part, right?  Keep at the lowest simmer possible and stir every minute for 15 minutes.  Stir in the butter till melted. Serve immediately or pour into a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan, cover and refrigerate overnight.  Serves 5, 200 calories per serving.

*If making Vegan simply omit the butter.

Once chilled, you can slice and skillet fry the polenta.  Serve it sweet with maple syrup, or savory.

Before we get into skillet frying polenta, view my post on stove top ranges and cookware.


Skillet Frying Polenta:
First attempt, starting with Polenta that had rested for only a couple of hours, I used cooking oil in a metal pan.  What I call our meat skillet because it gets hot enough to sear meat and retains heat for even cooking.  Not only did it stick and fall apart, but the oil took away from the creamy flavor of the Polenta.

Second attempt, I waited the traditional 24 hours.  I used our enameled iron skillet (egg skillet) with butter.  It worked really well, and used far less fat to fry.  I did still have trouble with the crispy outer layer scraping off when I tried to flip it.  Perhaps my polenta needs less water?

Next corn meal recipe-Indian Pudding

Which Cook Ware Works Best On Your Stove?

Let me start by explaining the 3 different types of ranges not including wood fire (similar to gas fire) or electric griddle (similar to smooth top, but hotter).

1.  Coil-heats up quickly, retains heat after shutting off, even heat on pans.  My copper bottom Revere Ware works best on coil stove tops.

2.  Gas-you can control how hot the pan is within seconds because the reduction of flame instantly reduces heat, does not however heat evenly or quickly.  Heavy bottomed pans work well with flame because they distribute the heat and retain it.

3. Smooth top ranges.  Does not heat up quickly, or hot enough, retains some heat when turned off.  Your pans must be perfectly flat to work on this type of range.  After arduous study I have determined enameled cast iron to be the most effective cooking gear for flat top stoves.  But heavy bottomed flat pans also work well.


How to determine which cooking gear to use on your range:  Try to fry a scrambled egg in butter over high heat.  If it sticks, it's the wrong pan.  If it doesn't cook within 1 minute, it's the wrong pan.  If it doesn't cook evenly, it's the wrong pan.

Caprese Kabobs

This was the best summer cookout appetizer I've seen in a long time. So easy to make and even easier to eat.

1 package of wooden shish kabob skewers
Lots of cherry tomatoes
fresh Mozerella
fresh basil leaves
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Balsamic (or your choice) Vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste

Cut the Mozerella into tiny chunks. Wrap a basil leaf around a cherry tomato and skewer, follow with a mozerella chunk. Continue till skewer is complete. Repeat. Lay the completed skewers in a shallow baking dish and drizzle with the Oil and Vinegar, salt and pepper. Enjoy!

As a note, this recipe is folly unless you have (or your friends/family have) your own basil and cherry tomato plants. Can you believe what grocery stores charge for 1 oz. of fresh basil, or a quart of cherry tomatoes!

My New Blog

Hey all, I have a blog specifically for the natural life with my little one.  It's not food focused, but life focused.  If you're new to mommyhood, or an old pro, hopefully you'll find my tales amusing and informative.  Drop me a line if you've got something to add.  And if you don't have kiddos, but have friends with kids, maybe you'll learn something too.

It's a new life.  http://lifewithbabyandme.blogspot.com/

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

In baking gluten free there are only two kinds of cookies that work really well, oatmeal and peanut butter. And then a thought occurred to me, why not try them together? I've tried every kind of flour to make a delicious peanut butter cookie, any gluten free flour blend will work, but most of them have little to no fiber. But Oat flour has fiber and gives an excellent chew.

All Oat flour in the recipe was a failure. They were too chewy, too tall, and too Oat flavored. It was reminiscent of those horrible 'no-bake' cookies. So a 1/2 and 1/2 blend of Oat and some other flour (not Buckwheat) worked best. If you don't like, or can't eat, Oats use Buckwheat flour.

Finally, most of the recipes I'd found used semi-sweet chocolate chips, but milk chocolate chips lend themselves better to a peanut butter cookie.

1 cup Peanut Butter
6 Tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 teaspoon pure Vanilla extract
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 Tablespoon milk
1 cup all purpose flour (gluten free or not)
1 cup Oat flour (I grind whole oats at home)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup of milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325. Melt the butter in the microwave, stir in the peanut butter and sugar, beat in the egg and yolk, and vanilla. Add the 2 cups of flour, salt, baking soda, and loosely stir the salt and soda into the flour before mixing. Add the chips, mix till incorporated. Drop by the level Tablespoon (rounded teaspoon) full onto parchment lined baking sheets. Press a criss-cross pattern into each cookie with the back of a fork (this is a must do). Bake 2 sheets at a time for 10-12 minutes alternating half way through. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Makes 4 dozen.