And now, I am saying, wow, it makes a big difference in making polenta.

The few times I have have made polenta on the stove top (I have also made it in the slow cooker), it has been grainy, and ok, but I have not been able to do anything with it. Reason, I was cooking it wrong.  I would dump the water and corn meal into the pot at the same time, and cook them, and not understand why it wouldn’t come out quite right. It would get thick, but stay grainy.

Yesterday, I decided to make the Polenta Lasagna again, and do it right. (I will write more on that tomorrow), and the first thing I decided to do was to follow the directions on how to make polenta.

Here is the way you do so. Put the water on the stove and boil it first, before you put the polenta in. I figured, why not, and did that, and by gosh, it came out smooth, and when I spread it out on the backing pan to cool, it didn’t fall apart when I scooped it up later to make the lasagna.

Wow, what a concept, following directions. What will they come up with next?

Cooking the Polenta

I don’t know why I keep trying to make things with polenta, as I must be doing something wrong. It does not get all stiff with me, no matter how much I cook it.

Still, this looked like a cool gluten free lasagna, and I was open to that, as well as having an excuse to use up more tomatoes.

I put the 4 cups of polenta to boil on the stove, and set to getting the tomatoes ready by peal. (even though the recipe called for canned tomatoes.)

This was another recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics.

Preparing the tomatoes

Here is what the recipe called for :

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cups chopped onions
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons dried bail (I used fresh)
• 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/12 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 cup chopped red bell peppers
• 1 cup chopped green bell peppers (I used red, as that was all I had)
• 3 cups crushed tomatoes (I used fresh)
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 3 tablespoon tomato paste (I didn’t have this)
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt

As usual, all these things had to be done in order. I sauteed the onions, then added the garlic, basil, etc through red peppers. Then added the tomatoes and wine, and set that to cook for about 30 minutes.

And, while all this was cooking, I had to put together1 cup of cream cheese, one egg, and and mix those togehter.

And while all this was going on I was supposed to put the polenta in the fridge, and spread it out., which I did. And, I was supposed to saute the chopped kale (to cups worth), which I did as well. I could have used Cartoonist, but she wasn’t around, so I had to do this all on my own.

finished lasage

When I took the Polenta out of  the fridge, it wasn’t stiff, as described, so I just used it as is, and layered out the lasagna.

First layer was the tomato mix, then the polenta, then the cream cheese, then the polenta, then the tomato mix again, with graded Parmesan cheese on top (which I actually had from a recipe I didn’t end up making.

What is my verdict? Would I make it again? Only if I could get the polenta right. It really needs a stiff polenta, and I think I am not doing it quite right. The book says if it isn’t stiff enough, cook it longer, which I may do next time.