Sunday, September 30, 2012

Easy Polenta with Fresh Pesto

Several weeks ago I bought a small bag of organic polenta (actually it is coarse cornmeal). I had on hand some leftover chicken I had made in the slow cooker and I had plenty of sweet basil with which to make pesto. So I went looking for an EASY polenta recipe because I didn't want to have to stand over the stove and stir it for 20 to 30 minutes as some of the recipes suggested. Admittedly, I have the ideal heavy stainless steel pot to make polenta in, but still...after looking at many different recipes I found one that looked like just what I was looking for!

Here it is: basic polenta. One modification I made was to leave out the butter at the end. Basically, I put it on, left it on low and went away and forgot about it for about 10 minutes. When I ran back to the stove to check on it, it just needed to be stirred and allowed to cook for another 10 minutes or so during which time I stirred it about 3 more times. Then I spooned it out into a greased loaf pan and put it in the refrigerator. After a couple of hours, I sliced it, sprayed each slice with olive oil and baked it in a 350 degree oven until it looked brown. It turned out wonderfully crunchy on the outside and soft and tasty on the inside. We covered it with fresh pesto and leftover chicken with broth. What a yummy and super easy gourmet meal!