polenta Archives - Mamma's Cooking

Polenta, an easy holiday side dish

Instead of serving mashed potatoes at your holiday meal, why not try polenta? They are a creamy and delicious accompaniment to ham, turkey, roast beef or roast vegetables. The two different ways I make it, are much easier and less hands on than mashed potatoes. I make them in the slow cooker, using this recipe from About.com and it comes out perfect, every single time. It takes about 2-3 hours in the slow cooker, but is basically completely hands off.

Most often I make polenta by taking a huge shortcut, buying the already made tubes at Trader Joe’s. Here is my recipe to transform those tubes into an amazingly smooth and cheesy polenta.

Quick Polenta

Ingredients

2-18 ounce tubes of Trader Joe’s Polenta

3 Tablespoons of butter

1 cup of milk (I use either 2% or whole)

1/4 cup of mascarpone or cream cheese

3 sprigs of fresh thyme, chopped – optional

Directions

Take the polenta out of the tube and dice. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add butter and the diced polenta. Cover for about 2 minutes, then stir. Cook covered for another 3-6 minutes until the polenta is soft. Use a potato masher and mash the polenta. Add milk, mascarpone and herbs if using them. Mash everything together and stir until smooth. You can then keep it warm in your crock pot or if you have a warming burner, you can put it there covered and serve within an hour or so.

You can use this polenta as part of an easy meal this week. I like to serve it with sausage and peppers.

Keep your menu simple and hopefully you will have a less stressful holiday!

Here are some other holiday side dish ideas:

Twice Baked Potatoes, a perfect holiday side dish

Easy Thanksgiving Side Dish: My favorite! Acorn Squash

Quinoa Risotto

I guess Thanksgiving is coming soon?!

100th post! Sausage done!

I have spent some time thinking about how monumental this 100th post is and thanks to all of you it follows the most successful post I’ve had so far! If you have been reading this blog from the beginning or just started now, you can see that I love to entertain and cook comfort food, food from my childhood and newly discovered recipes (thank you Pinterest and other bloggers!). This is why I started the bucket list last year and have a new one this year.

I love to learn new techniques and recreate (or attempt to recreate) food from my past. My family is from South Africa, so I occasionally try traditional South African foods. My husband’s family is Swedish and we lived in the Scandinavian area of Seattle (Ya sure Ya Betcha Ballard!) for 8 years, so I try Scandinavian dishes from time to time. We live in Boston, so I try to add traditional New England dishes in. My family LOVES Asian food, so I also work that into our weekly repertoire. My husband lived in Mexico for a time, I have visited and certain Mexican inspired dishes are easy go to meals, so I cook them too. We are an international family, living in a world that is increasingly influenced by global trends and luckily foods! I don’t shop at specialty stores, because I don’t have the time. I shop at our local Hannafords (mostly) and Trader Joe’s, until the convenient farmer’s markets show up again 🙂 And yes, I do occasionally shop at Target when I’m there for other things because its convenient (for those in the Seattle area, I miss Fred Meyer!).

Here is where, if you don’t like meat, look away 🙂 I’ll write you a great post next week! There is a good polenta recipe below that is worth it though!

One of the first items on my bucket list for the year is making my own sausage. I can proudly say I did it!! I based mine on the recipe my Dad used to make boerwors, a South African farmer’s sausage. I used to enjoy making it with him. I did not enjoy the hand crank grinder and sausage maker, so my Kitchen Aid attachments made the work seem much lighter.

I went to Roxie’s in Quincy, MA (where my dad and I used to go) and got the natural casings and the meat. That place is no joke! I got there a couple minutes before it opened one Sunday morning and the line was already out the door! The meat prices are great and it is good quality, but wow! I would have thought a rock star was inside.

Ingredients
natural casings (hog casings work best)
ground beef (I ground my own chuck)
ground pork (I ground my own tenderloin)
lard (I couldn’t find lard, so used beef fat)
ground coriander
ground cloves
red wine vinegar
salt

I cut the meat up into 1 inch pieces and added all the spices and vinegar and then put it through the grinder.

I cooked a small patty of the sausage to check the flavor and it was good. Then I put the sausage maker attachment on the KitchenAid and put the casings on and started putting the meat through. It was much easier than I thought! Karina even helped.

I let it rest for 24 hours and we had a feast the next night! Next time I would use lard or pork fat which is softer and more of all the spices.

If you want more details on the amounts and process, feel free to email me, mammascooking@gmail.com.

The traditional boerwors sausage is grilled and served with “pap en sous” (corn porridge and a tomato and onion sauce). I made the rest of the meal easy and made polenta in the slow cooker (this is a good recipe, just add more salt and cheese as its a little bland) and served it some sauteed peppers, zucchini and onions, since I was out of tomatoes (canned or fresh).

Last night I baked the boerwors with sweet potato, potato and onion with a little red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and coriander. It was a hit.

Next month I am going to tackle souffle’s I think. Might be fun for Valentine’s Day.

Thank you to those who read my blog and give me inspirations! Woo hoo 100th post!

Spring is in the air, cook fast and get out of the kitchen!

Spring is in the air and we have been spending as much time as possible outside trying to enjoy it! (Sorry to those in Seattle who are dealing with snow!) While we are enjoying the outdoors, I let my slow cooker do the cooking and use some go to items for quick meals that can be made at the last minute.

I have been trying to find a delicious easy way to make polenta from scratch. I’ve bought the premade tubes and mashed them up with milk and butter, bought the quick cooking polenta, which are both good, but not as good as using corn meal and mixing it by hand for a long time. Today I had an epiphany — make it in the slow cooker! So I did. I just googled slow cooker and polenta and found this recipe. It worked great and was delicious!! I served it with some sausages and leftover roasted butternut squash. I had promised Karina she could have carrots and cottage cheese too before I remembered about the leftover squash, so she got both! and ate both! Win win 🙂

I took a couple of ladles full of the hot polenta and put it in a small square tupperware dish in the fridge to cool for about 15 minutes while I grilled the sausage and microwaved the squash. when the polenta was cool, I cut a Mickey Mouse shape out with a cookie cutter.

The boys didn’t eat too much tonight, a little overtired from all the outdoor fun, but they usually like it 🙂

Last night I made perogies, peas and shrimp, which only took about 10 minutes! This was a hit with 4 out of 5 of us. Neil didn’t eat much other than the peas 🙂 I try to keep frozen perogies and peas in the freezer, along with something like shrimp that can easily be thawed. I cooked the shrimp in a little olive oil and then once they were pink on a sides, added 1 clove minced garlic and some leftover honey mustard lemon vinaigrette. [Honey mustard lemon vinaigrette – olive oil, lemon juice, white balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, lemon pepper and sugar. I tossed a spinach salad with it over the weekend]

Coming up…cooking bucket lists and I’ve been doing some research on local CSAs and farmer’s markets!

Butternut squash and kale…I love the fall!

If you follow my facebook page you have seen me posting items about my slow cooker and kale experiments this week. You can click here to follow me on facebook 🙂

Fall is great for using butternut squash and kale (among other items I will highlight in future blogs). I tend to be a creature of habit and have basically been using butternut squash only for soup for the last few years. I decided to do something a little different this week and use it for other purposes, as a side dish with a meat and as part of a main course.

London Broil with Butternut Squash, Zucchini over Polenta

Approx. 1.5 lb London Broil (mine was frozen and about 1.8 lbs)
1 small to medium size butternut squash, cubed
1 zucchini cubed
2 small onions sliced
2 cups beef broth
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/8 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp sugar
pinch of sage
1-2 Tbsp Trader Joe’s Everyday Seasoning (mix of salt, coriander, paprika, mustard seed, black peppercorns, onion, garlic, chili pepper)
1 bay leaf

2 cups polenta
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups milk
1/4 cup parmesan

Add London Broil, squash, zucchini, onions to slow cooker. Then add liquids and spices. Mix together. Cook on low for 5-7 hours. About an hour before serving, make quick polenta. Bring chicken stock and milk to a slow boil and slowly add quick cooking polenta while whisking. When done, add parmesan and mix.

Serve with steak, squash + onions on top of polenta.

Tip: For the kids, take some of the polenta and put it in a small brownie pan. Cool + then cut into fun shapes using a cookie cutter. Karina and the boys love this! Easy for toddlers to pick up.

Kale and Basil Pesto with Roasted Butternut squash (Approx. 6 servings)
Based on this NY Times recipe.

About 1 1/2 pounds butternut squash, cubed.
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Lemon pepper
1 small bunch (about 1/2 pound) kale, center ribs removed
1 small bunch of fresh basil
1 box whole wheat penne

2 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1/4 – 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place squash on a baking sheet and toss with olive oil and season generously with salt and lemon pepper. Spread pieces into an even layer, making sure there is space between them. Roast, stirring squash pieces once or twice, until golden brown and tender, about 30-45 minutes.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil; have ready a bowl of ice water. Drop kale into boiling water and cook for 45 seconds. Use tongs or slotted spoon to transfer kale to ice water (slotted spoon worked better for me). Bring water in pot back to a boil, adding more if necessary so there is enough to cook pasta.

Drain kale well, then wrap tightly in a dry kitchen towel and squeeze thoroughly to remove any excess moisture. Roughly chop leaves. When water in pot comes back to a boil, cook pasta according to package directions.

In a food processor, pulse together kale, basil, garlic, salt, some lemon pepper and parmesan until mixture is smooth and salt has dissolved. With motor running, slowly drizzle in the oil until fully incorporated. Taste and add more salt and lemon pepper if necessary.

Drain pasta and reserving a little cooking water. Toss pasta with kale and basil pesto and some pasta cooking water if necessary to help it coat pasta. Add squash and mix. My 3 (almost 4 year old) mixed this for me and loved it as did my 16 month old boys. It was very messy, but they ate it all up.

I also made some kale chips, using this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/baked-kale-chips/detail.aspx, but I added some South African Smoke (a great spice blend from Trader Joe’s) and salt. My husband loved them. The kids thought they were leaves they could crush 🙂

I hope to have some more posts in the next couple of weeks about the wonderful local fall produce and what I’ve made with it!

Check out this weekly column I recently discovered (Thank you Sally!) for some great ideas for local fall foods: http://westford.patch.com/columns/cooking-with-sally.

Foodie with a toddler…

I have finally been carving out some time to cook! Most of it has been on the grill (no pots and pans!). I also am getting creative with my lunches and food throughout the day. Eating quickly and sometimes with one hand are preferable, but I want to eat fresh and healthy. Today I had a caprese salad, goldfish crackers and some blueberries. Definitely a meal worthy of a foodie with a toddler (hence the title) 🙂

Quick, little clean up, easy meals are important right now. Here’s what I’ve been cooking:

Grilled sirloin (salt, pepper), peas (frozen – made in microwave), grilled polenta cakes (premade polenta rolls, sliced, rubbed with olive oil and sprinkled with shredded parmesan, all topped with a dollop of sour cream and chopped chives. [modified version of recipe I saw on Seattle PI or Seattle Times online]. This is the adult version.

Here is the toddler version. Karina wasn’t too impressed. She loved the steak though!

This is what other members of may family had for dinner 🙂 The boys love their milk/formula!

Tonight I made some farfalle pasta with shrimp, balsamic grape tomatoes and feta. Make farfalle. Defrost frozen already cooked shrimp with tails off, squeeze fresh lemon juice over shrimp after you dry them off and salt and pepper. Cut tomatoes in half and cover in bowl with balsamic vinegar (looks prettier with white balsamic – cheap at Trader Joes) and whatever fresh herbs you have on hand. I used basil and rosemary. Toss all together with some crumbled feta. Yum! In the past I’ve added steamed broccoli and used leftover salmon instead of shrimp.

Very good and very easy. Nice for a summer’s evening with a glass of Riesling.

I keep frozen hamburger patties and hotdogs on hand so that we can grill up a quick summer favorite when we don’t have anything else. Add a salad and its a great summer meal.

I also grilled some pizzas the other night. See link for past grilled pizza recipes. This is not relaxing and was definitely pushing the boundaries of what I’m capable of and only worked because the twins decided to sleep from 5pm to 10pm. I made my regular mozzarella with sauce and basil on Trader Joe’s wheat dough. Then I made a bbq chicken pizza. In an effort for effortless cooking, we often buy the already roasted chickens at Fred Meyer and had about 1/3 of the chicken left. I shredded the chicken and mixed it with a smokey bbq sauce, molasses, honey and some brown sugar, saving some of the sauce to spread on the dough. I caramelized a shallot and sliced up the mozzarella (maybe next time I would use goat cheese). Here is the recipe I was inspired by.

Now I really should go to sleep (especially since all three kids are sleeping – which is rare!).

Too pregnant to cook…

Time is now not the only problem, I can’t stand for long enough to cook a meal. I’m almost at the 33 week mark with twins, so my husband has been doing all the cooking now. Here is what we’ve been eating, which are good suggestions for anyone who doesn’t have time and also those who don’t like to cook:

Fish sticks and sweet potato fries (Frozen fish sticks + fries from Trader Joes that all you have to do is turn on the oven, put them on a baking sheet, put them in the oven)

Whole wheat pizzas with artichokes (Trader Joe’s whole wheat pizza dough – take out about 20 minutes before you want to use it, like right when you walk in the door. Roll it out with a little flour to keep it from sticking, throw some jarred sauce on there, mozzarella and then cut up some jarred marinated artichokes – or roasted red peppers – follow the directions on the dough for length of cooking. When done, just sprinkle some salt and pepper to your taste.)

Pesto Tortellini with Italian sausage (Some nice friends brought us some food to make this easy meal yesterday. Boil water and cook tortellini, when done toss with pesto sauce. Take the already cooked Italian sausage and just chop and heat in skillet, toss on the pasta, sprinkle with parmesan and you have a delicious meal!)

Sausage and Perogies (Similar to the meal above, you can mix it up by buying different types of already cooked sausage and the carb. Boil water, drop in Perogies, when done, plate with cooked sausage + steamed frozen peas or another frozen veggie).

Steak, polenta (Use a tube of already cooked polenta – cut it up, add it to a pot with about 2 Tbsp melted butter and about a cup and a half to 2 cups of milk (or I use fat free half and half). Mix with potato masher as it heats over medium heat until smooth, add more milk if you want it smoother. When done add a handful of parmesan + a Tbsp of fresh herbs (optional). Put salt, pepper and whatever herbs you like on steak. We often add coriander. Grill, saute, or cook it however is easiest for you. For a veggie we often use Trader Joe’s soycatash – mixture of corn, red pepper and edamame).

Chicken quesadillas (Buy a rotisserie chicken, take some meat off, put it in a whole wheat tortilla with some shredded cheddar, black beans – from a can, if we have them – then put in a toaster oven until done. Top with salsa + some sour cream).

Being pregnant and having to eat all the time, I often eat some of the chicken and some cheddar for a snack. Without me cooking, we don’t really have leftovers anymore, so end up ordering take out at least once a week and bring canned soup or frozen meals like Lean Pockets to work for lunch.

I don’t know when I’ll cook again, but hopefully soon. I cannot wait to get back into my kitchen!

Holiday eating…

With all the food, shopping, and rushing around it can be hard to make sure the little ones get the nutritious food they need. I’ve been buying more and more prepared food. Earth’s best makes frozen whole wheat waffles (I found them at Ballard Market). I’ve been giving those to Karina for breakfast made in the toaster oven with peanut butter (or almond butter – found cheapest in the organic section of Fred Meyer, still more expensive than peanut butter though) and then some cut up banana. Easy and fast.

She has been shunning meat these past couple of weeks. Maybe the turkey leg was too much 🙂 The only meat she seems to eat are sausages. So I’ve been buying some chicken sausages and turkey sausages. Karina has really taken to polenta. I buy the already made polenta in tubes that you can by in the grocery store. I chop it up, put it in a saucepan with some milk (keep adding until its the consistency you want), a little butter and then a handful of shredded parmesan. On a bath night, I put some of the polenta on the tray with some shredded beef mixed in and started scooping it up with a spoon! Of course some of it was thrown on the floor and walls, but she ate it.

Using frozen vegetables is such a timesaver! Especially in the morning when we are putting Karina’s lunch together to bring to childcare. While she’s eating breakfast, I just put some frozen lima beans in a bowl, cover them with water and microwave for 2 minutes. Include that with some whole wheat toast, leftover chicken or sausage and you have lunch! For snacks I’ve discovered the Safeway Organics vegetable crackers (in the baby section), which Karina loves. Those along with a cheese stick and some cut up apple or grapes and snacks are all set.

I’ve been giving Karina tastes of other foods when we go out or are at a party. She loves to taste the different kinds of cheese (especially brie), loves olives and even pickles! Giving her different tastes and texture hopefully will open her palate to eating a wide variety of foods. It seems to go in waves – what she will eat and what she won’t, so if your little one isn’t eating something, keep trying, they may eventually decide they like it. Happy Holidays!