Polenta w/ Charred Vegetables

This is awesome comfort food, good for a cool, rainy summer day. Healthy too, if you use part-skim ricotta and no butter, and maintain a high vegetable-to-polenta balance.

The tomato oil was just to be fancy - you could replace it with some jarred tomato sauce, or add tomatoes to the vegetables, or go sans-tomato (I would recomend drizzling with a bit of balsamic in this case to increase the sweetness and acidity).




Ricotta Polenta with Charred Vegetables and Tomato Oil

2 cups corn meal
~6 cups water
2 cloves garlic, minced
~1 cup ricotta
- 2 tbs butter (optional)
~2 cups mixed vegetables, chopped (we used zucchini, broccoli, red pepper, and onion)
1/2 lemon or lime
2 big, ripe, tasty summer tomatoes, or two handfuls mini-tomatoes, chopped
~ 1/4 c olive oil

Make the polenta by stirring together the water, cornmeal, and garlic in a big pot. Boil on medium until it gets soft and smooth, stirring pretty often to keep it from clumping, and adding water if it gets hard to stir. Once it's done, stir in the ricotta and optional butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.

While the polenta cooks, whiz the tomatoes in a food processor with the olive oil. If you don;t have the necessary equipment for this step, replace the tomato oil with some tomato sauce, or cook the tomatoes along with the other vegetables.

Heat a bit of olive oil in a big pan on medium-high. If you're using broccoli or other slow-cooking vegetables (e.g. carrots, potatoes) steam them in the microwave for a minute or two until they're half-cooked. Toss all of the vegetables in the oil, then let them cook without stirring so that they get charred on one side. Stir and flip them, and then wait a few minutes again. Repeat until they're nicely browned on all sides and cooked through. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon/lime juice to taste.

Pour some tomato oil onto your place, add a lump of polenta, and pour the vegetables over top. Enjoy!