Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Polenta

We don't make polenta all that often, maybe once a month, maybe less.  It's easy to make, but it's time consuming and you have to stir it every couple of minutes.

I can't recall if I've ever made grits, but I don't think it is quite so needy.  Maybe it is.

A good thing about polenta is that 1 cup of cornmeal makes a lot, enough for several meals for the two of us.  It re-heats very nicely in the microwave or you can make it into little patties as fry it up in some olive oil or (even better!) ghee.

Here's my recipe.  It's probably the same as everyone else's:

  1. Boil 6 cups of water.  I use an evasee pan, but a standard sauce pan would work almost as well.  You can use 5 cups if you want a thicker product and you can always add more water while cooking if it gets too thick.
  2. Slowly stir in 1 cup of corn meal
  3. Simmer 45 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes to get the stuff off the bottom and sides
  4. When done, stir in some cheese (we usually use Romano.  Parmesan is good, too - see Rule #6!)) or butter.
  5. Serve

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

First CSA Box of the Season

We had an email from our CSA, Springdale Farm, about a month ago telling us that because of the lousy spring we've had, our first box won't be available until about the third week of June.  That's not all that late, but we always are looking forward to the first box of the year with eager anticipation.

Today I got an email from them saying that they have lots of lettuce & spinach available, and will make the first delivery this Friday!  Apparently the spring wasn't as bad on the farm as they thought it would be.

Saturday also marks the start of the first Farmers' Market of the season in Wauwatosa.

It's a great time of year to cook.

Here is a good article on Wisconsin Spirits in NYC in today's New York Times.  "Little Wisco!"