Polenta Stuffed Peppers

I got inspired by The Reduction Project's use of the Polenta Stuffing in Appetite for Reduction and decided to do a bit of the same. What can I say? I'm a sucker for anything with a bit of a Mexican flair. It's all of those years I spent living in South Florida and Texas that have changed my palette forever. Maybe that explains my love (lust?) for nachos. It really is kind of out of control how much I get excited over nachos. Though not the fake kind with that gross, bright yellow Teese nacho cheese. What is it what that stuff, anyway? I really wanted to like Teese, but their nacho cheese flavor just tastes like plastic. Yuck.

But I digress, back to Polenta Stuffing. I think this is a great way to use up leftover polenta if you have some. If not, just go buy one of those tubes of polenta from the grocery store. That's what I did. I actually think those polenta tubes are really well suited for stuffing. They're already quite firm and easy to slice and you don't have to do any polenta prep! Awesome!

Ideally, you'd probably want to use poblano peppers if you're going to stuff them like this. When I went to the market the poblanos were smallish and next to them were these amazing anaheim peppers so that's what I bought instead. Anaheim peppers will still work beautifully, but they do have a tiny bit of heat to them. Not even as much as a jalapeno, but you'll want to make sure you're wearing gloves when you cut and deseed them so you don't burn your fingers. I usually just wear my dish gloves.

Polenta Stuffing Stuffed Peppers

One recipe of Polenta Stuffing from Appetite for Reduction
6 large peppers (poblano or anaheim are probably best)
1 can of diced tomatoes (or use fresh ones if you want, it's just faster to use canned)
A handful or so of Daiya cheese, any flavor (I used pepperjack)

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

This is crazy easy. First, make your stuffing and set it aside. Wash your peppers. Give them a nice slice down the middle and a perpendicular slice at the top just near the stem to make a T. Carefully with a small knife, cut out the seeds and the white bits inside. You'll want to be gentle so you don't tear the peppers while you're doing it.

Now, depending on how you want to do this, you have a few options. You can steam the peppers for about 5 minutes before stuffing them or not. It all depends on how soft your pepper to be at the end of things. I just didn't really feel like adding another step to this so I didn't steam mine. Carefully spoon the stuffing inside of the peppers. One recipe of stuffing filled 6 peppers for me, but it'll depend on how large your peppers are. Just smash it inside of them, don't worry about keeping things loose and fluffy.

Now that your peppers are full of polenta stuffing, it's time to add the tomatoes. Spoon them on top of the peppers. I used the entire can for the 6 peppers. Sprinkle some Daiya cheese on top. I like the pepperjack flavor for this. I find with the Daiya, a little bit goes a long way, so you won't need much. Just add however much you like.

Cover your pan with foil and put it in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Let the peppers cool for at least 5 minutes before you start eating them.

Polenta Pumpkin Seed Bread

I'm on this bread-baking kick now that I understand what to do with a starter. It's all kind of exciting. That is so dorky of me, I know. I actually got up early this past Sunday morning all excited to start baking bread. I'm out of control.

Look, you can see the little pieces of polenta in the bread!

I made olive bread the weekend before and it was quite delicious. I especially like the way it smelled. Adding the lemon zest was definitely a good move. Adding lemon zest to most things that you'd want to add it to kicks it up a notch, though. I think it also makes things seem fancier or something.

The Tartine Bread book has so many great variations on a simple loaf of bread. I want to explore some of the ones in the book before I start getting experimental. That's partially because I want to really get a handle on this kind of bread before I start tweaking it. Each time I notice little things I could have done differently to make the bread just a bit better.

Every time I open Tartine Bread, the book falls open to the Polenta Bread page. I would have never considered making bread with polenta in it. I figured the universe or Cthulu or whatever was trying to tell me something so that's the kind I made this time. Holy hell was that a good move. Polenta adds such a great texture and so many more nuances of flavor to the bread. I highly recommend trying it. You add some boiling water to your polenta in a 2:1 ratio and let it sit there and soak up the water before you add it to your dough. Just be a bit more patient than I am. I was so excited for bread that when the polenta hadn't quite soaked up all of the water, I didn't wait a bit longer like I should have and just dumped the whole pot into the dough figuring it would all work out in the end.

It did work out, but not as well as it could have. Now my dough is a bit too wet. That made my end loaf a bit heavy and denser than I would have liked. Granted, this was also probably because I used an older starter this time, too. I wanted to see if I used a starter that had been fed a few days before instead of the night before or morning of, if the bread would taste a bit more sour. It didn't. I think using a newer starter would have given the bread a bit more lift and resulted in a lighter loaf. It was still delicious, though. James and I have been really enjoying having a slice of bread with our meals or having some toasted for breakfast. I am most definitely going to be making polenta bread again. The flavor is so unique; I love it.

The one loaf had a funny ridge pattern on it from the towel that was in the bowl it was rising in.

Polenta Napoleons

I guess a Napoleon is something that's all stacked up. I don't know, but it sounded like an appropriate name. Besides, these are sorta short and squat and I swear I saw a hand in a breast pocket. Yep, there it is. Polenta Napoleons it is.

Oh, these were soooo good. I mean seriously, folks, so freaking good. I was just trying to clean out the fridge and get rid of some leftovers so I just sorta piled a bunch of stuff together. I used up the tomatoes and roasted peppers after the first one of these that I made and I was so completely jonesing for more that I was eating just polenta with pesto on top. Holy crap. Leftovers rock my socks when they turn into awesomeness like this.

The tomatoes I had were locally grown and super duper delicious. I have not had such wonderful tomatoes in ages. That makes all the difference.

I like to buy the tubes of polenta from the market, slice them up and fry them with some potatoes for breakfast. It's already made and super easy to cook with. You can definitely make your own if you're so inclined, just make sure to make it pretty thick.

I'm typically of the opinion that if 2 garlic cloves are good, 4 would be better. Keep that in mind when you're making this. It can be totally free form and feel free to add as little or as much of the tomatoes, peppers and pesto as you want.


Polenta Napoleons

1/2 stick polenta (or make your own equal to about 2 cups)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 Cup water
2 Tablespoons margarine (like Earth Balance)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tomato, sliced with fat slices
a bunch of roasted red pepper (probably about 1-2 peppers worth)
1/4 - 1/2 Cup Pesto (I used the pesto recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance)

Do the roasted red pepper thing or just open the jar if you bought them already roasted.

Preheat your oven to 350F. Put your tomato slices on a cookie sheet and bake them for 10 minutes, flip them over and cook them for 5 more minutes.

Cut the polenta into little pieces and mash them up with a fork. Put them in a pot on the stove over medium heat along with the olive oil. Stir it up and let them get a little bit warmed up and then add the water and mash them some more until there aren't any huge polenta chunks left. Keep stirring pretty often so the polenta cooks evenly and doesn't get crunchy parts. Add the margarine and oregano and stir some more. (When I have polenta for dinner, I like it to be pretty buttery so you can leave out the Earth Balance if you don't want that.) It's like a party in that pan! Keep stirring and cook for about 10 minutes. Lower the heat a little bit if the polenta is cooking too fast.

Now for the fun part! Spoon about half of the polenta on a plate. Put a tomato slice on top. Slather about 2 tablespoons of pesto on top (or more if you're a crazy pesto lover like me). Add another tomato slice, then the red peppers. You can put a little dollop of pesto on top if you feel like giving Napoleon a hat. Besides - there is no such thing as too much pesto!

This will make 2-3 servings depending on how generous you're feeling. If you turn this into 3 servings, you'll probably want to make some veggies or something to go along with this.

Now you'll eat this and wish that you had more, so make sure that you have enough ingredients to make a second one or you'll be sad and no one wants tears in their polenta.