Polenta for dinner; polenta for dessert

Winter snowstorms make for a very lazy cook in me. Instead of planning ahead for meals I just use whatever happens to be in the cupboard. I do try to be creative rather than predictable (there are only so many tomato and pasta meals one can have in a row!) Tonight, I tackled the large container of cornmeal sitting on the right hand shelf. Here is the beauty of cornmeal:

It's easy. AND It can be used for breakfast, lunch or dinner (or dessert, as it turns out!)

I started with a basic polenta:

Ingredients:
3-4 cups of water
1 cup of polenta
a pinch of salt

Preparation:
Boil water in a pot. Slowly pour polenta into boiling water while stirring vigorously with a spoon. I say "vigorously" because the polenta tends to clump up otherwise forming blobby, gooey lumps filled with uncooked cornmeal. One can rectify this problem by blending with a handheld mixer (although I'd recommend not getting to the globby stage to begin with - I am speaking from experience...)

Meanwhile I made up an easy topping of sauteed diced potato, onion and bell pepper. After the potatoes had cooked through I plopped a bit of polenta on a plate, topped it with the veggies and grated on some fresh parmesan cheese. A little salt and pepper and that was that. Eh. It was good but not fabulously exciting.

Following the meal I felt like having something sweet. The polenta had been neatly packed up in the fridge and was primed for grilling. I thought it might go well with a little berry compote:

Ingredients:
1 cup frozen berries (raspberries and blueberries work nicely!)
5 tablespoons honey
Lemon juice

Preparation:
Add berries, honey and lemon juice to a small saucepan. Simmer for a few minutes.

I grilled up the leftover polenta on the George Foreman, poured on some berry compote and served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

YUM. The polenta was transformed.

Not bad considering I'd just had more-or-less the same thing for dinner.

Here's to the lazy cook in you!

~flutterbyblue
Image from www.quakeroats.com

p.s. Breakfast will likely consist of grilled polenta topped with maple syrup and berry compote. Another good way to use up those leftovers!