Monday, December 24, 2007

Polenta in the slow cooker


I had a potentially great idea that turned out to be not so great. Had I taken a minute to type my idea into google I would have found lots of recipes on how to do it right but...oh well. I wanted to try polenta in the slow cooker. I've been using an oven method that I found in a cookbook but it takes an hour and I wanted to come home and find the polenta done. I think it would have worked if I'd used the low setting instead of high and had sprayed the cooker with oil. (I should mention that I have a really OLD slow cooker inherited long ago from a friend. The new ones probably have more accurate settings.)

Anyway, I used one cup of polenta and four cups of water. I had a lot of usable polenta for dinner, I really did. And it tasted okay but slightly weird in some undefinable way. And after several days of soaking, I got the cooker clean so it wasn't a total bust. I stir-fried veggies and tempeh and added some leftover pasta sauce (we ALWAYS have leftover pasta sauce) for the topping and it was a satisfying meal. Polenta is still one of my favorite fast foods and I will address it some time soon and provide recipes. Just looking at the picture makes me want some.