Let’s make dinner. The kind of dinner that warms the home with the oven, quiets the gentle with a skillet to often stir on the stovetop, and ready in simply sufficient time to have a glass of wine and empty the dishwasher whereas dinner warms and simmers. This excellent quiet weeknight dish is straightforward baked polenta with a easy burst tomato sauce. Cozy on up!
Pals, hello! It’s the time of 12 months I rediscover all of the sweaters I’ve had tucked away for many of the 12 months. I may barely look a protracted sleeve shirt within the face this summer season however I’ve fluffed this cutie orange sweater out of the forgotten backside dresser drawer and I lastly really feel able to someway gather the leaves which have fallen within the yard. I’ll most likely name somebody for that tbh however, the sweater has me feeling cozy.
This week we’re bringing again what I assumed was a protracted forgotten recipe right here on Pleasure the Baker. Baked polenta with a easy tomato topping – a weblog submit recipe that dates again to 2013. Just a few months in the past I began to purge a number of the very previous, much less visited recipes on the location to lighten the load. I deleted the baked polenta recipe actually, with no second thought and inside every week I had SEVERAL emails in my inbox on the lookout for the recipe.
Okay so – y’all wished that recipe! Heard. Right here’s an up to date model of this simple, very creamy polenta. It’s topped with a easy selfmade tomato sauce that can also be a superb place so as to add Italian sausage or a terrific place to cover any languishing veggies.
Make this cozy dinner precisely what you need it to be. It’s a principally arms off meal that’s excellent to set on as you’re ending the remainder of the day’s duties (in our cozy sweaters, in fact). I’ll be sure you ask you earlier than I am going deleting any extra recipes.
Listed here are the components you’ll have to make this baked polenta dinner:
• polenta which is actually a rough cornmeal that bakes up right into a creamy porridge
• unsalted butter
• water
• heavy cream although milk can also be a terrific possibility if that’s what you might have readily available
• parmesan cheese, shredded or grated – no matter you favor
• cherry tomatoes which all the time appear to be in season and prepare dinner all the way down to jammy and scrumptious
• tomato puree (not paste – that might be fairly thick)
• garlic and pink pepper flakes
• salt and pepper
• a splash of pink wine and a glass for you
• dried oregano and contemporary basil
Begin by buttering a sq. baking dish. Add water and stir within the polenta. Now, shimmy the entire pan to a sizzling oven. The water will need to slosh round however do your greatest to maintain it from spilling over. Set it, and overlook it. The polenta will slowly warmth and take in the water.
Whereas the polenta slowly bakes to thick, make the tomato sauce. In a sizzling pan, add olive oil and complete cherry tomatoes. Let the tomatoes burst earlier than including tomato puree, a splash of pink wine, salt, pepper and oregano. It’s a quite simple sauce. In case you wished so as to add some Italian sausage or sautéed mushrooms, there’s a great deal of methods to bulk up the sauce particularly with any leftover veggies crying for assist in the fridge.
When the polenta has principally thickened, take away it from the oven and stir in butter, cream, and parmesan cheese. The good things as a result of fats will add taste and richness to this simple oven polenta. Simply look how mushy and spoonable! So dang cozy, proper?
Spoon heat tomato sauce over the mushy polenta. High with extra parmesan cheese, an excellent grind of black pepper, and perhaps a glug of fine olive oil. The type our Auntie Ina would use. I prefer to tear contemporary basil over the bowl however that’s a fanciness that doesn’t have to fulfill each bowl.
That is simply a type of cozy weeknight dinner that additionally makes fantastic lunch leftovers the subsequent day.
Be properly. Be cozy! Depart any questions and opinions within the feedback under! xo
Baked Polenta with Burst Tomatoes
Prep Time: quarter-hour
Prepare dinner Time: 1 hour
Whole Time: about an hour
Yield: Serves 4
Class: dinner
Methodology: baking
Description
A comfortable weeknight dinner that’s simply adaptable. Add veggie or meat sausage. Sprinkle with contemporary contemporary basil and luxuriate in curled up on the sofa.
Elements
Scale
For the Polenta:
For the Tomatoes:
Directions
- Place racks within the higher third and center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 levels F.
- Grease a 9×9-inch sq. baking pan generously with butter. Gently stir water, cornmeal, and salt immediately within the greased pan. Rigorously place the pan within the center rack of the oven, hopefully with out sloshing any water out of the pan. We’ll bake the polenta for 45 minutes. Take away from the oven and stir within the butter, cream, and parmesan cheese. Bake one other quarter-hour, or till the highest is dry and doesn’t jiggle a lot.
- Whereas the polenta bakes, we’ll deliver collectively the tomatoes. In a medium skillet over medium warmth add contemporary tomatoes (complete is okay) and olive oil. Sometimes stir the tomatoes across the pan till they start to burst over the subsequent quarter-hour. Use a wood spoon to stir and smash the tomatoes. After the tomatoes are tender and smashed, add the garlic and pink pepper flakes and prepare dinner for an additional 2 minutes or so.
- Season with a beneficiant pinch of salt. Add the tomato puree, a splash of wine (should you’d like), and oregano. Simmer gently till the polenta comes out of the oven. A couple of minutes earlier than serving, stir in a couple of contemporary basil leaves, torn.
- To serve, spoon polenta into shallow bowls. Spoon tomato sauce on prime. High with extra parmesan cheese and extra basil, should you’d like.
Key phrases: simple weeknight dinner, polenta, tomatoes, dinner recipe,
