Polenta

After early successes cooking on Mondays, I had a problem last time. Do you want to read about it? No? Okay, here's what happened. 

My Monday night meal the week before Thanksgiving was polenta and spinach lasagna. It called for layers of cooked corn polenta instead of lasagna noodles, then the usual ricotta, spinach, cheese and marinara sauce. This was the NY Times photo with the recipe.

Comments on the site said so many people loved how easy this was and how they could alter fillings as you can with any lasagna, but the cornmeal polenta base was a delightful change. That sounded good. 

Reader, there were issues. Problems with the polenta.

I could not find ground polenta meal anywhere, and I went to three stores. All carried it but were out. These ongoing shortages of random odd things is wearing.

All I could find was tubed polenta -- pre-made and sold in a plastic sleeve. 

You slice it like pre-made cookie dough and bake the circles. In order to spread it out to form lasagna layers I had to chop it up, simmer it in broth and milk to break down the cubes, and whisk it really well to re-constitute the smooth, spreadable polenta the recipe called for.

I did that, and it failed. It was supposed to be spread a half inch thick on a baking sheet, then cooled, then cut and lifted as a sheet into the lasagna pan for assembly. Mine was way too thin and when I tried to lift it out to transfer to the lasagna pan for assembly, it tore.

Do those lumpy crumbles look like the base for layering lasagna onto? They do not. And there was no way the second layer would lift out either. And honestly, they were rubbery. Rubbery.

So I started over and sliced up a second tubed polenta and layered disks directly into the lasagna dish like scalloped potatoes.

Okay, I was now way off-recipe, on my own. 

Do I bake the scalloped disks first before layering the spinach, cheeses and marinara? Will the polenta soften and the disk pieces blend? Parmesan was supposed to be incorporated into the polenta as it cooked, could I just sprinkle it over the disks? What do I do?

In the end I just placed all ingredients randomly into a baking dish, covered the mess with sauce and cheese and called it cornmeal casserole. It burned.

It was good. You can't go wrong with marinara (Newman's Own), mozzarella, parmesan and ricotta. The polenta disks held things together but added no flavor or texture. The baby spinach disappeared under the cheeses.

Jim had seconds.

I was out of my depth on this meal. Let's scale it back for next Monday, okay?