Camp Vegetable Polenta
I’m down for eating healthy. I’d be lying if I said I don’t need to. My roundness would be my Pinocchio nose if I was. I would eat a wonderful salad, or a hipster-tastic ancient grain bowl filled with all the millennial healthy buzz words and the latest of alternative ingredients, only to dig for snacks no more than half an hour later. I like to have a stick-to-my-ribs type of meal.
No, I need stick-to-my-ribs type of meals.
I’m talking about the meals that make you audibly smile. The meals that hit a mysterious spot that needed to be dirtily felt up. The meals that reach deep down and satiate the very core of your soul. Those meals are hard to come by, but damn do I try.
This dish has a little bit of everything. It’s saucy. It’s savory. It’s sweet. It’s tangy. And it has loads of umami covered vegetables which are rounded off with a good helping of creamy polenta for that stick-to-the-bones factor.
INGREDIENTS:
SERVES 2-4
Prep time: 10 min
Cooking time: 25 min
1 cup cornmeal
4 cups of water
2 zucchinis
2 yellow squash
4 campari tomatoes, or 8-10 cherry tomatoes
8-10 mushrooms
4 cloves of garlic
1⁄2 an red onion
2 tbsp of sun-dried tomatoes
1 cup whole milk
Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Parmesan cheese
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
2 tbsp salted butter (because it's more useful while camping than unsalted)
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil
Directions:
Start by cutting the zucchini, squash, tomatoes, and mushrooms into small 1x1inch cubes. Doesn’t have to be exact. A rough chop will do wonderfully! Chop onions and garlic. Set aside.
Time to prepare the polenta. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil with olive oil. Once the water is boiling, turn down heat to a simmer and add in the cornmeal, milk, cheese, and butter. Constantly stir as you pour in each ingredient. This prevents any clumping of the corn meal and also prevents any kind of burning at the bottom of your pot. Salt to taste.
In a skillet or frying pan, add oil and bring the pan up to heat. Once the oil starts shimmering, add in the onions. Saute until soft and translucent. Add in the garlic. Saute until there’s a little browning to the edges. Add in mushrooms. Saute until the mushrooms have shrunken from releasing its water content. Add tomatoes and saute until they start to break apart. In the zucchini, squash, sun dried tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar. Turn down the heat to a simmer and cover the pan for 10 minutes. After ten minutes, turn up the heat and uncover to let the liquids/sauce thicken. Salt and pepper to taste.
Plate the polenta, and spoon over the vegetable mixture. Enjoy the flavor explosion. Note: Replace milk, cheese, and butter for alternatives to make this dish vegan.
Whenever I introduce people to Vietnamese food, I always tell them that a majority of Vietnamese food is basically a cooked something that turns into a salad wrap. Anything that’s typically fried are traditionally enjoyed by wrapping said fried thing into a piece of lettuce, herbs, and dipped in nước chấm, or a sweet fish sauce based dipping sauce. The Vietnamese love the yin and yang play of textures, and flavors. If there’s something fried, it has to be accompanied by something fresh. This style of cuisine keeps the person eating from getting overly fatigued from eating the same dish.