Cheesy Polenta with a Sausage, Tomato, and Spinach Topping

This is an easy meal to put together--and it's great comfort food. Cheesy gooey polenta topped with italian sausage, spinach, and burst grape tomatoes. Yum. I got the idea from watching Michael Chiarello make a polenta "lasagna"--I just took out half the work.

CHEESY POLENTA WITH SAUSAGE AND SPINACH

Serves 8 normal people, or 4 ridiculous ones

I actually took a photo of the ingredients I used.

There they are. Oh, except I left out the cheese. It's off to the side--can you see the top of a plastic ziptop bag? Yeah, that's it.

Sauce
1 lb hot bulk italian sausage (obviously you can leave this out and make it vegetarian)
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 pints grape tomatoes
1/3 cup dry white wine
Zest from 1 lemon
1 bag baby spinach
Pinch cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper, to taste

Start by heating a little olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add in the sausage and break it up with a wooden spoon. Leave it alone for a little bit so the sausage can get nice and crusty and well-browned.

Sausage. Mmm.

 Once all the sausage is cooked through, remove it from the pan and let the sausage drain on some paper towels. You may want to drain off some of the excess fat as well-you only need a tablespoon or two for the veggies.
Return the pan to medium heat and add in the onion. Let the onions soften for a few minutes, then add in the tomatoes. Season with a little salt and pepper.

Anywhoo once the tomatoes start to pop a little bit, add in the garlic, lemon zest, and white wine. Let the wine reduce a bit, then start adding in the spinach.

Season with a little more salt and pepper, and add in some cayenne pepper if you want to. Once all the spinach is added in, let it simmer just to get all of the spinach wilted, then turn the heat to the lowest setting. It's usually labeled "Low."

Polenta
1 cup corn meal
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (or vegetable stock, or water)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
About 3/4 cup shredded cheese (I've used cheddar, mozzarella, monterey jack...whatever you like)
1/3 cup milk or heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Heat the chicken stock with the salt in a pot over medium-high heat. Once it's boiling, start slowly whisking in the polenta. You must add it in while whisking at the same time, otherwise it gets lumpy. Keep whisking for a little bit while the mixture starts to thicken--this will only take a couple of minutes. Once it's thickened, add in the milk/heavy cream, butter, pepper, cheese of your choice, and the parmesan cheese. Whisk all of this into the polenta until it's nice and creamy. Taste for seasonings, and if it's good, pour it into a nice baking dish. Then pour the sausage mixture on top. Then take some nice fresh basil leaves and tear them up, then scatter them over the top. And maybe some extra parmesan cheese will look nice too.

Now it's ready to eat. I served it alongside a nice bag of salad, because I am lazy.

Roast Chicken with Macerated Tomatoes

I have a lot of free time this evening, so why not keep going for a little bit? Here's a meal I put together this past Sunday, drawing inspiration from a fabulous dinner I had in NYC last summer. We also had a huge amount of basil in the fridge that needed to be used, as well as an abnormal amount of cherry tomatoes sitting around.

ROAST CHICKEN WITH MACERATED TOMATOES

I'm actually kind of proud of this photo. It looks semi-professional.

1 whole 3-4 lb chicken
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup kosher salt
8 cups cold water

In a very large bowl combine the salt, sugar and water. Stir to dissolve. Remove all of the guts stuff from the chicken cavity and discard. Place the chicken in the salt and sugar bath and let it brine for at least 1 hour, but no more than 2 hours. Remove the chicken, discard the brining liquid, rinse the chicken thoroughly with cold water, then pat dry.

For the tomatoes:

1 pint yellow cherry tomatoes, halved
2 pints red cherry tomatoes, halved
A large handful of basil leaves, torn or chiffonaded or chopped or whatever
Zest from 1 lemon
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Pinch of sugar

Combine everything in a bowl and let it sit for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
In a bowl, combine 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil with about 2-3 tablespoons softened butter. Stir together until you have a nice viscous liquid, then add in 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Set aside.
The chicken needs to be butterflied. To do that, you just need to take a pair of kitchen shears and cut out the backbone, then use the palm of your hand to flatten the breast bone on the other side. Tuck the wings underneath the breasts so the chicken can cook evenly. Place the butterflied chicken on a sheet pan and cover with the oil-butter mixture, making sure to get some of it underneath the skin. Wash your hands and then sprinkle some cracked black pepper over the top of the chicken. Place in the oven and roast for 1 hour, or until the thigh registers 165 degrees F.
Once the chicken is done, pull it out and let it rest for at least 15 minutes to let the juices redistribute. I then quartered it, put it on a platter, and artfully dumped the tomatoes on top.

Now you could probably eat it just like that, but I wanted to do something special on the side: sweet onion marmalade. This is a recipe I adapted from Jamie Oliver's Chili Pepper Chutney--I just left out the peppers and adjusted the seasonings accordingly.

1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil
3 onions, thinly sliced (you can do red or white)
1 bay leaf
1 rosemary sprig
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon brown sugar

Melt the butter and oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add in the onions and let them soften for about 5 minutes, then add in the bay leaf, cinnamon stick, and rosemary sprig. Season with salt and pepper and let the onions cook for about 20 minutes--you want them really soft but not caramelized:

Once they are nice and soft add in the red pepper, balsamic vinegar and brown sugar. They will now look like this:

Adjust the heat to medium-low and cook for 40 minutes to 1 hour, until the onions have attained a thick, jam-like consistency. Check for seasonings, then serve alongside the chicken and tomatoes. I put some of this on the chicken first, then topped with the tomatoes. Mmmm. I also served some nice garlic toasts with this meal to sop up all the tomato juices.

Cold Peanut Noodles

This has become a staple side dish in our family. They are so insanely addictive, plus incredibly easy to make. An additional plus is the fact they can sit at room temperature for hours, making them perfect to bring to work.
The original recipe can be found in Tyler Florence's Eat This Book--I've just tweaked it here and there.

COLD PEANUT NOODLES

(note: This is not my photo. You'll notice it looks alarmingly professional. Here's the link to the photo I used.)

1/2 pound spaghetti noodles (plain or wheat is fine--I actually like wheat better for this recipe)
Toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons canola/vegetable/peanut oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2-inch piece ginger, peeled and minced
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons sriracha chile sauce, or 1 teaspoon chile-garlic sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup hot water
Garnishes: Extra fresh scallions, chopped cilantro, sesame seeds

In a large pot of boiling unsalted water, cook the noodles until al dente. Drain, rinse with cold water, then drain again. Transfer the noodles to a large bowl and toss with a couple of teaspoons of sesame oil.
In a wok or saute pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add in the garlic, ginger, scallions, and chile sauce. Stir until fragrant (about 30 seconds or so), then add in the soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and peanut butter. Stir to soften the peanut butter, then add in the hot water. Stir until you have a nice creamy sauce, then shut the heat off. Add the noodles into the wok, stir to coat, then put the noodles back in their bowl. Garnish with cilantro, more scallions, and sesame seeds.

For the ladies I work with

This has been created because I am way too lazy to actually create recipe booklets for you all. Instead I'm going to post my recipes here, and with stunningly amateurish photos.  You are going to admire my efforts to take good photos, but deem all the attempts mediocre at best.
Without further ado, here is a recipe that has at least garnered me at least 7 new friends over the years. I don't know, maybe it's 8. It's the cracked out sesame chicken. The original recipe came from a Colorado Collage cookbook, but has been mutated so thoroughly over the years I can safely call it my own.

SESAME CHICKEN

For the sauce:
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
3(ish?) tablespoons dry sherry

Mix all of these ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Chicken:
1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, diced into large chunks
2-3 teaspoons soy sauce
2-3 teaspoons dry sherry
A couple of shots of toasted sesame oil

Combine the chicken with the soy sauce, the sherry and the sesame oil and let marinate for at least 45 minutes.

Coating and frying:

2 egg whites, beaten until just starting to foam
Add the beaten egg whites to the marinated chicken and stir to coat.
Using either a wok or a large deep saute pan, heat approximately 2 cups canola oil over medium high heat.
Get yourself a nice shallow pie dish, and dump in roughly 1/3 cup cornstarch to 1 cup panko crumbs. I never measure this so those figures were completely pulled out of thin air. You do want to keep the ratio of this mixture roughly even as you fry the chicken.

Working in small batches, coat the chicken in the cornstarch-panko mixture and fry until nicely golden brown. I recommend having a large baking dish lined with paper towels next to the wok so you can leave your cooked chicken there to drain while you're frying the rest. Once you're done with frying the chicken, drain all but a couple of teaspoons of the oil and reduce the heat to medium-low. Add in:

6-8 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
3 teaspoons sriracha chile sauce

Saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Then add in the reserved sauce and increase the heat to medium. Once the sauce starts to boil, take a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch and mix it with an equal amount of water. Whisk in the cornstarch mixture as the sauce is boiling. This will give you that deliciously thick and gloppy texture that lets everyone know this sauce is horrible for them but they won't be able to stop eating it.
Once the sauce is thickened add the chicken back in and toss to coat. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and maybe some chopped scallions if you feel like it. Serve with rice.
Note: Lately I've been grating ginger in to the sauce, which has been a delicious addition.