Pumpkin Polenta Recipe with Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa

Vegetarian pumpkin polenta with salsa fresco.

The first gifts of Fall have arrived. Time to dig out the Crock Pot and your favorite flannel shirt. If you can find it, that is. It's got to be around here somewhere, right? You used it wore it to death last year. Or was that the year before?

The harvest moon is playing tricks with your memory again. The crows outside in the oak trees caw like the crows in tomorrow's dream. Days turn into weeks and lunch turns into next month's breakfast. Hours spill through worm holes of time like so many episodes of Lost. And the Buddha imagines the universe.

And gets it close to right.

We're talking atoms, people. Particles of teeny tiny specks of even tinier teenier fragments of a single point of something so small the naked eye perceives it as invisible. Yet the Buddha perceived this. In 528 BC.

I ponder this as I walk in a stream of brittle bronze oak leaves.

The succession of days that adds up to a life is only a blink. The moment when you started reading this sentence is already the past. You think about this stuff as you get older. When you squint into your future you see a shorter slope than the path that winds behind you. It can cause a slippery sense of vertigo. A tipping sideways melancholy that infuses every lost opportunity with meaning, bittersweet.

I remember a West Hollywood walk to the market past ninety-pound skateboarders and a gaggle of thin actors smoking outside the Lee Strasberg Institute. I think about the Russian speaking men with impossibly sad eyes brushing past me, their impeccably groomed wheat-blonde wives carrying shopping bags of kale. I smile at the memory of my brown-eyed neighbor sitting on his front wall listening to Miles Davis on a transistor radio.  

Great music, I tell him, feeling myself altering my cadence to the beat. It's JAZZ, Baby! he shouts, laughing as I pass by. I feel his joy in my chest. And I know he is exactly right. This whole life thing? This whole circuitous method of survival called living?

It's jazz, Baby.

And you just gotta go with it.


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Santa Fe Huevos on Polenta aka Eggs Ranchero

Santa Fe Huevos on Polenta Recipe aka Eggs Ranchero

Huevos rancheros- a traditional Tex-Mex recipe featuring fried eggs, refried beans and salsa on top of warm corn tortillas- is a delicious brunch recipe, no doubt. But I decided to change up tradition. Just because.

Using a roll of pre-made polenta makes this a perfect weeknight supper or a quick and easy Sunday brunch. For the more ambitious cooks out there, stirring polenta from scratch isn't hard, it just requires a little patience. Kinda like motherhood. And meditation. And selling a house. For how to make make polenta from scratch see below.

Ingredients:

1 18-oz roll pre-made polenta, sliced

1 cup cooked black beans (rinsed canned beans are fine)

1 14-oz can Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes with Green Chiles

1/2 cup tomato sauce or your favorite salsa

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 small red onion, diced

1 smallish zucchini, chopped or diced

1 small red, yellow or green bell pepper, cored, seeded, diced

2 tablespoons chopped jalapenos or roasted green chiles

1/2 teaspoon each: cumin, chili powder, oregano or cilantro

2-3 ounces goat cheese, or feta sheep cheese, cubed

4 large organic free-range eggs

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

Chopped fresh cilantro or parsley, for garnish

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Lay the polenta slices in an oiled 8 x 8-inch baking pan or a 9-inch glass pie plate. I used an oven-safe skillet.

In a bowl combine the beans, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, garlic, onion, zucchini, bell pepper, jalapenos, and spices. Spoon this mixture over the sliced polenta and place the pan in the pre-heated oven.

Bake for twenty minutes until hot and bubbling.

When the polenta is bubbling and almost cooked, scatter the cubed feta or goat cheese over it; and continue to bake while you...

Fry the eggs.

Remove the polenta from the oven. Lay the cooked eggs on top of the polenta. Season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Sprinkle with chopped fresh cilantro or parsley, if desired.

Serves four.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

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How to make polenta from scratch:

You'll need:

1 cup gluten-free corn grits polenta
4 1/2 cups light broth
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

You can also add chopped fresh herbs or grated cheese or non-dairy cheese, if desired.

In a large heavy-bottomed pot, bring the broth to a high simmer and pour the cornmeal into the simmering broth in an even, steady stream, whisking as you go. Keep stirring. When the polenta has thickened and is pulling away from the sides of the pot a bit, add in herbs or shredded cheese and season with sea salt and pepper, to taste. This takes about 20 minutes, or so. Remove the pot from the heat.

If you make your polenta ahead of time, you have the option of spooning it evenly into a pie plate or cake pan and letting it cool. This makes a firm polenta you can later slice into wedges, brush with olive oil, and broil.

More fabulous egg recipes for Spring from favorite food bloggers:

Southwestern Egg Casserole from Kalyn's Kitchen
Chorizo and Eggs from Elise at Simple Recipes
Best Basic Deviled Eggs from Nicole at Pinch My Salt
Huevos alla Amy at Cooking with Amy
Fried Eggs and Collard Greens Over Polenta at The Kitchn
How to Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs from Elise at Simple Recipes

Note: As always check ingredients and product labels for 100% gluten-free status- especially with cornmeal and polenta.

 

Gluten-Free Pear Polenta Muffins

Tender and sweet pear polenta muffins.

Ripe juicy pears and a polenta flour base make this new muffin recipe an instant favorite. I'll mention right off the bat- it's not low carb. It uses a moderate amount of sugar and some rice flour with organic corn meal. But if you're pining for a gluten-free vegan muffin recipe that you will absolutely love and devour with relish and lick your fingers and say softly (in your best Lauren Bacall voice), You know those pear muffins you got over there, Steve? You wanna toss me another?

These are it.

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Ratatouille On Broiled Polenta with Baby Greens

My ratatouille recipe is more postmodern than traditional. But that's why you come here, right? Back in the day when your intrepid GFG was way more geek than goddess (read more high school nostalgia here) ratatouille was one of those popular vegetarian recipes every fledgling Molly Katzen inspired veg-head was stirring up.

It was ubiquitous.

So when the craze for it hit blogs last year (due to a certain animated movie) I was unmoved to jump on the ratty aubergine bandwagon. To me it was so, I don't know. Retro? Old school? Ho-hum?

But wait.

Retro can be fun.

And what do I have against eggplant? Um. Nothing.

Flash forward to New Mexico, February 2008. Ratatouille simmers in a thick iron skillet. Tasty goodness ensues.

And by the way- the aforementioned film? It's nominated for five Oscars. Stay tuned tonight.

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Spicy Eggs Diablo on Polenta

Spicy eggs on polenta aka Huevos Diablo (or Diavolo)

I've been a tad busy behind the scenes here at Gluten-Free Goddess®. A little cooking, yes. Now that I can stand for longer and longer periods of time and not topple over. And no, I haven't been drinking. Well, just a little red wine with dinner, of course.

No, I'm afraid it's not an intoxication issue at all, it's the whole getting-used-to being vertical thing. It's a wee bit strange and vertigo inducing. It seems I have to re-orient my depth perception and excavate my bi-ped spatial navigation skills (which were never as we now know particularly well honed). I must relearn how to aim and propel this stiff and complaining body (spare parts included) semi-crutchless around my casita-bound world. For the first time in ages.

You think that's easy?

Actually, it's all good. Even the failed baking attempts are good. Like the vegan pear cobbler that wouldn't bake in the middle and got only gummier the longer I baked the damn thing (what is it with high altitude and egg-less baking?). Actually, I blame gluten-free and egg-less baking. It's no walk in the park. It looked pretty, but tasted god-awful. So I'm sparing you.

Instead I'm reprising an older recipe I once ate with gusto (and can no longer consume due to an egg allergy; but you can, I hope!).

I love you that much.

Make this tasty egg dish for brunch or breakfast for dinner on some rainy spring night.

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Karina's (Easy!) Roasted Vegetables on Broiled Polenta

Easy Vegetarian Comfort Food

I'm still shaking off the February blahs, so bear with me, intrepid g-free campers. Please accept this super easy recipe as a tiny gift. Make this celiac-friendly dish on a busy weeknight when you're cranky and tired or feeling lazy or simply and utterly couldn't be bothered to crack open a cookbook (never mind, actually venture far afield and shop for groceries) because all you really want to do is kick off your Rocket Dogs and sink down into your favorite viewing chair with a bowl of salted popcorn to watch Downton Abbey.




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