Polenta Casserole with Sauteed Mushrooms, Blue Cheese, and Walnuts (MBR)

POLENTA

• 3 cups water
• 2 1/2 cups whole milk
• Salt
• 1 1/2 cups instant polenta
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 teaspoon)
• Ground black pepper

TOPPING

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 8 portobello mushroom caps, wiped clean and slice 1/4 inch thick
• 1 large red onion, halved and sliced thin
• Salt
• 6 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 2 tablespoons)
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves
• 1/4 ounce dried porcini mushrooms, rinsed and rehydrated, with soaking liquid reserved
• Ground black pepper
• 5 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (1 1/4 cups)
• 3/4 cups walnuts, chopped coarse
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves

Mise en place.

Bring water, milk, and 2 teaspoons of salt to a simmer in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium high heat.  Very slowly pour polenta into liquid, stirring constantly.  Reduce heat to lowest possible setting, cover, and stirring occasionally until soft and smooth.

Cook piles of portobello and white mushrooms, onion, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in the oil over high heat until most of the mushrooms have exuded their liquid and browned.

Add garlic, thyme and porcini with reserved liquid.  Cook until most of liquid has evaporated and season to taste.

Layer polenta, mushrooms, blue cheese, and walnuts.  Bake in 400 degree over for 20 minutes.  Then let cool for ten minutes.

I remain un-wowed by the dish although I like these things separately, they just didn't seem to meld properly.

Baked Rigatoni with Brussels Sprouts, Figs, and Blue Cheese (FM)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for greasing the pan
• Salt
• 8 ounces rigatoni, preferably whole wheat
• 1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts, roughly chopped
• 4 ounces Gorgonzola or other blue cheese, crumbled [use some Danish blue]
• 6 to 8 fresh figs, or 1 cup dried, chopped [Used dried since fresh are out-of-seaon.  1 cup is a whole lot of dried figs.]
• Black pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped almonds, for garnish

Mise en place.

I guess technically you're supposed to blanch the sprouts after removing the pasta from the cooking water, but I flaked on this and figured that steaming them would be good enough.  Also, I didn't think to save any of the cooking water to use later on.  Ohz well.

Stir everything together except for the almonds and add a splash of the cooking water. (Eh, I used heavy cream instead since I had an open container of it.)  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 400 degrees until mixture is bubbling.

Oh, I also had a little leftover prosciutto which I thought fit well with the rest of the ingredients, but it wasn't really enough to be altogether noticeable.

The almonds were just supposed to be a garnish, but part of the way through the baking process I tried to top the practically overflowing dish with the almonds and tried to toast them along the way.  I didn't really achieve too much of that before pulling this out of the oven.

This dish was fine.  Not incredible but not borderline gross like the cannellini and zucchini dish.