Polenta panzanella

y love of panzanella and it's many variations has been documented a few times on the blog... here, here and here, at least. Any kind of chopped salad with fresh seasonal ingredients gets me pretty excited...

When I had a few girlfriends over for lunch recently, I concocted a variation I hadn't seen around before, but it seemed like it should exist: panzanella with polenta cubes standing in for the stale bread. I did a google search (my first line of research, naturally) and found it listed on a few restaurant menus, but no recipes themselves appeared in a cursory search. But, I figured it couldn't be too hard to figure out... I had the polenta left over from a weekend breakfast and was bound and determined to find a use for it!

Polenta panzanella
Serves 4 as a side dish
2 cups cooked and cooled polenta that's been spread to about a 1/2 inch thickness, then cubed
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1.5 cups chopped tomatoes
1 cup kalamata olives, pitted
1 can (16 oz) artichoke hearts in water, drained
1 red bell pepper, cored and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup cucumber, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped roughly
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

Toss the polenta in bread crumbs and parmesan to coat, and then fry lightly and quickly in a hot saute pan so they brown and crisp up.

Drain the polenta cubes on a platter lined with paper towels to soak up any excess grease, and set aside.

Combine the next six ingredients in a mixing bowl until well combined, and then drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar lightly over the mixture. Stir again. Let sit for a half hour at room temperature to allow flavors to mingle.

Arrange polenta cubes on a serving platter and top with the tomato mixture and parmesan-bread crumb crumbles, if you're lucky enough to have a few of those fall off the polenta.

Serve immediately.

The frying step was the most challenging for me, but the fried crumbles of bread crumbs and parmesan that were left behind in the saute pan were one of the highlights of the dish. Truly yummy. I sprinkled them over the dish as I tossed the other, non-polenta, ingredients. Another google search found others with similar issues/concerns... I think next time I will have the pan hotter, and maybe coat the polenta in an egg wash before tossing in the bread crumbs and parmesan...

In all, this was a lovely surprise of a dish. I can imagine having it as a warm dish in the winter as well, making a kind of ratatouille stew over the top of the polenta cubes...

Artichoke heart delights

t's been a while since I posted this heavenly future file idea: fried artichoke hearts!

I had a great time making them--it was indeed a trick to NOT immediately eat the hearts after having roasted the artichokes, but somehow I persevered!

Click on the link above for the original recipe to fry up the hearts, then see below for my adaptation of the dish: Hearts salad! It is a good way to make it seem like you're having something healthy with your fried food, a clever little trick if I do say so myself!

Artichoke heart salad
Layer greens on a dinner plate
Cut into quarters a cup or so of cherry or grape tomatoes and sprinkle over the greens
Place a half dozen fried artichoke halves/quarters over the tomatoes
Drizzle with ranch dressing

Enjoy!

Future files: Artichoke hearts, fried

uite a rare thing happened the other day: I had leftover FRESH artichoke hearts in the house. By rare I mean it's never happened before. Usually what happens is that I scarf the whole thing--leaves, heart and all--in one fell swoop. That's just how I roll.

 But the other night I had a four-pack of small artichokes from Costco that were languishing in the back of the fridge and I thought, finally, I'll roast 'em up (since discovering the flavor of roasted artichokes, I don't think I'm ever going back). I made it through quite a few leaves but was slowing down as I approached the hearts and in rare (again: never) fit of sensibility, I thought I'd tuck them away for a future lunch or dinner and figure out something spectacular to do with them. (If this whole paragraph seems really "I" centric, it's because artichokes are a solo experience around here. Weird looks from the boys, no takers here. Just didn't want you thinking I actually KEEP the artichokes from them.)

The tucking away happened. The spectacular, not so much. I did my usual Google search and came up with plenty of things to do to jarred or canned artichoke hearts... not really what I was looking for. So I just ate them. Yep. Just like that. And they were good, don't get me wrong. But. Take. A. Look. At. These. Babies. Yeah. That's what I'm talkin' about. Tick tock, the future's coming...

Artichoke Hearts from food52
2 globe artichokes, preferable with some stalk.
1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 egg, beaten
1 cup dry bread crumbs

Prepare the artichokes: Peel all the leaves off the choke. Peel the stalk and with a paring knife neatly trim the bottom where you removed the leaves.

Cut the trimmed artichokes in half vertically and with a spoon remove the hairy choke. Be careful when cutting in half to evenly cut the stem, too.

Rub immediately with lemon juice so the artichoke doesn't get brown (which happens very quickly!). Steam the hearts until tender. Time will vary depending on the size of the hearts (about 15 minutes).

Dip each artichoke half into the egg and then into the bread crumbs. Fry in the olive oil over medium heat until golden. Set on paper towels to absorb the oil.

Creamy Cumin-Lime Dipping Sauce
1/2 cup creme fraiche
1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
Finely grated zest of a lime
Juice of a lime
Salt

Mix all the ingredients together, adding salt to taste. Serve the golden hearts warm with the creamy dipping sauce.

I'm still a little freaked that this recipe came along about 24 hours after I needed it--it's like the internet knew what I was looking for and sent it to me! Maybe it couldn't quite anticipate my needs, but still, that's pretty quick, don't you think? And I think it won't be very long until I find myself with some hearts on my hands, too!

Artichokes: To bake or not bake?

ot quite sure how I discovered this recipe for baked artichokes, but anything with artichokes is pretty high on my interest list, so it went into the "keep track of" mental file for future use...

I grew up in a strong tradition of artichokes! To my memory, I believe my dear Albertan parents discovered artichokes while residing in sunny California in the late '60s. When we moved to British Columbia in the early '70s, the artichoke tradition came along with us. It was not uncommon for artichokes (in season) to be a part of our Friday night dinner tradition, a habit that continues for them to this day. (Literally. I got emails from both my parents today, and BOTH of them referenced artichokes for dinner. See, this nut doesn't fall far from the nut tree, no?)

As the only artichoke-lover in my home, it's a rather hit-and-miss affair for me and the blessed thistle... But, when husband pointed out a 4-pack of artichokes at Costco while we were stocking up on vacation supplies, I went for it. (And not being an artichoke fan, how sweet of him to point them out.)

I approached my artichokes with even more simplicity than the recipe above; theirs included basil and some chicken stock, lemon and garlic. I like my artichokes pure. I simply rinsed them and then drizzled a couple of teaspoons of olive oil over them, covered them with tin foil and baked them in the oven. I had the oven a bit high in temperature--400 degrees F--and that might have been a touch too high, as the artichokes got a bit tough on the outer leaves (even with the tin foil cover). But I have to say that the flavor was wonderful. Even though I didn't use a lot of olive oil, the flavor permeated the whole artichoke, and the slow roasting seemed to really bring out the flavor. It was entirely enjoyable and I will use a lower temperature next time, and maybe in a Dutch oven with a cast-iron lid, rather than just the tin foil.

Definitely one to make again! Make sure you've got plenty of time before you'll go wild with hunger, as this process takes a bit--I think mine took almost an hour and a half in the oven (I have a hard time believing the recipe that says they'll be done in 45-50 minutes). Artichokes in general aren't a quick fix, so plan ahead!

(As for the pink terry cloth in the picture above, I am not going to say anything about that. Other than: What? You don't stay in your robe until 2 p.m. when on vacation? I feel sorry for you. And: Yes, I do take pictures of food on my lap, apparently.)

Wordless Wednesday: I heart artichoke!

(OK, really, is Wordless Wednesday even possible for me? I highly doubt it. But maybe think of it as Fewer Words Wednesday, because, really, I just have to tell you that this artichoke tasted quite good at supper last night.)