Polenta con Salsa di Pomodoro

I am outta here!

This is it, folks. My 10-day dog sitting stint is over, I am packing up, meeting mom in NYC in the morning, and we are on our way across the ocean!

Morgan and Ginger know I am about to go ...

I have been anticipating this trip since mom told be about it in March, and don't know that I really believe its here! So, please don't forget about me while I am gone. I will be back at the end of the month. At that time, I will post my first Daring Bakers challenge! I promise you, that will be a funny moment since I know my dish turned out, well.....let's just say I think I may need to look into some more classes to refresh my culinary skills.

In the meantime, I made Polenta with Tomato Sauce a while back, and its the last of my Mele Cotte "Drafts". Unfortunately, for the life of me I cannot find a picture! Sorry....I do have one; I promise! But, now that I made an attempt to clean up my laptop, I have burned CDs everywhere and didn't label them as well as I thought. (Note to self...another project for July...)

So I leave you with a delicious comfort food...if made with homemade sauce!

Bye! Arrivederci! Viszlát! Do widzenia! Auf Wiedersehen!

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Polenta con Salsa di Pomodoro/Polenta with Tomato Sauce

I decided to make this dish after I read 28 Cook's Spicy Tomato Sauce with Goat Cheese. It's such a simple, yet satisfying meal. Polenta con Salsa di Pomodoro is a recipe common in Northern Italy, although the southern region has its own version called Polentina.

All you need, according to you preferences and hunger level, really, is precooked polenta, tomato sauce, and basil .

I used about one cup homemade tomato sauce per individual serving, an individual container of sauce from late fall I defrosted. The sauce I made with the Tagliatelle will work well, too. In addition, I will include another recipe at the end of this post, with the original recipe that yields 8 servings.

For this Polenta con Salsa di Pomodoro, I followed these steps:

Cut the polenta into 4 ¼-inch slices (keeping them thick-ish). In a frying pan/skillet, heat ½ cup olive oil and fry the polenta slices in both sides until slightly brown. Be careful with this step because the polenta will stick. I even used a non-stick plan! When done, place the polenta slices in a soup bowl. Pour the sauce over the polenta, garnish with basil, and serve immediately.

Note: (1) The amounts in this recipe are really up to you, according to your tastes. (2)Before placing the polenta into the bowl, after frying, I added a step by transferring them on a plate and dabbing the pieces with a paper towel to take off excess oil. (3) The sauce I defrosted had meatballs in it! Bonus!

Original Recipe
¾ cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups tomatoes, peeled, seeded, diced
2 Tbsp. dry red wine
4 Tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
1 package precooked polenta

In a saucepan, heat ¼ cup of the olive oil. Add garlic and sauté until soft. Add tomatoes and red wine and simmer for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the polenta into 8 thick slices. In a frying pan, heat the remaining oil and fry the polenta slices on both sides until slightly brown. Place the cooked slices in individual soup bowls. Pour the sauce over the polenta and serve immediately.