One of the first recipes I learned in cooking school was polenta, it was considered very fancy to make polenta and then allow it to set, cut it into triangles and fry it. It added colour and height to your dinner plates and I loved it! Sadly, it’s considered a bit old fashioned now, twenty years later but I make the creamy version of it quite a bit at home in place of mashed potatoes, it has a beautiful rich buttery flavour and a creamy texture with a bit of sweetness from the corn that I just love and it only takes about 10 minutes to make so that’s a big help over the 45 minutes to an hour for mashed potatoes,

I used to feed this to my babies when they were little, they loved it much more than rice cereals and baby food. If you do this just remove a portion for the baby before adding the cheese and seasonings. Mix it up with some mashed sweet potatoes and you will have one happy baby.

Creamy Polenta

580g Water

580g Milk, 2% or 3%

200g Cornmeal, I prefer coarse but fine will work well too

7g Kosher or Sea Salt

1 Tsp. Fresh Ground Black Pepper

45g Parmesan or Romano Cheese, grated fine

25g Butter, softened

1/4 Cup Fresh Italian Parsley or basil, chopped

Add water and milk to a heavy bottom sauce pan and allow to warm on medium heat until it’s slightly simmering. Prepare all ingredients while you wait for the milk to heat up. Slowly sprinkle the cornmeal into the heated milk while whisking continuously to prevent lumps. once all cornmeal is incorporated, keep whisking, the cornmeal will continue to thicken as it absorbs the liquid, once bubbling, reduce the heat to the lowest settin and add the cheese, butter,seasonings and fresh herbs. Stir to combine and serve immediately. Enjoy!

Serve over Hunter Stew