Polenta lagsana

Wednesday night :

The entire week has been one mad rush as I run a tight schedule. Being overly ambitious, I have over scheduled and operated with exact precision that it drained me totally. 2 more days to go before things can really slow down.

So here I am, making a component of tomorrow's meal so that all I have to do is make some sauce and put it under the grill tomorrow. But before this, there is the polenta, a fair bit of work but it will take off some buzz tomorrow.

What I have planned to do is to make a polenta based  lagsana topped with bubbly bechamel- cheese.  But first the polenta lagsana "sheets " :

Feeds 6 :

2 cups polenta grains

6 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup parmesan cheese

3 tablespoon sweet corn kernels

1 square dish, oiled

I deviate from the usual method of adding polenta after the water boils. Here, the polenta grains is added to cold water ( with salt ), put over the heat and brought to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, continue to cook for 20 minutes. Keep stirring the heated mixture constantly.

 Not doing these will burn the polenta and cause clumps due to uneven distribution of heat in the thick mixture.

Just before turning off the heat, add cheese, corn. Transfer cooked polenta to oiled pan, cool then chill until ready for use the next day.

Thursay night :

To make polenta resembling thick lagsana sheets , remove polenta from pan.

Slice horizontally across to make 2 thinner sheets. Cut squares to fit a personal dinner dish.

Ingredients :

Tomato sauce :

1 cup each of cubed peppers, zuchini, tomato, onion cooked in 2 cups of pasta sauce.

Bechamel sauce :

2 cups milk, 1 tab flour, dash of nutmeg, 1 knob of butter

Cook flour in butter. Add milk,nutmeg. Stir mixture over heat until it almost bubbles. Remove from heat.

Pizza cheese enough for each dinner dish.

Assembly :

Place  first polenta 'sheet' on the base of dish. Ladle tomato sauce.

Cover with second polenta sheet. Ladle bechamel sauce.

Sprinkle generous amount of pizza cheese.

Put under the grill for 5 minutes or until bubbly.

Serve immediately.

Less than 30 minutes of laboring over the stove today for a great meal. Phew !  I can't be any happier today.