A Different Polenta and a Different Ragu

I worked from home yesterday so that I could go back to our old apartment and spend the morning sitting in a totally empty room, waiting for the gas company to show up (our “appointment” was for 8am-1pm) and shut off the meter in order for us to close our account. Fun times, especially when we found out later in the afternoon that they accidentally shut off the gas for our neighbors’ apartment rather than ours, requiring an additional “appointment” from 6pm to midnight in order for them to investigate the problem.

In any case, I was home and in charge of dinner last night. I made a different version of the polenta and ragu we posted about a while back. This time it was an onion, mushroom, and ground soy ragu. Also, I chopped up some basil leaves (taken from one of our plants) and added them to the polenta while it was cooking. I’m not sure whether this is an unorthodox use of fresh herbs – essentially boiling them may not bring them to peak flavor – but including them in the polenta rather than the ragu seemed to take the sharp edge off the basil and leave more of and earthier, almost floral flavor. I also mixed in some pecorino to add some tang and I think it worked out pretty well.

I served the ragu over the polenta, topped with a couple chunks of fresh mozzerella and some chiffonaded parsley. This dish actually ended up looking a lot more picturesque than the last ragu, but the camera battery was dead and we wanted to eat while it was still hot. Oh well.

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