Pantry Purge: Easy Italian Polenta Bake

Pantry Purge challenges me to use up items that have been languishing in my pantry for a while. It's similar to Ingredient Elimination (see a few examples here, here, and here), except in ingredient elimination I develop/seek out recipes to use up a perishable, partially used ingredient in my fridge. In pantry purge, I scavenge through my pantry for items lurking in the dark.

                                                  Another Ugly but Goodie Casserole 

I located a package of sundried tomato & garlic polenta that was (ehem) past its sell-by date. Whoops. Since it still looked safe, I figured I'd give it a go. I put this together on an evening that I had just a little time, and I took some shortcuts (jarred sauce, pre-shredded cheese). The whole thing is put together in about 15 mins, then bakes. It's a great weeknight meal.


Italian Polenta Bake (serves 4)

• 1 roll premade polenta (I used sundried tomato & garlic)
• 1-2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2/3 C chopped onion
• 2 C fresh spinach, rinsed and drained 
• salt & pepper
• 1 small jar pasta sauce (I used Newman's Own Fra Diavlo)
• 1 C shredded mozzarella

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly oil a small baking dish (I used a 9x9). Cut the polenta into 1/2 in rounds, and arrange in a single layer on the baking dish. 
2. Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Add the onions, and saute until lightly browned, about 7 mins. Add the spinach, a bit of salt and pepper, and saute til wilted, a couple mins. 
3. Spread the onion/spinach mix over the polenta. Pour the jar of sauce over the mixture and sprinkle the mozzarella evenly over the top. 
4. Bake, covered for 20 mins. Increase the heat to 375, uncover and cook for 15 more mins until the cheese begins to bubble. Serve hot. 

Kitchen Notes: While I think this will be good with any sauce, I think the spicy sauce gives it a little extra oomph. Crushed red pepper would also be good in the spinach.

Verdict? I'm decided that I love this as a quick weeknight meal. I'm looking forward to making it again and again. A fun alternative to spaghetti or eggplant parm.

Tomato Almond Pesto/Pesto alla Trapanese

I really can't take any credit for this one, other than having the smarts to "like" Cook's Illustrated  on Facebook. It appealed to me because I had extra blanched almonds from horchata, as well as a container of cherry tomatoes in my fridge that were coming close to requiring life support. I probably would have made it even if I didn't have these two things handy. Cherry tomatoes are flavorful and abundant right now, and with pinenuts selling for more per pound than filet mignon, an economical pesto with almonds sounded pretty good.

   I followed the recipe pretty closely with this one, I annotate what I've modified slightly.

Pesto alla Trapanese (makes about 3 C pesto, 4-6 servings pasta)

• 2 1/2 C cherry tomatoes (the recipe doesn't specify 2 1/2 C whole tomatoes, or chopped. I used 2 1/2 C halved cherry tomatoes)
• 1/4 C skinless almonds (I used a 1/3 C)
• 1/2 C packed basil leaves
• 1 clove garlic (I used 2)
• 1 pepperoncini, stemmed
•  salt
• pepper (my add)
• 1/2 tsp sugar (my add)
• generous amount crushed red pepper
• 1/3 C extra virgin olive oil (I used 1/4 C)
• 1 lb pasta, linguini or fettucine (I used sun-dried tomato fettucine, see note below)
• 1/2 C grated parmesan (I omitted)

1. Place the almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat, shaking the skillet frequently. Cook until fragrant and slightly browned. Allow to cool, slightly.
2. In a food processor, combine the tomatoes, basil, almonds, garlic, pepperoncini until smooth. Add salt, pepper and crushed red pepper to taste. If slightly bitter, or not flavorful enough, add the sugar.
3. With the motor on, slowly add the olive oil. Because I knew this would cause pesto to erupt out of the food processor, I slowly pulsed in the olive oil instead, and it emulsified just fine.
4. Heat water for the pasta and cook. Reserve 1/2 C pasta cooking liquid and add to the pesto. Toss together pasta, pesto and parmesan and enjoy.

Kitchen Notes: The texture of this is not as a typically basil pesto, it's more comparable to a runny salsa.The original recipe calls for completely cooling the almonds to room temperature. Mine were still quite warm when I added them, and this didn't appear to change the flavor. I found the sugar was necessary because the pesto had a flavor that was sweet, but unpleasantly bitter, and the sugar resolved this. I used a sun-dried tomato dried pasta. Typically, I think that flavored pastas underperform, but here it works well.  A lot of the flavor is usually lost in the cooking water, but since the cooking water is incorporated into the sauce, the flavor is retained. I used Pasta Alley brand which I buy at my farmer's market. It takes a bit longer to cook than commercial pastas, and it has a fantastic chewy texture. I used a combination of red and purple cherry tomatoes. This is note is probably unimportant, but it gives me an excuse to post a picture of the tomatoes:

And here's the pasta:

Verdict? Pretty tasty. Avoid if you don't like your pastas a bit sweet. If you like the sweetness of a pumpkin ravioli, than you'll probably enjoy this. If pumpkin ravioli is too sweet for your tastes, better skip this one. I enjoyed it garnished with almonds, but I also think that 1 of the following would be good: mozzarella (in lieu of parmesan) for a caprese style pesto, a few fresh greens, or kalamata olives used very sparingly.

Tomato Ricotta Tart

This is purely a texture dish. The flavors are more subtle than my previously tart recipe, which featured zucchini and goat cheese. I was inspired to make this because 1) the tomatoes are beautiful right now; 2) it's cool enough to bake; 3) I had one remaining lonely puff pastry in the freezer. Here we go:

     My apologies for this photo. I had thought I took a photo before munching on this, but guess I forgot to. Also, I am far from a food stylist, this doesn't have the symmetry of the zucchini tart due to using 2 different kinds of tomatoes, one of which was already partially cut up. Oh well.


Tomato Ricotta Tart (serves 4-6)

• 1 puff pastry, thawed
• 6 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced
• 8 oz ricotta, water drained off
• 2 medium tomatoes, sliced
• 1 large shallot, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• small handful fresh basil, chopped
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper 
• sugar
• basil leaves

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat some olive oil over medium-low heat. Cook the shallots for about 5 mins, stirring often. Add garlic and cook for about 2 more minutes. Add more oil if needed, shallots absorb a lot of oil in my experience. Continue cooking if needed until shallots are soft.
2.  Combine the shallot/garlic mixture with the ricotta. Add the basil and salt to taste. Don't clean the pan used to sautee the shallots and garlic, you'll need it later. 
3. Place the thawed puff pastry on a lightly oiled baking sheet. As with the zucchini-goat cheese tart, lightly score the perimeter of the pastry, about 1 inch in, without puncturing through the pastry.
4. Place a layer of sliced fresh mozzarella on the puff pastry, avoiding the edges.
5. Using a rubber scraper, spread the ricotta mixture over the mozzarella. 
6. Place the tomatoes on top of the ricotta mixture. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add a pinch of sugar to bring out the flavor of the tomatoes. 
7. Using a pastry brush, brush any remaining oil mixture off the pan and onto the edges of the puff pastry crust. 
8. Cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the edges of the pastry are golden brown. Serve hot or at room temperature. Tuck in basil leaves among the tomatoes if desired. 

Kitchen Notes: You don't need to drain the ricotta with a cheese cloth, however, removing any excess liquid that comes with relatively unprocessed ricotta is an important step, it will help the mixture from becoming waterlogged and the puff pastry from becoming soggy. Learn from my mistakes: The top layer should have more tomatoes than you think you will need. The tomatoes didn't shrink much while baking, but while cooling, the tomatoes contracted. It tasted fine, but I would have enjoyed a few more tomatoes. A slight overlap should work fine. I made the mistake (and I knew better) of placing the basil leave on top of the tart before baking, this should be done after the tart comes out of the oven.

Verdict? The texture of this is divine. The quality of the ingredients is going to drive this dish. First, you crunch into the flaky, buttery, pastry. Next, the juicy ripe tomatoes, followed by the rich (but not too rich) and creamy ricotta, and ending with the satisfyingly chewy mozzarella. Given that it's got both cheese and puff pastry, it's surprisingly light and clean tasting.