Polenta with Marinara for Recipe Friday

This is a new recipe that I just came up with the other night. I had purchased a roll of pre-made polenta at the store. I know, if you’re a purist you would cook your own polenta, but life’s too short and this stuff is pretty tasty and very easy. It looks like this:

I was making the polenta as a side dish for some pork chops, and this really was a wing-it-with-what-I-had type of recipe, but it turned out pretty good.

Polenta with Marinara

Ingredients:

Polenta (San Gennaro pre-cooked in a tube)
Oregano
Basil
Rosemary
1-2 tbsp butter
1 can ready cut tomatoes
1 clove garlic
Fresh basil leaves

Directions:

Melt butter in a large non-stick skillet on medium heat. Slice polenta approximately 1/3 inch thick. Sprinkle a little oregano, basil, and rosemary in the skillet, place the polenta slices in the skillet, and sprinkle a little more of the spices on top of each slice. Cover and let brown for 5 or 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it to make sure they polenta doesn’t burn. [Note: I’m not very good with times when I cook, I just kind of wing it, which sometimes backfires, but usually works okay.]

While the polenta is frying, put the tomatoes, sliced garlic clove, several torn basil leaves (or dry basil if that is all you have), and a dash of salt into a small food processor and blend. Turn polenta and fry on the other side for a few minutes. Pour tomato mixture over the polenta and cover again. Simmer for 5 minutes, turn polenta again, and simmer a few more minutes. It is now ready to serve.

In retrospect, this would have been good with a bit of parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top, but I didn’t think of that at the time. I guess there’s always next time!