It's Not Over Yet

My favorite thing about leftovers is the fact that I'm not reinventing the wheel for dinner that night. I'm simply reheating it. However, some things are infinitely better the next day; chili, soups, pot roast, and salsa. But some dishes are worth making extra so you can warp them into what may in fact be their intended purpose.

Perhaps the only reason to make risotto would be to make arancini the next day. If you need to make these little beauties gluten free you can make some bread crumbs out of gluten free waffles instead of the ready made Italian bread crumbs. Perhaps we should visit these sometime?

But let's talk polenta. Leftover polenta from our previous post. It's not going to reheat back to its original creamy state. It's a chemistry thing and I don't like to fight it. Instead, we'll use it in its new state. It's going to be much like that stuff you can get in the tubes. While I think that stuff is ok, and have used it often, your homemade polenta is silly with flavor.

I like to store mine in a wide shallow container so it's only about 2 inches thick. Then I make nice size squares and get my skillet good and hot with about 2 tablespoons olive oil and a little pat of butter.

Lay the polenta square with the smoothest side down first. It takes about 5 minutes over meduim high heat to get a nice crispy brown crust. Then flip over your square and squish the other side down flat. Crisp that side for another 3-5 minutes.



Now it's ready for anything. This is the baby's lunch; fried egg with crisp polenta. He's a picky Little Bird and he ate every bit of this.



This is the leftover greens with crisped polenta, but trust me this is your new blank canvas. Here are some other ideas:

• Sauté veggies, beans and garlic together. Pour over some green sauce. Spoon on top of polenta crisps, top with cheese and cilantro.
• Sauté mushrooms and garlic and splash in a bit of wine and cream at the end, pour over your polenta and add some parmesan shavings.
• Cut the squares in half so they are very thin. Add a squished garlic clove to the oil to flavor it. Crisp your thin squares like above and use for gluten free croutons.
• Make tamale pie filling and place uncrisped polenta squares over top. Bake as usual (so much great flavor if you throw in some green chili's the day you make it).
• Cut the leftover polenta into sticks. Fry in about 2 inches of oil to make polenta fries.
  

Now there's more time to spend cleaning, or more time to dream up new ways to use this wonder food.