Crostini di polenta con gorgonzola

Crostini di polenta con gorgonzola, from Twelve by Tessa Kiros

What did I make? I did warn you that I have been salivating over this book, since I brought it a few weeks ago and to be honest, it was only a matter of time before I cracked and made something from it. It is a really lovely book. I adore Tessa's recipes and her writing. I find the way in which she divides her chapters really appealing. For example, "Apples for Jam" is divided into "colour" chapters, which is very aesthetically pleasing. "Twelve" is divided into the months of the year, although I must admit that I ignored this seasonal advice and made something from the "January" chapter. This recipe - for polenta crostini with gorgonzola - was just crying out to be made though. Firstly, I had all the ingredients for a super Morrocan spring lamb with roasted red and yellow peppers, tomatoes and olives (courtesy of "Delicious") meal at home, so only really needed something for a light "antipasto." Secondly, we just happen to have a gorgeous wedge of gorgonzola picante at home, which - unless I make something from it sharpish - is bound to end up being the ingredient that breaks my diet! I don't know if you read in my "NewNigella" blog, but blue cheese of any kind is my ultimate food of all time. I absolutely adore it! Luckily, Chris loves it too, so this seems the ideal choice of recipes for my first endeavour into this lovely book. Neither of us have tried polenta in this way before either, cooked, spread and griddled - so that too will be a novel culinay experience.

Oh, my weight-loss seems to have reached a disappointing plateau over the last few weeks. Last week I lost 3lbs, which was fine (ish), but this week I only lost 2 lbs again. That's two weeks now I have only lost 2lbs (in week 4 and this week). It just seems so unfair, because I can assure you that I have not even cheated *once.* I have been very good and stuck to my LL diet religiously. Anyway, I have now lost 29lbs (2 stones and 1 lb) and I still have 4 stones, 1 lb left to loose.

(Cooking the polenta)

(Spreading the cooked polenta onto the baking parchment - and check out the crumbly edges - see below)

Where did I get the ingredients? As I mentioned, we already had some wonderful gorgonzola picante and there really is only one other ingredient; polenta. Polenta is available in Waitrose, which is where I brought mine. Because I read through the recipe prior to buying ingredients for it, I saw that the cooked polenta is "spread" onto baking parchment. I have had nightmares with things sticking to baking parchment before (think the almond macaroons in Feast), so I invested in some decent non-stick baking parchment; better to be safe than sorry methinks.

(The cooked polenta cut into squares...and yes, I know they look like Dairylea slices!)

Was it easy to make? HEL NO! This really was irritating to make which I suppose is quite an achievement for a recipe with 4 ingredients, 2 of which being water and olive oil. In fact, I think that I had problems at every stage of the method. Firstly, you need to cook the polenta, which involves bringing some water to the boil, pouring the polenta into the water in a steady stream, whilst whisking all the while to prevent lumps. So far so good. Apart from the fact that the water into which I was pouring the polenta was boiling so furiously that it seemed to "return" to the boil halfway through pouring the polenta and the polenta-water sort of "erupted," and globules of the bloddy stuff landed on the cooker etc. So, I lowered the heat and poured the rest of the polenta in off the heat, even though Tessa doesn't say to lower the heat until *after* all the polenta has been mixed in. Then one cooks the polenta over a low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

After 30 minutes, one is supposed to "spread" the polenta over a sheet of baking parchment. Note that I say "supposed," because there was no way that the verb "to spread" could be connected in any way with the porridge-like consistency of the polenta in my saucepan. In the end, I spooned the stuff out and tried to glide the stuff out into a coherant "whole" with the back of a wooden spoon. The middle of the "sheet" of polenta looked okay, but the edges were very dry and crumbly (see picture), which was fine given that I was just cooking for one and could therefore sacrifice those crumbly edge pieces to the bin, but I would not have wanted to do this for any more than...say...2 or 3.

After the "sheet" of polenta was cool I then cut it into squares, binning the crumbly ones as predicted. I then got on with griddling them over a ridged griddle. I suppose this was when everything started to come together for me because griddling them was very easy. The squares of polenta needed about 3-4 minutes a side until the grill marks started showing through. I then transferred each one onto a foil-lined grill tray. It was at this point that they started looking much nicer; with grilling they went a much more golden yellow and the grill marks made them look much nicer also. The grilling process also gave them a nice crispy and crunchy "crust" which in my opinion is a step up from those flabby, soggy squares just cut from the cooked polenta.

After that, it is simply a matter of crumbling the gorgonzola onto the grilled polenta squares, grilling them just until the cheese starts to melt (about 2-3 minutes), cutting each square diagonally in half and serving...TA-DAH!

I served all of them to Chris as an antipasto about 15 minutes before the lamb was due to come out of the oven.

(Grilling the polenta squares on a ridged griddle)

What did Chris think? I think that Chris was quite unsure about what to expect from this antipasto, as indeed I was. However he really liked it (a shame, because I will not be bothering with this again!). He said that the polenta reminded him of light tortilla chips, as they had that light corn flavour and were almost starchy - like pureed mashed potato in solid form. Very pleasant though. Like me, he really appreciated the crispy, crunchy crust. He also loved the gorgonzola - who doesn't?! He did say that the next day they weren't so good.

Overall, though, he rated this a 5/5, which is a really great start to my "Twelve" adventure.

(Pre-oven; griddled polenta squares)

Was I tempted to cheat and eat some? I must admit that the whole saga of making these put me off them slightly. I got irritated with them quite quickly and just wanted to make them and serve them and get rid of them. However, when they were all done and looking lovely I did begin to warm to them again (a love-hate relationship with a bloody crostini?!). With things like this, I define my temptation as more of an "intellectual curiosity." I wanted to see what it tasted like, what the texture was like etc, because I have never eaten anything like this before and I was curious to see what they might be like.

(With the added gorgonzola; before that final grilling)


Did I cheat? Nope. I am so disappointed with my miniscule weight losses that I am terrified that a cheat at this point would spell the end of ever having a decent weight loss again.