what luck

Once as a child, I won a pair of roller skates from Save-On drugstore. Then there was that time I won a throw-away camera from HEB. Last night I won a raffle for the right to buy Pappy Van Winkle. How lucky am I?!? If you know bourbon, you will know this was a big day for me.

I made the dish below for dinner Monday night, as an effort to start actually using the wealth of resources I have in cookbooks. Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty boasts of “vibrant vegetable recipes” that I hope to explore more over the next couple weeks, starting with this one…

Mushroom and herb polenta

4 tbsp olive oil

4 cups mixed mushrooms (I used baby bellas, cremini, and shitake)

4 cloves garlic, crushed and diced

1 tbsp fresh tarragon, chopped

1 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped

1 tbsp truffle oil

salt and black pepper

2 ¼ cups vegetable stock

½ cup polenta (instant)

3 oz Parmesan, grated

2 ½ tbsp butter

1 tsp rosemary, chopped

1 tbsp parsley, chopped

4 oz Taleggio, cut into strips

In a large skillet, heat half of the olive oil over medium-high heat and add in half of the mushrooms. Fry for a few minutes, resisting the urge to stir them at first (so that they form some nice golden brown patches), until just cooked and tender. Remove them from the pan and repeat with remaining olive oil and mushrooms. Turn the heat off and return all the mushrooms to the skillet, along with the garlic, tarragon, thyme, truffle oil, salt and pepper. Keep warm.

Bring the stock to boil in a saucepan. Stir in the polenta, then reduce the heat to low-medium and stir constantly with a wooden spoon for about 5 minutes (until polenta is pulling away from the sides of the pan when you stir, but still a bit runny in consistency). When polenta is cooked, stir in butter, rosemary, Parmesan and half of the parsley and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Preheat the broiler. Spread the polenta over a heatproof dish and top with the mushroom mixture. Dot the Taleggio over the mushrooms and place under the broiler until the cheese bubbles. Remove and garnish with the remaining parsley. Serve hot!

Adapted slightly from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi