Soft polenta with mushroom & spinach
When you cook for yourself, there are often leftovers, so it makes sense to turn them into a completely different meal the next day, saving time, too. Take some instant polenta, mushrooms, spinach and an egg and in 15 minutes you’ve got a plate of comfort food for one. By cooking twice the amount of polenta and turning half of it out onto a flat plate, this maize porridge will set into a nice flat disc that you can use as a pizza base the following day. If you should happen to end up with leftover spinach, you can use it to make a salad to eat with your pizza.
Serves 1
150g instant polenta 75g parmesan cheese, grated Olive oil, for greasing and frying 150g mushrooms (a mixture of different varieties, if you like), sliced into smaller pieces, if necessary ½ garlic clove, crushed 150g baby leaf spinach 1 egg A small knob of butter
1 In a pan, bring 700ml water to the boil with a pinch of salt. Stir with a whisk as you sprinkle the polenta into the boiling water. Let the mixture cook for 3–5 mins, or for the time given in the pack instructions. Add a little more (boiling) water if necessary – the polenta should be nice and soft. Stir in nearly all of the parmesan, then season to taste.
2 Pour half the polenta onto a flat plate that you’ve greased with olive oil, cover with clingfilm and put in the fridge for tomorrow.
3 While the polenta cooks, sauté the mushrooms in a splash of olive oil over a medium-high heat for around 10 mins. Add the garlic, cook briefly, then season. Remove the mushrooms from the pan and set aside somewhere warm.
4 Add the spinach to the pan and stir-fry until just wilted. Remove the spinach from the pan and set aside somewhere warm. Fry an egg (you might need to add another small splash of olive oil) in the pan.
5 Stir the butter into the cooked polenta and spoon it into a shallow bowl. Arrange the mushrooms and spinach on the polenta and top with the fried egg. Season lightly and sprinkle over the remaining parmesan.