Cascading Kitchen Notes
Roasted Tomato and Onion on a Polenta Bed
Simple Summer Faire
Pre heat oven to 400° for tomato roasting
First, learn how to cook your own polenta (grits)
- Bring 8 cups of water to boil in a heavy bottomed pan with a lid.
Add, while stirring constantly
- 2 tsp. sea salt
- 2 tsp. black pepper
- 2 cups of Bob’s Red Mill Grits
Keep stirring until it looks like porridge. Reduce the heat to LOW and cover. It will need to cook for a total of 45 minutes. When it thickens, use a flat bottom, metal spatula to scrape and stir all the way to the bottom of the pan every 10 minutes. Taste a sample to make sure they're cooked thoroughly.
While the grits cook, roast the tomatoes:
Tomatoes drizzled with Olive oil and White Balsamic Vinegar ready to go into a 400° oven.
- Cut three or four tomatoes into ½" thick slabs.
- Lay them out on a metal baking pan, coated with olive oil
- Lightly sprinkle with salt & fresh black pepper
- Drizzle white balsamic vinegar (or any sweet vinegar) over each tomato
- Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 400º (with convection fan on, if you have one)
- Turn heat down to 375º and roast another 10-15 minutes. You don’t want them to look dehydrated…just a nice dry top with a few “crusties” on the edges.
- Let them cool on the pan before removing them.
Grill 2 onions
Slice the onions and toss in a high temp oil like grapeseed or avocado.
Put them on the barbecue. An auxillary basket works well here. Don’t overdo the grilling. You just want them to be soft and smoky without too much char. They should smell and taste like the “fair”.
Once the grits are cooked,
After roasting with just a bit of crunch around the edges.
- Spread them out on a metal baking sheet pan that has been coated with olive oil, and smooth to an even surface about a shy 1/2" thick.
- Let it cool until the grits form a skin on the surface; about 15 minutes.
- Coat the top with a generous pour of olive oil.
- Sprinkle the grilled onions evenly over the grits.
- Lay the roasted tomatoes evenly over the grits.
- Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Top with a dollop of goat cheese on each tomato if you want to dress it up OR serve it plain with a drizzle of basil vinaigrette cooking condiment. If you have leftovers, heat up a slice in the skillet and put a little crunch on the crust.