Sautéed Vegetable Melange on a bed of Spinach Blue Cheese Polenta

By Texaschef11

Ingredients

• For the base and to garnish...
• 2 Roma Tomatoes, sliced thin
• 4 Green Onions, sliced, green and white parts of the stalk
• Parmesan Cheese freshly grated
• generous pinch "Big easy in a Jar" Cajun spice mix
• For the Polenta (I made a pretty big batch for leftovers during the week)...
• 4 cups whole Milk
• 1 stick of Butter
• 1 TBS Sugar
• 2 tsp Sea Salt
• 1 1/2 cup Polenta Corn Meal
• 1/2 bag of fresh spinach
• 1 TBS Extra Virgin olive Oil
• 4 ounces of Blue Cheese, crumbled
• For the Sautéed Vegetable Melange
• 1 cup Frozen French cut Green beans (thawed)
• 1 sweet Onion
• 20 Cherry Tomatoes, cut in half
• 2 TBS Butter
• 2 TBS Brown Sugar
• 1 TBS "Big easy in a Jar" Cajun spice mix

Preparation

Step 1

First, make your Polenta... Heat the milk and butter until it begins to bubble. Meanwhile, remove the stems from the spinach, heat the oil in a saute pan and add the spinach until it just heats up enough to wilt the greens. Do not over cook the greens. you want just a little bite to them. Back to the milk, add the sugar and salt. SLOWLY, add a bit of the corn meal and stir to insure there are no lumps. If you add too fast, you will get cooked lumps of corn meal instead of the smooth constancy of well mixed polenta. Continue to slowly add the corn meal and continue to stir until mixed. Once the corn meal is all in, the dish begins to thicken up, add the spinach. If you are serving the polenta immediately, dish it out now with a spoon and top with the blue cheese. If you are serving later, pour the polenta into a serving dish and then top with the blue cheese, cover to keep warm (or put in the oven at the lowest temperature).


For the Sautéed Vegetable Melange, first, caramelize the onions. Slice them into rings. In a saute pan, melt the butter and add the onions. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the onions and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The onions will just begin to brown and the sugar is starting to caramelize. Add the tomatoes and green beans now. Continue to saute for about 5 more minutes to get everything hot, and flavored with the butter and sugar.


And, just make a bed of the raw tomato slices, add half the green onions. Add about a cup of the polenta, top with a cup of the Sautéed Vegetable Melange. Top with some grated cheese and a pinch of the Cajun spices.