Bacon Studded Polenta with Tomato Gravy - Ciao, Yawl!

Bacon Studded Polenta with Tomato Gravy~

Some of us were born to color outside the lines, inside the lines and sometimes draw our own lines.  Combining Italian Polenta with crispy bacon bits, then smothering it with a deep Southern Tomato Gravy is one of those meals where the lines between the countries get blurred.  What comes out of this marriage of "Ciao and Chow" is good country eating, no matter what country you're talking about.

And speaking of countries, this month the Lets Lunch Bunch (my virtual lunch buddies from all over the globe) are celebrating a very special debut of a new cookbook:

Cowgirl Chef: Texas Cooking with a French accent.

Ellise (Cowgirl Chef) is a true Texan who has been living, learning, teaching, growing and loving in Paris, France for the last few years.  Her story of how she embraced her authentic and true self, talents and dreams by meeting the challenge of a brand new environment is inspiring (and the recipes are down right "must-makes.")  Ellise is one of the original foodbloggers to start our unique monthly lunch meeting online several years ago.  I was there for the very first one and we all made our own versions of a BLT sandwich.  It's a great example of one of the good things that come from our tech-driven journey.

This month's challenge was to create and share a meal that represented our own past experiences and another country, too (ala: Texas and France.)  

Picking something Italian was a no-brainer for me.  I've been obsessed with all things Italian for many years and will be fortunate enough to be packing this week to visit our good friends in Cossignano, Italy and stay at their Organic Agriturismo (Fiorano.)  Paolo and Paola are part of the Slow Food Movement and are very active in Organic wines, foods and conservation. 

Agriturismo Fiorano in Le Marche

I speak a little Italian from years of studying and soaking it up, although it seems to be with a good ol' Southern twang no matter how hard I try to pretend.

My grandmothers in North Carolina made Tomato Gravy and poured it over biscuits, toast, rice and grits.  It's a poor man's marinara sauce and it's packed with tomato bits, bacon flavor and rich roux.

Polenta is ground corn meal and considered an Italian comfort food.  Depending on the region, it's served warm and loose like soupy grits, or thick and cut into sections or even baked.  If you've seen the pre-made tubes of something they call Polenta in grocery stores, please don't judge Polenta by that gross congealed yellow tube food product (smiling, but serious.)  

Making Polenta is as easy as rice. There are just a few tips for making it successfully:

1)  When the liquid begins to simmer, rain in the Polenta grains.  This means do NOT pour it all in (that makes it clump.)  Rain it in, sprinkling it gradually and stirring while it goes.

2)  Reduce heat and stir often so not to scorch the Polenta.

3)  Keep in mind, it's easy to add a little more liquid if it's too thick, but not so easy to make it thicker if you add too much liquid too quickly.

4)  Adding butter makes it a little bit looser, cheese will make it a bit thicker.

The liquid used in Polenta, like rice, can be water or stock, milk, or something in your imaginative recipe developing "coloring book."

When I made this Bacon Studded Polenta smothered in Tomato Gravy, I also ate almost the whole plate of it.  So, be careful. :D

Check below to see the many varied and delectable recipes of country fusion cooking from other Let's Lunch pals: 

Chery's Goin Pork Curry Tacos at Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Eleanor‘s  Wok Picadillo at Wok Star
Ellise‘s Salty Lime Sablés (Margarita Cookies) at Cowgirl Chef
Emma‘s Kimchi Bulgogi Nachos at Dreaming of Pots And Pans
Felicia‘s Mexican-Lebanese Hummus at Burnt-Out Baker
Grace‘s Taiwanese Fried Chicken at HapaMama
Jill‘s Southern Pimento-Stuffed Knishes at Eating My Words
Joe‘s Grilled KimCheese Sandwich at Joe Yonan
Karen‘s Ukrainian-German Cabbage Rolls at GeoFooding
Leigh‘s Venezuelan-Italian Cachapas Con Queso at Leigh Nannini
Linda‘s Project Runway Pelau: Rice & Beans Trinidad-Style at Spicebox Travels
Linda‘s Edible Salad Totes at Free Range Cookies
Lisa‘s Sunday Night Jewish-Chinese Brisket at Monday Morning Cooking Club
Lucy‘s Coconut Rice Pudding with Mango at A Cook And Her Books
Nancie‘s Chili-Cheese Biscuits with Avocado Butter at Nancie McDermott
Rashda‘s Mango Cobbler at Hot Curries & Cold Beer
Renee‘s Asian-Spiced Quick Pickles at My Kitchen And I
Steff‘s Chicken Fried Steak at The Kitchen Trials
Vivian‘s Funky Fusion Linguini at Vivian Pei
*********

Recipe: Bacon Studded Italian Polenta-

3-4 pieces of Bacon

1 cup Nonfat Milk

1 cup Water

2 Tbls. Butter

salt, pepper

1)  In a skillet, cook the bacon on Med. until crispy, remove and chop into small pieces. Pour off the fat/grease and save for the Tomato Gravy.  Save the bacon coated skillet for cooking the gravy in also.

2)  In a deep saucepan, bring the water, milk, salt and pepper to a low simmer, stirring so the milk doesn't curdle.

3)  Rain in the Polenta, stirring constantly until the Polenta is creamy.  

4)  Reduce the heat to low, stir often so it doesn't scorch.  Now is when to add a bit more liquid if needed. Stir in the bacon pieces now.  Cook and stir often for about 15 minutes.  The Polenta should be thick for this recipe.

5)  Stir in the butter and turn out into a buttered 8x8 baking pan. Leave to room temp or chill for later.

Press into a buttered baking dish

6)  Before serving, cut into squares and triangles and broil or fry for just a couple minutes until crisp on the outside. *It can also be used without this step.

Recipe:  Tomato Gravy

1/4 cup Bacon fat (use butter if there's not enough bacon fat)

1/4 cup Flour

2-3 Tomatoes (peeled, chopped)

2 cups Stock (veggie or chicken) warmed

salt/pepper

1) Using the same pan the bacon was cooked in, add the bacon fat/butter and the flour, salt and pepper.  Cook and whisk on Med. until light brown and a nice roux has been created.

 

2)  Add the chopped tomatoes and any reserved juice from chopping.  Lower heat to Low/Med and Whisk together.

3)  Slowly whisk in the warmed stock and continue cooking on Low for about 15-20 minutes.  If it's too thick, add a little water or more stock a little at a time.  Season to taste.

4)  Serve poured over the Polenta or biscuits, rice or scrambled eggs. Mmmmm.

Congrats to Cowgirl Chef!  Hope to see you on tour!

Pinto Beans & Fried Corn Bread - Southern Family Cooking

Beans, beans, good for the heart - the more you eat the more you....wish you had corn bread, too.

Southern Pinto Beans & Fried Corn Bread

Okay, I figured I may as well just go there if I'm going to post a recipe for Southern Pinto Beans. If you've ever read my blog before you probably know by now, I grew up in the South (United States). It's a detail that, for years as a young actress in Hollywood, I tried to obliterate. I am told the only remnants of my "southern accent" show up when I've had quite a bit of wine, singing a song, saying the word- "poem", or I've talked to my mom on the phone for even a minute.It has been my profound awakening to come full circle and discover the most beautiful, successful and meaningful life is when I embrace my authentic and truthful self. Now, before I lose all foodie pals, cynics and recipe lovers - I'm almost through with the prophesying. This blog, for me, is becoming a place where my comedy background, insatiable curiosity, teaching, sometimes cloying way of being so earnest, sarcasm, appreciation for the planet/farmers/real food, and my thankfulness for my mom, my family, religion and my past is merging. I love it. I'm done.

Now - Beans and Cornbread!

This very simple recipe is from my mom, from her mom, and probably her mom before that. In the "dirt-street" neighborhood of my childhood there was a pot of these Pinto beans on the stove every week. My mom tells of growing up during the depression days with these for dinner almost every night (along with Turnip Greens). That kind of recipe testing is hard to come by, right?

Following the beans is a recipe for home-made fried cornbread for sopping-up the pot-liquor; thick pork & bean, salty/sweet gravy that is left over when the meaty, toothsome beans are long gone.
RECIPE: PINTO BEANS

Dried Pinto Beans (about 3 cups make enough for 4-6 servings)
Water
Pork Fat Back or Pork Belly
salt/pepper

Many people soak their dried beans in water overnight (it is said to help decrease the gas forming sugars), but my grandmother's recipe evidently did NOT soak the beans (haha, which explains a lot; sorry, went there again.)PREP: Run water over the beans to wash thoroughly and remove any dirt/ floating beans or flecks of debris before starting to cook.

1) Fill a large pot with enough water to be about 5-6 inches above the amount of beans you are using.

2) Add the fat-back to the water, bring to a boil and continue to boil for about 15 minutes.

3) THEN, add the beans, add a little salt, bring the water back to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and let cook for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Be sure to check the water level and add water only after the beans have soaked up a great deal of the liquid. The water should stay a few inches above the beans.

4) Stir now and then to make sure cooking is even. Taste to adjust the seasoning. Eventually, the water will be gravy-like. These are even better the next day after melding the flavors in the refrigerator overnight.
What is a pot of beans without corn bread?
When I went on a quest to discover and uncover my family's great traditional and secret recipe for amazing fried corn bread, I was confounded to find it came from a box of cornbread mix. Are you kidding me? For a few minutes I refused to believe my mom- it wasn't what I wanted to hear. I wanted to believe my maternal grandmother (who could make poinsettia bloom in the dead-end heat of August on her screened-in porch) would have scooped her own cornmeal. I imagined her maybe even grinding it herself from the dried Indian Summer corn that she grew in her garden out back, then mixing it with her bare hands. My mom, patiently, stayed with this story of "Barton's Cornmeal and now they use Martha Whites" which just frustrated me because it wasn't "corn meal" it was a prepared mix. Thinking over this was enlightening to me - my mom was a wife of the 50's, the very generation that got sold the idea of corporate fast, processed means convenience, why spend time in the kitchen, "almost homemade is good enough" message from "Made in America". Her first meal after a recently prescribed Colonoscopy was a giant ARBY's "looks like" roast beef sandwich on white bread because she loves them. I get it. I used to eat a Hardee's Husky Burger almost every day after school. It took years to develop a taste for beef that didn't have blood-sugar spikes built right in.
By the way, the corn bread mix isn't even all that processed and you still have to add your own buttermilk, eggs, onion, spices, etc.. if you want to make it truly to your tastes. So, why am I ranting? Because it's symbolic to where it all started.

My grandmother was the very woman they targeted with the idea that homemade was a waste of your time. In the 1940s, she probably did make everything from scratch. Then she got sold the idea that a large company could do it better than she could, faster, more consistent and that she didn't really need to READ the ingredients because her government already approved those for safe consumption. Then, they made it so cheap we all learned to de-value food for its quality. In school, my home-economics class (ever heard of those?) taught us how to make a "home-made" cake by using a Duncan Hines cake mix. It sounds like I'm an elitist, but I'm not - I'm just...frustrated, so I took it out on a bag of medium grind organic corn meal. I created my own version of my traditional southern fried cornbread with a nod to my memory of a ball of Crisco melting in a cast iron skillet. It tasted like my grandmother's - fantastic, the buttermilk makes it rich and tangy, but the bite is crunchy and nutty. I was really excited. My husband sopped up the pot-liquor while watching the Super Bowl (cue music: My Country Tis of Thee.) My teenage son said, "I kinda don't like the texture...I wish it was more cake like...not so real corn tasting" (cue trumpet: wha wha wha whaaaaaaa.) Life is funny, so you may as well laugh.

**Today's post about a Family Recipe was in celebration of a very talented writer, Cheryl Tan, who has her first food book being released today; A Tiger In The Kitchen. She collected her family recipes and stories and retold them in her incredibly experienced and delightful manner. Read about her here, and take a look at the book on Amazon right here-RECIPE: Fried Corn Bread

1 cup Med. grind Organic Corn Meal
1/2 cup Flour
1 egg
3/4 cup Buttermilk
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbls. minced onion
1 Tbls. minced garlic
1 Tbls. Crisco or "Lard"
salt/pepper to taste

1) Combine all ingredients, except the Crisco, in a bowl, whisk together and leave for a few minutes so the cornmeal will soak up the buttermilk.

2) Melt the Crisco in a skillet (cast iron is preferred) over Med. heat. Drop small ladles of the batter onto the hot oil. When the edges are crisp, flip the cornbread over and continue to cook until browned and crispy on the other side.

3) Remove each piece as it's done and drain on a towel. Serve warm, and can be held in the refrigerator and toasted for later. (Also, very good when crumbled over scrambled eggs, soup or greens.)