Polenta Casserole

Friday night for dins I made ED&BV's Polenta Casserole. It comes together so easily, and grating polenta is oddly...fun? This was also my first experience using faux cheese, as the recipe suggested I used Follow Your Heart's mozzarella and I've got to say, wow! I've had the faux Parmesan on pasta before, but that kind of thing you kind of expect that it won't be melting. I've been wary of the brick cheezes for just this reason, and while this stuff didn't melt as easily as real cheese, I took a little taste before adding it to the grated polenta and it was delicious! For sure something I'll be picking up and playing with again in the near future. The recipe calls for a cup, but I went ahead and used the whole block because Y.U.M. And I didn't even get to how the casserole tastes. Oh, my gawd, it's so good! There's a whole melty cheesiness under the very top, so you get the flavor of the casserole filling and then this creamy tangy thing happening and some crispy bits of polenta on the very top. It's amazing, for serious, it's so good. You should totally buy the book and make it! Yeah! I'm retarded for this casserole. I did take a picture, but it didn't turn out, and then I was too busy eating to take a picture of the food.

Today was also the first day I figured out how to get the broiler to work on my oven. The trick is to get the dial to click once before it clicks to off. I felt like a total genius. 2 years I've been convinced it just didn't work. And now I'm moving.

A final thought on the subject of food as a healer. I have pink eye, basically the nurse I called at Group Health said I have a cold in my eye and to put cold compresses on it and drink lots of fluids. That's helping a little, but mostly my eye is itchy, swollen, watery, I want to rip it out of my face and stomp on it, it's uncomfortable and looks awful. But while I was working on the casserole, I didn't feel it at all. I didn't notice the itching, I didn't feel the tears running down my face as they've been doing all day (I'm really sorry if your appetite is ruined now). I got it all put together and into the oven and realized I hadn't felt miserable about my eye the entire time. This is one of the many things I love about food, the healing of it is not just in eating, but there's real therapy in the preparation. Grating things, chopping things, stirring, it's all very meditative and can help you focus away from your problems, both physical and spiritual. I have a lot of emotions about food, remind me to elaborate someday on how I believe food is better when you think about love while you make it. :)