Day 56- Tasty Polenta

So Polenta. It's basically cornmeal mush. You can make it thick and call it Ugali. You can make it thinner from larger corn meal, cover it with shrimp in gravy or cheese and call it grits. Or you can make it smooth, cover it in tasty food, and call it Polenta.

Not fond of grits- I think it's the lye processing. Dunno.

Polenta

• 1/2 C corn meal
• 2 C water
• 1 T salt

dump cornmeal into pot, add water, whisking in (clumpy is fail). Add all the water, add salt, whisk some more. Heat on stove until boiling/ tries to thicken. Take off heat, put over low heat, adding more water- cooking too fast doesn't let the grain get soft, and you want it soft, not gritty. Keep whisking every once in a while, over low heat, usually about 10-20 minutes.

Top with yummy sauce or main-dish type stuff, and eat.

Oh, and make sure you rinse the pot before you eat- this stuff dries *solid*

Mine is topped with 1/2 sliced, sauted zucchini, onion, and about 1/2 C pinto beans. Topped that with Daiya. It won't be going bad, I guess- I only have about one serving left.

1/2 C of cornmeal was easily enough to cover a 10 inch dinner plate about an inch deep. This stuff expands as it rehydrates. It's better all around to add too much water at the start and risk having to cook it longer, then to not add enough water and end up with crunchy dinner.

Roommates are not so good with the "stay on budget" thing, and encouraged me to get junk food. I am a total push over for peer pressure to do things I want, but shouldn't. Too bad for all those after school specials that it doesn't work for drugs and whatnot. I'd be every station's shiny new pet. So, yeah. Ate enough polenta to sink a biiiig boat, then nommed chips while leveling in WoW.

I need to work on snacks that don't require major prep, don't need to be eaten hot, and are easy to deal with while trying to keep my character alive. Too bad homemade pizza rolls are so much work...

Keep an eye out- later this week is the 2 month marker. I can't believe I'm almost 1/6 of the way through this. I'll get an up-to-date official spend by then, and a closer guess at the cheating spend, as well.