Polenta with Wild Mushroom Ragout Recipe HEALTHY RECIPES This recipe serves: 4 Preparation time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 40 minutes Ingredients 1/4 teaspoon finely chopped garlic 1 cup skim milk 1 bay leaf cayenne pepper to taste 1/4 cup cornmeal 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1/8 teaspoon salt For the wild mushroom ragout: 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon chopped shallots 2 cups sliced wild mushrooms (shiitake, oyster, chanterelles) 8 plum tomatoes, quartered and skinned 1 sprig fresh tarragon, or 1/4 teaspoon dried 1/8 teaspoon salt Cooking Instructions For the polenta: 1. Heat the olive oil in a pot over low heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, keeping the heat low so the garlic doesn't burn. 2. Add the milk, bay leaf and cayenne pepper. Increase the heat and bring the milk to a boil. 3. Pour the cornmeal into the hot milk slowly, whisking constantly. After all the cornmeal has been added, cook 3 to 4 minutes more, stirring constantly. 4. Remove the pot from the heat and slowly stir in the grated cheese. 5. Season with salt and pepper to taste. For the wild mushroom ragout: 1. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until they begin to soften, about 2 minutes. 2. Turn the heat to medium-high, add the mushrooms and sauté 2 minutes more. 3. Add the tomatoes, tarragon, salt and pepper. Heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. If using canned tomatoes, simmer for 30 minutes to reduce the acidic taste. 4. Adjust the salt and pepper to taste. 5. To serve, place a portion of polenta on a warm plate and spoon on the mushroom ragout. TAKE OUT BAY LEAF BEFORE adding anything else/or whisking milk so that you can remove it whole & don't have little pieces! Just a hint!! Nutrition Facts Serving size: about 1 cup Calories 404 Total Fat 12 g Saturated Fat 2 g Protein 20 g Total Carbohydrate 57 g Dietary Fiber 17 g Sodium 335 mg Percent Calories from Fat 25% Percent Calories from Protein 20% Percent Calories from Carbohydrate 55%

Then may I suggest a Dutch Oven? Brown the meat in a little bit of fat...oil, bacon grease whatever. Brown slowly so all sides are nice and browned. add a chopped onion a clove or so of crushed garlic, about 1 1/2 cups liquid...either beef broth wine, beer veggie broth or a mixture of some of the above and scrape up the browned bits in the pan, cover and place in a 225 oven for 3 or 4 hours, depending on the size of the piuece of meat, add your potatoes after about 1 1/2 hours....and I like to add carrots too at that time. Thicken the gravy with a slurry of a little more broth/wine and flour and serve with the meat. Much better than cooking it to mush in a crock pot. Linda C

I'd be curious to know how many more amps of electricity your crock pot pulls to do this vs. just a regular plant heating pad. Doesn't seem nearly as effective unless you have no other alternative. Dave

There are some caveats. There are basically four kinds of commercial lasagna: "Fresh" which are flat sheets with eggs in them, from the refrigerator case, only semi-dry. These do not need boiling and, in fact, suffer from it. What I'll called "old fashioned", which is a dry, thick noodle, with large ruffles on both sides. If you use these without boiling they may soak up a lot of fat, making the cheese dry. Adding the water helps, since the water is available for soaking up faster than the fat renders. What's great about this kind of pasta, however, is how pliable it is when wet. If you want to line the sides of the pan, for instance, or do a weave pattern, soak them in hot water for 10-15 minutes before you assemble. This gets them wet enough to be pliable without turning them to mush, a stuck together ball, or wet enough to release water into the pie rather than soaking up excess, leading to spillover. There's the super high quality Italian kind, which are usually shorter strips, have a much denser texture, and a tiny ruffle edge. These are very dry and stiff, and don't soften with soaking. You'll be a lasagna if you put them in dry, but the texture is way to al dente. They really benefit a lot from being boiled. They usually come in shorter lengths which are easier to fit in a pot. I really don't care for them in any case. Then there's "no boil" pasta. The ones I've tried (several brands) are pretty similar. Small, flat sheets, which a kind of open texture sort of like those flattened sponges that puff up when you get them wet. They work okay, but not better than regular pasta without boiling. I don't care for the texture when finished, but it's in comparison to tip top quality pasta. As run of the mill boxed pasta, they're fine. They have the advantage of not having a ruffle if you don't like interlocking the sheets.