Even though my farm cooking days are over, I still have a LOT of fun recipes and creations to share with you guys.  Soon enough, they will be from the comfort of my brand new kitchen, but this particular one took place down on the farm.  The fun thing about this recipe is that it is so customizable – you can pick your own toppings, and even make a gluten-free version (just get GF corn meal).  It’s quick and easy to throw together, but feels like a decadent treat.

Make Your Own Polenta Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 2 1/4 cups water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 cup cheese (parmesan, mozzarella, gruyere – your choice!)
• pizza toppings of your choice!

Preparation:  First things first, go ahead and preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Next you need to make the polenta itself.  Start with 1 cup of white or yellow corn meal.

Mix the cornmeal, salt, and pepper slowly into 2 1/4 cups boiling water in a sauce pot.

Whisk quickly and constantly, as polenta takes very little time to form.  It should be sticky and kind of gluey – make sure to whisk enough to remove all the lumps.

Once the polenta is thick enough (pulling away from the sides of the pot), spoon it into a large coated spring form pan (about 10 inches).  If you don’t have a spring form pan, you can probably also do this in a shallow pie pan.  If you are using a smaller pan, use a little less cornmeal – otherwise your “crust” will be super thick!

Spread the polenta evenly around the base of the pan, trying to get it a little bit higher on the outside edges – you’re basically trying to make a Chicago deep dish pizza here, mmmmm. 

Now that we have a “crust” – we need toppings.  I made mine based on what was available in the fridge, so I went with sun dried tomatoes, arugula, and a mixture of gruyere and parmesan cheese. 

Chopped the sun dried tomatoes into tiny bite sized pieces…

I mixed the arugula, tomatoes, a bit of olive oil, and half of my cheese mixture in a small bowl. 

Feel free to take liberty and use whatever mixture of toppings and cheese (even soy cheeses!) that you prefer.  Next, spread a tiny bit of olive oil on top of the polenta to help the crust crisp up, and then pile the toppings on.  Before it goes into the oven, sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese on top.

Bake in the oven at 400 degrees until the cheese is nice and melted and starting to brown – about 40 minutes  If you used white cornmeal, you should also see the polenta start to brown a bit too. 

The result is thick and doughy, and absolutely wonderful.  When I mentioned making this on twitter, I had someone ask if it was high in calories.  One cup of corn meal clocks in at around 600 calories, and this much polenta easily makes 4 large pieces, 6 if you’re sharing.  So for 4 pieces, the crust itself would be 150 calories per slice – as long as you top with light cheese and loads of veggies, you can probably figure about 200 calories per slice.  Better than most pizza!

I loved using arugula as a topping here – it got nice and crispy, but still held that wonderful peppery flavor. 

Cut into pieces and serve on a plate!  I think homemade pizza can be kind of intimidating sometimes (especially the crust), but I assure you that this recipe was easy and delicious. 

Enjoy!  :)

Can you believe that today is my last day at Poplar Ridge?  Hard to believe it was early May when I drove down the gravel path and through their gates for the first time.

I have been so blessed to work in such a beautiful and serene place.  On my best days, I can walk the grounds, eat from the vines, and soak up the sunshine.

And on days when I am down, I can visit the horses or stare across the acres and acres of green, clearing my mind.

Hard to believe ELEVEN weeks have gone by since my first day on the farm.

In what felt like a very short summer, I’ve learned more than I could have imagined about farming and identifying varieties of vegetables in the ground.

I’ve explored the gardens and learned to harvest my own ingredients from the farm to the table.

I’ve made a few animal friends…

And some really great people friends too.

By day, I cooked in my running shorts and gym shoes…

And at night, I got dressed up in chef whites to serve dinners of 50+ people.

I pulled ingredients straight off the vines…

And brought them into my gorgeous farm kitchen.

And with them I made some pretty incredible food…

I have never been one for transitions or change.  I tend to cling to the familiar with every muscle in my body.  Luckily I have Casey, who always pushes me to grow, and makes me less afraid to try new things.

This very weekend last year, I was driving my life across the country in a budget truck, headed towards a new home and a second chance at my career.

I remember feeling so lost and scared, and when we finally got our internet hooked up at our new house, one of the first things I did was check my favorite blogs for a glimpse of something familiar.  But while I was uprooting my life that weekend, my favorite bloggers were at the first ever Healthy Living Summit, laughing, eating, and forming new friendships.  It felt so strange to me that while my life was in total chaos, somehow life had gone on outside of Charlotte.

What a difference a year can make.  For as much as I learned about food and cooking this year, I learned a lot more about myself.  I’m not scared of much anymore, and I think I can handle just about anything.  Fast forward to this year, and I’m getting ready to move again.  But this time will be different – I won’t be depressed and overwhelmed.  I will be excited and grateful that I have so many wonderful opportunities to change and explore.

But before I move again in a few short weeks, I have a few other things planned – starting with this year’s Healthy Living Summit!  I’ll be on a plane at 5pm en route to Chicago to finally “meet” so many of the bloggers that I’ve gotten to know through my computer screen.

It feels very appropriate to close the door on my last day at Poplar Ridge and head straight to the HLS, since my next step will be to continue to explore the writing opportunities and projects that blogging has brought me.

See you in the Windy City!

Can you believe that this is my last week on the farm?  Seems like it was just yesterday that I was pulling down the gravel path for the very first time.  Today was my very last staff lunch, so I tried to go out on a good note.  The highlight of lunch – my cranberry walnut potato salad – recipe coming up next!

This was absolutely delicious, and definitely the favorite dish of today’s spread.

For our main vegetable dish, I went with a simple sauté of all the veggies we have laying around on the counters in the kitchen.  The farm owners are headed to California for the next month, so I’m trying to use up everything fresh in the house!

Guess what that bright orange vegetable is?  EGGPLANT!  It’s some crazy variety I’ve never seen before, and they were shaped like tomatoes – very strange.

Chopped and sauteed all of the vegetables separately, and then combined them all together at the end.  Sprinkled with fresh slivers of crisp basil.

I am really going to miss cooking here – it has been such a fun experience working with all this wonderful food.

My entire time here on the farm, I never did a sandwich dish, so today I recreated similar roll-ups to the ones I made for the bachelorette party last weekend.

I used Flatout wraps this time, which worked really well because of their rectangular shape.

They were all veggie, but I did half with a homemade sun-dried tomato goat cheese spread, and the other half with wasabi mustard.  All of them had spinach, arugula, cucumbers, and tomatoes stuffed inside.  These were a hit!

Today was actually a double-duty cooking day for me.  After lunch, I cleaned up and got to cooking once again – I had to make dinner for the farm owners and their out of town company.

Since they were such a big hit at the staff lunch, I decided to make my quinoa stuffed zucchini boats again, this time for the family.

Because they had company in from out of town, they asked for something a little special tonight.  Unlike most nights, tonight I made DESSERT – yum!  I filled a baking dish with a mixture of fresh figs, nectarines, white wine, honey, and sugar, and let it caramelize in the oven for 30 minutes.

This was soooooooo good!  It doesn’t get any better than baked fruit.  This was intended to be served over fresh vanilla ice cream…

And because I know it is important for chef’s to taste the food they are serving, I happily obliged with a heaping scoop of vegan coconut meat ice cream.

And then I remembered that we still had leftover raw cacao chocolate sauce from our last Farm to Table Dinner, and I figured I should probably make sure it was still good…

Yep, still good.  :)  The final lunch and dinner were both big successes.  Hard to believe that there are just a few days left…