Easy Comfort Food: Sausages & Polenta

Friday, I came home from work craving something comforting and starchy for supper. There were no potatoes in the house, but I found a tube of refrigerated polenta in the back of the crisper drawer and, as I had already thawed a package of sun-dried tomato and basil chicken sausage, roasted sausages and polenta seemed to be the thing:

I roasted the sausages using Jamie Oliver's recipe for "Sweet Cherry Tomato and Sausage Bake" (Jamie at Home, Hyperion: 2008) but modified it somewhat to suit my ingredients -- I used a mix of grape tomatoes, red bell pepper, and red onion instead of just cherry tomatoes and dried bay as well as fresh oregano, rosemary, and thyme from my garden. Just roasted everything until, as Jamie says, the sausages were "golden and sticky."

To make the polenta, I ran the tube of polenta through my food processor with milk, garlic, and Parmigiano-Reggiano until it was smooth and then microwaved it for about 3 minutes (stirring halfway through). Seasoned it with a little black pepper and it was good to go.

This was a very easy, satisfying weeknight meal.