Comfort Food for a Cold Day

Liz emailed me this recipe from a Donna Hay magazine. DH is the Australian equivalent of Martha Stewart! They came out really well - more like potato croquettes than oven fries, but we enjoyed them with salad and a slice of pork pie!

POLENTA "FRIES" from Donna Hay magazine

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup polenta
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 2tbsp melted butter or olive oil
• flavouring

Bring the milk and water just to a boil in a large saucepan. Slowly stream in the polenta while stirring constantly. Stir in the salt and turn down the heat a bit if needed (you don't want the polenta to scorch). Continue stirring until the polenta thickens up, this can take anywhere from just a few minutes to much longer depending on your polenta. Stir in any flavourings [tsp smoked paprika, or tbsp grated cheese, or squeeze of lemon juice & sprinkling of black pepper - I used paprika]

Remove from heat and spread out 1/2-inch thick onto a baking sheet using a spatula. Chill in a refrigerator for at least an hour, or overnight. Cut into rectangles 1cm x 4cm. Brush each fry with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with some salt.

Bake 200'C for 20 minutes or until golden and crispy. Flip the fries once after ten minutes.

Makes 2 dozen fries.

For dessert, I made a banana butterscotch pudding. This was on Rachel Allen's programme last week. It is another of those amazing 'inverted' ones which comes out with the sponge on top and sauce underneath even though you prepare it the other way round! RA actually said "you must do it in this order- I tried putting the sauce in the bowl first and it doesn't work"

BANANA BUTTERSCOTCH PUDDING - SERVES 4

125g plain flour
1 pinch salt
120g caster sugar
3 tsp Baking Powder
1 banana mashed
200ml Milk

1 lightly beaten egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
85g unsalted butter, melted

TOPPING

140g soft brown sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
250ml water, boiling

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Sift the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder into a bowl.
2. Add the banana, milk, butter, egg and vanilla extract and whisk together until well combined. Pour into a greased 2.5L ovenproof dish.
3. To make the topping: place the brown sugar, golden syrup and water in a small pot and bring to a boil.
4. Pour the boiling mixture carefully over the pudding and bake the pudding for 30 - 40 minutes, until it's firm to the touch.

This worked out beautifully and we were incredibly self disciplined and only ate half of it! RA said it reheats well, so we will eat the rest tomorrow. Typing it up now, I have just realised that somehow I missed out the melted butter when I was making it. Silly me - never mind, it still tasted wonderful and must have been even healthier without the fat!