Italian – The Catholic Table

The other day, I was chatting on Facebook, and brainstorming about putting together an e-cookbook for entertaining. A friend, who has been reading the blog for the past year, suggested maybe I should start a food blog first.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about recipes, hasn’t it?

Well, in my defense, blogging about food when you don’t have a kitchen is hard. Blogging about food when you’re not cooking because of an adorable bundle of chunk who is keeping you up night and day? Even harder. But, now that we do have a kitchen, and the baby is sleeping through the night, I am back at the stove, so I figured it’s time to start putting up the occasional recipe—especially recipes that make it easier for you to invite friends over for dinner and keep the natives from burning down your house while you prepare the meal.

So, here you go.

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It’s February, which means I’m in the middle of most every self-employed writer’s personal hell—a.k.a. “tax season”—drowning in receipts and kicking myself for not being more organized. It’s an annual ritual. Accordingly, until I get all my little spreadsheets neatly filled out and sent off to the accountant, there won’t be much cooking going on around here. Right now, the roommates and I are mostly subsisting on roasted vegetables and polenta.

Polenta is my go-to “I have no time to cook but my body insists on eating” dish. It’s also a handy staple for when all those gluten-free eating friends I mentioned on Tuesday come over for dinner. It goes with just about anything, costs little more than a box of pasta, and takes just over 15 minutes to make. That is to say, it takes just over 15 minutes to make when you do it my way.

Note: All Italian cooking purists should stop reading now. You won’t like what’s coming next.