Roasted Leeks and Eggplant with Polenta

Roasted Leeks and Eggplant with Polenta

For the roasted leeks and eggplant: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Trim leeks: cut off roots, cut off most of green part, split the larger ones down the middle. Slice eggplant into quarter-inch discs. There's no need to salt/soak these eggplants. Spread vegetables in single layer on baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 15 minutes.

For the polenta: I followed the recipe on the back of a bag of Goya Corn Meal. It instructed me to boil 6 cups of water seasoned with one and a half teaspoons of salt. Once the water begins to boil, add in one and a half cups of the corn meal slowly, whisking continuously so that the polenta doesn't clump. After all of the corn meal is in the boiling water, reduce heat to medium and stir continuously for half an hour with a wooden spoon (or else the polenta will stick to the bottom of the pan and/or clump up). Towards the end of the half an hour, mix in one and a half tablespoons of butter. This actually kept the polenta from sticking to the pan. When I removed the polenta from the heat, I spooned myself a heaping helping of it then poured the rest into a glass baking dish greased with olive oil. It cooled rapidly into the dish but didn't stick to the sides. I think I'll cut the polenta up into squares and saute the squares in butter or grill them and serve them as a side dish for another day.