It is always gratifying when hard work from the summer pays off in a cozy fall meal. I needed something fairly quick to make this evening and when perusing the pantry and freezer came up with dried porcinis, a bag of polenta, and a package of frozen wild pork sausage from a boar my husband harvested in Hawaii last winter. The mushrooms, of course, had been lovingly gathered by all of us this past August, and dried and packaged, just waiting to re-emerge as the weather got colder. In the midst of mushroom season there always comes a point where I am surrounded by bags of Boletes, dreading the process of slicing and drying every single one of them. I have to remind myself how happy I will be in the fall or winter months when there are no fresh mushrooms to be seen and I can reach into the pantry and pull out that earthy goodness. And so it was tonight. As I opened the bag I could almost smell the mountains again, and just sat there staring at my treasure.
I re-hydrated the mushrooms in white wine, stirring them occasionally to make sure that each mushroom absorbed enough liquid. I then defrosted the sausage and decided what else I was going to throw into this dish. Typically when cooking with mushrooms I use a white or yellow onion, but I’ve been a homebody lately and not made it to the store. All I had left was a red onion which was starting to go bad. So I picked off the bad bits and figured it would have to do. I am obsessed with garlic and so diced up five cloves to toss into this meal. If you’re not quite so afraid of vampires two or three would do just fine. I sautéed the onions and garlic in olive oil, and then added the mushrooms and a generous pinch of salt. Once the mushrooms had browned nicely I carefully poured in the wine that they have been soaking in. If you’re careful when pouring, any little bits of dirt and debris left on the dried mushrooms will settle to the bottom of the bowl and not get into your meal. This has been a wonderful blessing to have discovered, especially when processing mushrooms like chanterelles which are notoriously hard to clean. When all of the liquid had been absorbed, I added the sausage and broke it up into big bits. I let the sausage brown and now it was time to add the polenta. I decided this was the perfect time to try my new bone broth that I had made using goat bones from a goat we slaughtered for a friend recently. It was my first go at making bone broth and I think it came out pretty nicely. Unlike making stock in the crockpot, the bone broth is not liquid in the fridge but gelatinous. It has a nice mellow flavor, and I thought would go nicely with the sausage. I added 3 cups of broth to the meat and mushroom mixture, and a cup of polenta string to combine. and let it cook for about eight minutes and then turned off the heat and covered it and let it sit. When I removed the lid such yummy goodness came steaming into view! Because I’m dairy free, I served it as is, but generously mixed Parmesan into my kiddos bowls. If you have no problem with dairy, go ahead and mix the Parmesan into the whole pot. I served the polenta in big scoops over the last of my summer kale, harvested a few days ago, just before the first big frost. And the big question; how does it taste? AMAZING! Not to brag, but MAN I did good! This will definitely be served again in our house! Yum!
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