Small Bowl #11

 

I've been meaning to make this recipe for pumpkin polenta with balsamic roasted beets from With Food and Love for a very long time. Finally, I did it! Mostly, I did it because I needed to use the last of my pumpkin for the pantry utilization quest and had the beets because I made that beet greens and barley gratin this week.

It was delicious and I loved every bite, but there are some complaints I had. One, I probably cut my beets too small, because I burned most of them to a crisp, and there was none of the pretty balsamic glaze to drizzle over the top. It was just charred lumps at the edge of the pan. But that's partially my fault; I take responsibility.

The other thing is that this is extremely low in protein. I realize I could have had a side (and in this case I made myself a mug cake with peanut butter and soy milk for dessert, which solved the problem for me), and that an occasional lower-protein meal is fine (though I am not a medical doctor and you shouldn't take my advice instead of your actual doctor). But I could have made the polenta in soy milk and have boosted the protein significantly. A lesson for the future, perhaps.

The weather warmed a bit more than expected, abruptly, such that I am now realizing I need to check the forecast before turning my oven on, so I can't reliably roast my veggies anymore, incidentally. I can still turn on my oven, to be fair, but not every day, and only with the windows open and a fan going. I think the good part of winter is over, but I'm hoping that I will find joy in what is available to me without bemoaning the whole oven thing too much.

However, as this did not have soy milk, this is a fully allergy-friendly concoction, and if you need to add protein, you could do as I was too tired to do and make yourself a lovely green salad with some chickpea croutons to have with this and it would be perfect. So. Options exist.

On the pantry utilization quest, I have accepted that I don't use pumpkin often enough for it to count as a staple food, so won't be rebuying canned pumpkin to just have. One more tiny gift of space. Plus, this used a bit of polenta unearthed in the pantry I'd forgotten about. There is still a little polenta left, too, waiting to become something amazing sometime in the spring or summer. I'm holding as steady as I can in the face of all these challenges in the outside world. I hope you are, too.