Pumpkin Polenta

This popular southern breakfast item has found a lot of other uses besides breakfast but you will use the same basic recipe for each with a few additions at times.  The basic recipe I use is 2 cups of broth, or milk or combination of the two (add salt / seasoning to taste - I use Lawry's) and after the liquid begins to boil I slowly begin to stir in 1/2 cup of grits and turn the heat to simmer.  They need to cook about 20 min, stirring often to start getting thick and creamy at which point you can add butter and / or cheese.  Cheese grits are popular and one of my favorite ways to serve Grilled Shrimp is on a bed of Cheese Grits or the ever popular Cajun dish Grillades which just wouldn't be good without the bed of Grits.  

Polenta - it's just grits made much the same as above but refrigerated afterwards to become firm and either bake it (be sure to refrigerate it in the prepared pan you plan to bake it in) or fry it.  I didn't refrigerate these in the pic below long enough and it made it near impossible to make a nice firm cake but the taste couldn't have been better.  The recipe I was using called for 1 baked sweet potato mashed and folded into the finished but still warm grits along with about 1/4 cup of asiago cheese and a tbs of dark brown sugar.  I used about 1 cup of Pumpkin Pie filling instead as I didn't have sweet potatoes.  A really neat trick I found was to spray a muffin pan with veggie spray and spoon the grits into that to chill.  If you can do this the day before you shouldn't have any trouble removing them from the muffin pan to a fry pan with just a film of oil and cook till golden brown.  So Good!