hugh's mushroom ragout with soft polenta

Winter is definitely creeping in. It's cold and wet, and we're all under the weather for one reason or another: Milo is struggling with a cold, and me and Mrs Barnes are hungover from last night's slap-up dinner with The Kings of Kingston.

Nobody wants to get up, so we're obviously delighted to be forced into action early doors. Ana has to go to school to continue preparing for this week's Ofsted inspection, we've got no food and this afternoon it's the nursery Christmas Fair. Woo-hoo!

By crikey we need a couple of cheeky end-of-day drinks whilst getting the kids ready for bed at Sam and Alistair's, and we're more-than ready for something hearty and beefy to take the edge off it all. With the obvious caveats of it being healthy, and vegetarian. Step forward HFW with this brilliant combination of all our current favourite things - juicy mushrooms, red wine and polenta. Mmmmmm:

Even more brilliantly, Ana hates it. So it's lucky I only cooked the polenta in milk which had infused with bay leaves, peppercorns and garlic for an hour, and I only got three different sorts of mushrooms for the recipe. How vexing? She's completely unreasonable, it must be the change.

sources
mushroom ragout with soft polenta - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Veg Everyday!, HFW, p57