hugh's mushroom ragout with soft polenta

Of course, as soon as I say I'm home alone and will spend the next few nights studiously updating the blog, is the exact moment I come down with man 'flu which completely wipes Tuesday night out: I came home from work an hour early, went for a little pre-tidy catnap at about 1830, and was woken at 0900, fully clothed including scarf, lenses in, by work wondering where I was. Luckily I'd done enough sniffing and hacking on Tuesday to do a convincing enough impression of having the black lung, and was allowed to work from home today. In my sleeping bag.

It's massively vexing because I had planned on taking advantage of M&S' Valentine's Day £20 steak, wine and pudding offer, and eating all myself, and now I'll have to wait until next year. However, I did manage to cook tonight and it was hale and hearty in a way the Arsenal rearguard weren't, but will it be enough to cure me tomorrow?

Who cares, it was probably the best version of this dish I've made of it yet, with a decent slug of wine, some properly fleshy mushrooms and a big old fistful of herbs and seasoning to blast their way through the mucus coating my very innards. It was really warming and perking, perhaps too warming though, as I burnt my throat with my first mouthful of molten polenta. Still - aces!


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

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