Donna knows best

2007 challenge accomplished in week 2 with this dish! And it was nice, too! Donna Hay really does know best. I have many of her books and they're my favourites for browsing - there's a picture for every dish, I love that and they look so yummy as well. In my copy of off the shelf where this recipe* is from, I even have all these post-its marking the pages with dishes I want to make. But I haven't. Not a single one. What's wrong with me? I don't know. But my 2007 challenge makes me actually use my cookbooks so maybe I can overcome my weird condition this year. We'll see.

Creamy polenta with caramelised fennel (serves 2)

• 2 bulbs of fennel, trimmed and quartered
• a knob of butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 125ml chicken or vegetable stock
• 50 fine brown sugar
• 1 dl balsamic vinegar
• freshly ground black pepper
  
• some fresh crumbly goat cheese, cut into slices
  
• quick-cook polenta for two persons

Heat the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan. Add the fennel and cook for four minutes on each side. Add the stock, vinegar and sugar and cook, covered, for about 8 minutes until the fennel is soft. Remove the fennel from the pan and keep warm. Bring the pan juices to the boil and reduce by half. In the meantime, make the polenta according to packet instructions and season to taste. Place a large spoonfull of polenta on each plate and lay the cheese on it, then top with the fennel and the pan juices.

*adapted ever so slightly to the contents of my fridge/cupboard: more fennel, balsamic vinegar instead of white wine vinegar and thus less sugar. The original recipe uses blue cheese but I had goat's and that worked really well - shame I had to give the thyme a miss, that would have been very good, I'm sure. Last but not least: a lot less butter - I just couldn't face using the amount I usually eat in a week in one dish.