When the refrigerator has less and less to offer, and getting to the grocery store is not an option, cupboard and freezer come to the rescue. I was happy to find in my freezer tomatoes and okra and—saints be praised!—sweetcorn from my neighbor’s September stand. I do have more tomatoes in cans and boxes, but it was fun to throw together a meal from the freezer, where I also found frozen chopped jalapeño and one last chicken breast from a bird braised earlier in the season. Using the last of my garlic (rookie mistake, running out of garlic!), I had to resort to garlic powder augmentation. Better than nothing, so good to have on hand in the pantry for emergencies.
What to go with this hearty, nourishing winter meal? What else but corn muffins made with Bob’s Red Mill polenta, so wonderfully coarse-grained and toothsome? Even if it does use up one of the last two precious eggs in the house! If I were snowed in for several weeks, I could survive on polenta and oatmeal after today’s snowed-in feast, which will stretch another day or two into the future. As it was, adding reconstituted tomato paste, filé gumbo spice, and hot sauce, I had enough to take some to a friend once my driveway was plowed.
Serve over rice. Very satisfying!
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