Mushroom Polenta with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe

I have a tendency to over-buy ingredients when cooking for more than just myself, but my dad has this problem to the umpteenth degree. I was lucky to profit from this when I was home the other day and my dad bought about quadruple the amount of sausage needed for a recipe my mom was cooking. They sent me back to Brooklyn with the rest of the sausage. It was garlic and pork sausage and came from Frank and Maria's Italian Pork Store in Bay Shore, Long Island. Nice place.

I'd never even heard of garlic pork sausage before! It was good, but I imagine you could use any kind of sausage for this dish, as I just threw it in with some other ingredients. I'm not sure where I got the idea to use polenta, but it worked. You can really play around a lot with the ingredients... add more or less salt and pepper, change the spices, switch up the veggies, etc.

This recipe could probably feed about 4 people for dinner.

Ingredients

For the polenta:

2 cups dried polenta (ground cornmeal)
6 cups water
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 package mushrooms, sliced and sauteed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning (or a mix of dried rosemary and thyme)
Salt and pepper, to taste

For the rest:

1 bunch broccoli rabe (about a pound), chopped and ends trimmed about an inch
2 cloves garlic, slivered
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 - 1 1/2 pound(s) sausage
Grated cheese (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place sausage in an oven safe dish and cook for about 40 minutes or until the sausage starts to brown. When finished cooking, cut sausage into 1 inch pieces.

2. Meanwhile, bring water and 1 teaspoon salt to boil in a large pot. Stir in dried polenta. Reduce heat to low and let simmer uncovered for about 30 minutes. Stir frequently; the polenta will get very thick.

3. While keeping an eye on/stirring the polenta, saute mushrooms in about a tablespoon of olive oil until tender.

4. In a separate pan, saute the broccoli rabe and slivered garlic in 3 tablespoons of olive oil, until broccoli rabe is tender (or still a little crunchy, if you prefer that). Season both mushrooms and broccoli rabe with salt and pepper.

5. When polenta is about ready, stir in mushrooms, minced garlic, and Italian seasoning (or other seasonings). Add salt and pepper to taste.

6. Top polenta with sausage and broccoli rabe. Add some grated cheese if you like!