I’ve been on hiatus for a while, doing a bit of travelling and summer with the kids. It has been fun, but I’ve missed blogging here. I keep thinking- I need to photograph this or this would make a great post- but it has taken me a while to get back here. In the downtime I got my passport stamped for the first time (!) as I left the kids with my parents for 10 days and traveled to Costa Rica with my favorite guy. I had more than a few opportunities to sample the tico fare. I wrote about that at my other gig at Segullah. I’ll write more about my adventures there in a bit, but first things first: breakfast.

This morning I auditioned a new form of morning mush. You know I love a good bowl of oatmeal, but this was something else entirely: polenta for breakfast. It shouldn’t be a surprise I fell for it so hard, I’ve been a sucker for grits for a few years now. But that made this the best bowl of breakfast I have had in a long time is what was stirred into the polenta as I was cooking it: almond meal. The ground almonds add texture and fullness to the corn and make for an incredibly satisfying and filling bowl of breakfast. Then add fresh blueberries, a drizzle of sweet local honey, a drop of vanilla, a pinch of cardamon and it cannot get worse. I then garnished that with a plop of creamy yogurt and it was quite good. So good that I am telling you about this before I tell you about my first trip out of the continent. Goodness now, and more good stuff to come.

I modified the recipe from The Food 52 Cookbook. Which if you are not familiar with it, is really a great food site, http://www.food52.com/.  All of the contest winning recipes there are submissions by regular folks, only incredibly-clever-with-food regular folks. Check it out sometime.

If you don’t stock almond meal, don’t skip this recipe. I made my own in my food processor this morning- since it is a quick task- just remember to pulse continuously, rather than let it process continuously until you reach your desired consistency. Go ahead and swap things out if you like- other nuts or fruits would also lend themselves quite agreeably to this preparation.  Pecans, I’m looking at you next.  Enjoy this easy and delicious recipe.

Blueberry Almond Breakfast Polenta

3 cups of whole milk

1 cup of water

3/4 cup of polenta

1/2 cup of almond meal (ground almonds)

2 T. butter

2-3 T. honey

1 1/2 blueberries

1/2 t. vanilla extract

pinch of ground cardamon

whole milk yogurt for serving

Toast the polenta in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat, until they begin to smell nutty fragrant. Slowly, add the water and milk, while constantly whisking to prevent lumps, continue until smooth. Reduce the heat a bit and whisk in the almond meal. Continue whisking until the polenta thickens. Add in the butter and stir until it melts. Remove from the heat and add in the honey, vanilla, cardamon, 1 cup of blueberries. Serve in bowls topped with the additional blueberries and a bit of the yogurt.

serves 4