Mixed grilled veggies, polenta and chicken casserole
This is a vitamin-packed dish containing tonnes of veggies and buckets of flavour, a perfect dish for summer or any other time in the year. Superlicious.
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Mediterranean, Ramona's Cuisine, World Cuisine
Wash and chop all vegetables. Put them into a big tray/bowl. Drizzle some olive oil and sprinkle some salt over them. Then place on a grill or in a tray and bake for at least 25 min.
Using a griddle pan or charcoal BBQ (for best taste) grill all vegetables. ** Bake if not possible to grill.
Cook the chicken either in a pan or on grill/BBQ. If you pan cooked the chicken, use this same pan later to add the veggies and finish the dish.
Simultaneously, place a pot with the water for the polenta on medium/high fire, add the salt and allow to boil.
Separately, (unless you have pan cooked the chicken) place a deep frying pan over medium heat, put a tablespoon of olive oil and add the chicken thighs in as well as all grilled vegetables in. Cook them covered with some salt on low fire drizzling a little water or stock if you have some so that they don't stick to the pan. Cook for 5 min.
Add the Passata, mix well and cook for 15' from the boiling point on medium/low fire. Cook uncovered until the sauce reduces. Add the olives in the last 2 minutes of cooking so they just about release a little bit of flavour but don't really get to cook. Olives can also be added right at the end.
While the casserole is simmering away, let's go back to our lovely polenta. When the water for the polenta is boiling, add the chopped thyme or rosemary and then the polenta flour while stirring gently until it all homogenizes. Continue to stir for about 2 minutes and then allow to cook for 2 minutes. Repeat this a few times and then take out on a plate. All in all, cook for 12-15 min.
When the casserole is ready and most juices have reduced, is ready to turn the heat off, add the finely chopped garlic stir for 10 seconds and sprinkle some chopped parsley.
Serve the polenta with the casserole while hot.
Notes
Cooking time can be quite different depending on how you choose to cook the vegetables.Char-grilled vegetables are sometimes available and can be found frozen ready grilled supermarkets so look out for them as they will save you a long journey having to cook them from scratch. The result is as delicious! I do buy sometimes a frozen readily grilled vegetable mix pack which contains these exact veggies mix.