Polenta Wedges with Tomato Tapenade

Polenta Wedges with Tomato Tapenade 

(prior to slicing into quarters)

I had a tube of polenta in my pantry and I wanted to try a new appetizer for an upcoming dinner party so I tried Delish.com's Polenta Wedges with Tomato Tapenade. Polenta is ground maize that you can make from scratch or buy in tubes. I buy them at Trader Joes or Mom's Organic Market. It is not hard to make polenta from scratch, just time consuming, same thing as buying versus making hummus. 

1 Tube            (16 to 18 oz) prepared polenta (ends trimmed and cut into 12 slices)

2/3 cup         soft sun-dried tomatoes

4 tsp             extra virgin olive oil

1Tbs             lightly packed flat-leaf parsley leaves

2 tsp             rinsed capers

1 small            clove garlic, chopped

1 pinch            freshly ground pepper

Olive Oil Cooking Spray. (my friend, Mike, gave me an awesome gadget, an olive oil mister. You put olive oil in it and pump it so the liquid oil is now aerosol) 

Preheat broiler. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.

Slice the polenta roll into about 12 pieces, place on the prepared baking sheet and coat with cooking spray. Broil in upper third of oven until starting to brown, 8 to 12 minutes. Turn and broil until lightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes more.

Meanwhile, pulse sun-dried tomatoes, oil, parsley, capers, garlic and pepper in a food processor until coarsely chopped.

Cut each polenta slice into quarters. Top each quarter with 1/4 teaspoon of the tapenade.

I made this recipe near dinnertime so, instead of having it as an appetizer, I changed it up a bit by adding hammered locally raised pork and my husband and I had it for dinner. It was different (don't like "same old, same old"!) and very good!

I did not make this appetizer for the dinner party because it was too much prep time for someone else's house but I will definitely serve it next time I am serving apps at my house.  In case you are wondering, the appetizer I brought to the Vickie's dinner party was Rock Fish Balls. There were a couple of filets left in my freezer from fall fishing...Yum!