Friday night’s Polenta FAIL was an attempt to make Polenta Pizza. The recipe I was using called for instant polenta, mixed with water.

But I didn’t use instant, I used this:

Melissa’s Organic Polenta, found in the produce section at Wegmans. What do you mean this isn’t “instant”. Looks instant to me! Open the package and BAM! Polenta! How can you get more instant than that?

Well, I guess there is in fact an instant variety of polenta because when I added water to this as directed in a magazine recipe clipping, I had very watery polenta that didn’t behave at all like I expected it to. I didn’t make anything resembling pizza on Friday. I made polenta pizza soup.

FAIL.

So tonight was Polenta Pizza: Take Two.

Cooking Techniques? Fried, grilled or as mush. OK, I choose mush!

Today I added NO water and popped the whole thing into the food processor to mash it up quickly.

With my fingers I flattened the polenta mush into a crust on a lightly greased cookie sheet.

I made a fast sauce in the food processor with plain tomato sauce, a little agave nectar, dried oregano and a dash of salt.

2 oz of grated mozzarella cheese – measured on my digital food scale because I’m not good at eyeballing 1 oz portions of cheese. It’s easy to go overestimate with cheese and while I’m in calorie counting mode I want to know exactly how many calories are going into this pizza.

Topped with some of our favorite pizza toppings – mushrooms, onions and banana peppers.

I ended up adding another 1 oz of mozzarella, plus 1 Tbsp off Parmesan cheese.

Into a pre-heated 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Served with a small spinach salad.

Unfortunately Polenta Pizza: Take Two was still not a complete success. I definitely got closer tonight though. The crust on the outside was cooked but the center was still mush. I couldn’t let it cook any longer or the cheese was going to burn.

It tasted great but this was pizza that had to be eaten with a fork.

If there is ever a Polenta Pizza: Take Three, I will bake the crust first and then add toppings and cheese once I’m sure the crust is crispy. The outside of the crust that wasn’t covered with toppings cooked up perfectly and was nice and crispy. The texture was great and I know this has real potential.

I’d like to have a little chat with the person who wrote this original recipe I found though! The original directions has you cook the whole pizza with the toppings on it right from the start. Maybe instant polenta behaves differently?

I like that this is a gluten free version of pizza. I especially like that this is much lower in calories than regular pizza dough. The entire pizza was just over 700 calories. Cut into 8 slices, that’s less than 88 calories per slice! It was a lot easier to make than pizza dough and tasted great! Just a little mushy in the middle.

Mushy? Well, that’s what the package said, right? Serve as mush. So that’s what I did! Just not intentionally.

• We Came, We Saw, We Raked
• True or False
• The Beautiful People Know

For my work out this morning I planned to hit the machines at the gym. I was surprised to find that the temperature was only in the mid 40’s, so at the last minute I decided to warm up by jogging the mile to the gym instead of driving.

Exactly 8 minutes and 19 seconds later I was at the gym to hit the elliptical for 20 minutes and then spent 15 very sweaty minutes on the stair climber. Why do you get so incredibly sweaty on that machine? Tell me! Someone tell me why!

A very easy run home for my cool down. When I tallied it all up I realized my work out was nearly an hour! It’s amazing how fast that times goes when my travel time to the gym is part of the workout itself.

Home for my very favorite breakfast of late:

Two slices cinnamon Ezekiel toast with 1 Tbsp of almond butter split between each slice and 1/2 of a very large banana sliced on top.

I’ve really been enjoying this Holiday Chai tea from Stash in the mornings lately too. Sweetened with a teaspoon of agave nectar.

I think Stash knows their tea bags are going to be photographed because that just looks a little too perfect to me. I mean come on. This was practically begging to be included in this mornings breakfast photo shoot.

There is not a doughnut, cheese danish or breakfast pastry in the entire world that tastes better than this combo.

I remember as a kid thinking that peanut butter and banana sandwiches sounded like the grossest sandwich combo ever. I had no idea how anyone could eat that.

Kids are so stupid.

Speaking of kids and their intelligence, I’m rewarding us for our busy day yesterday with a very laid back homeschooling kind day today. This quiet Tuesday before a holiday has been allocated for some reading, writing and readying ourselves for Thanksgiving. Turkey hand tracings anyone? It’s time.

• Scary Spoon
• Chocolate Smoothies Built for Two
• A Day of Calorie Counting