Prep Work:  Chop onion, mushrooms and kale; store separately.  Dice tomatoes if not using canned.

1.  Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in skillet and saute onions 2-3 min. until beginning to soften.  Add kale and mushrooms and cook another 3-4 min. until both are softened.

2.  Preheat oven broiler. 

3.  Push vegetables to sides and put meat in center of pan.  Break apart with a spatula and put a lid on skillet.  Check after 4 min., break apart meat with spatula, return lid and cook until no longer pink, at least 4 more min.

4.  Add tomatoes, corn and beans to skillet.  Add 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper (yield of 6) or to taste. Drain liquid and save for broth!  Place ingredients of skillet into an 11x7 pan.

5.  Puree polenta with milk in blender until smooth.  Spread polenta over top of meat and beans and sprinkle with cheese.  Broil from middle of oven approx. 10 min., or until cheese is bubbly and slightly browned.

Leftovers Soup:  Put leftovers in a soup pot and add enough broth to give it the consistency you like.  Saute small potato chunks and onion.  Add to soup along with other leftover vegetables you might have, chopped greens like collard greens or spinach, diced zucchini.  If you didn’t have many leftovers you may need to add chunks of cooked turkey sausage and/or a can of kidney beans. Season with salt and pepper, and dried herbs like oregano, thyme and nutritional yeast.  Add a crushed clove of garlic for extra flavor too.

Leftovers for Lunch: Warm a large, burrito sized tortilla.  In center spread hummus, leftover meat pie without polenta topping, salsa,  leftover, diced baked potatoand or other vegetables and some kind of finely sliced greens. I used leftover salad. Wrap up in burrito and then wrap in cellophane. Good warmed up or not.

OTL 2011