It started as pizza...

Sophie and Mango were just an ordinary charity shop manager and semi-qualified quack healer, until they tried to make... Polenta Pizza.

The original improvised recipe involved a vegan pizza with a base of polenta. For some reason we were overwhelmed by an attack of ill-advised inspiration and decided on a fancy multi-layered arrangement. One layer of polenta, one layer of tomato sauce, topped with another layer of polenta... There was a problem though - we didn't have time to let one layer set before adding the next, and it failed to solidify in the oven. What resulted was tasty, but even further removed from anything resembling pizza than the original plan...

Base
250g polenta
1.25l water

Sauce
Half an onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic (or less for the less addicted), chopped
Tin of tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp dried oregano
Good handful fresh basil, finely chopped
1 tbsp sunflower oil
Large pinch unrefined salt

Topping
6 mushrooms, sliced
"Tofu Rosso" (fancy biodynamic tofu stuff), sliced
1/4 tin sweetcorn

We made up the polenta according to the instructions, but with a bit extra water as Mango thought it was too dry last time we made it (it certainly wasn't this time!!). To make the sauce, we fried the onion and garlic in the oil and then simmered with the tomatoes, herbs and salt. The polenta probably would have solidified if we'd left it to cool after assembling in the tray, or maybe it would be necessary to lay out the layers separately to cool. Layer of polenta, layer of sauce, another layer of polenta, another of sauce, then the toppings. Cooked at 180C for about 20 minutes. Quite nice and almost, but not quite, entirely unlike pizza (thanks to Douglas Adams).