Polenta with Sausage and Porchini Mushroom Sauce

It's easy to create a meal using instant polenta. All you need to do is make the sauce. For this recipe we made a sausage and porchini mushroom sauce. This is a quick and tasty meal you can cook when you're pressed for time.

Sausage and Porchini Mushroom Sauce
1/2 cup dried porchini mushrooms
1 small onion
1garlic clove
1 italian sausage
1 can diced tomatoes
cooking wine
salt
pepper
red pepper flakes

Prepare the mushrooms by soaking in approximately 1 cup warm water. Begin by slicing the onion and cooking along with garlic in a pan with a bit of olive oil. Cook for approximately 5 minutes. While cooking, take the skin off of the sausage and add to the pan when onion and garlic are cooked. Cook the sausage, and then add the porchini mushrooms. Also add a bit of the water the mushrooms were soaking in and some cooking wine for extra flavor. Cook for about five minutes before adding the can of diced tomatoes. Add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste. Cover and let cook for about 10 minutes.

Cooking instant polenta is equally easy and a nice substitution for the traditional pasta when using an Italian sauce. Just make sure you stir the polenta the entire time it is cooking to ensure there are no clumps. I am considering expanding my polenta use to include a polenta pizza recipe or possibly breakfast polenta with greek yogurt, honey, and blueberries. Yum!