You haven’t lived until you’ve had a plumbing emergency on a Friday night, because no matter what, you’re living with it until Monday. I came home to a backed up sink after a long week at work. I took apart the pipes underneath, bought a snake from the hardware store and ran through multiple rounds of Drano, but we still haven’t managed to fix it.

The worst part about all this is that all the cooking I wanted to do this weekend was thwarted because I couldn’t do dishes. Saturday night I did a round in the tub, which was miserable even before I slipped on the wet tile and slammed my ribcage into the side of the sink.

I considered skipping this week’s Food Matters Project recipe, which is Apricot Polenta Cake, but decided to make it more savory so it would go with the chili we had for dinner and I’d kill two birds with one stone. The original recipe is posted on Jen‘s blog, which I love because it’s partly in German and it reminds me of D’s mom. She has lived in the States for many years, but still dreams in German. I think if she had a blog, it would probably be written much the same way.

Since I wanted the cake to be savory, I only used a teaspoon of sugar instead of the 1/2 cup the recipe called for and I subbed fresh cut corn kernels for the apricots. It just so happened that one of the vendors at Eastern Market was giving away ears of corn at the end of the day, so I grabbed a whole bag and used two ears’ worth in the batter. I also didn’t separate the eggs solely to minimize the number of dishes we’d end up with. See, I’m making sacrifices.

Savory Polenta Cake, adapted from The Food Matters Project Cookbook

1/2 cup olive oil
cooking spray
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
2 eggs
3 tbsp orange juice
two ears of corn, kernels cut off

1. Heat the oven to 350 F. Grease an 8- or 9-inch pan with cooking spray. Put the cornmeal and salt in a sauce pan and slowly whisk in 1 1/4 cups water to avoid lumps. Put it on medium-high heat and bring almost to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Whisk it frequently until it’s thick, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.

2. Combine the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Use a whisk to beat together the oil, sugar and eggs for a few minutes. Mix in the polenta until smooth, then mix in the dry ingredients until smooth. Add the orange juice and corn kernels and stir until blended.

3. Turn the batter into the greased pan. Bake until a fork or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.

We had this with chili, which was also made with Food Matters principles in mind using just a little ground beef and lots of beans and veggies.

See all the other Food Matters Project members’ take on this recipe here!