Vegetarian Sweet Potato Hash with Polenta

This is a vegetarian sweet potato hash on top of polenta.  It could easily be made vegan by not adding the eggs and putting some sort of vegan fat into the polenta in place of butter.  It could also be made meaty by adding sausage or bacon or ham or turkey, or the meat of basically any animal.

First, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees.  Then, I used an oven safe pan and put some olive oil in it - like a tablespoon maybe.  I used my Le Creuset pan, but you could also use an iron skillet.  Then I cooked 1/2 of a chopped up onion and 2 peeled and chopped up large sweet potatoes.  I cooked them for about 20-30 minutes, until the sweet potatoes softened and browned a little.

Browning sweet potatoes and onions.

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While they were cooking, I made the polenta.  I used Bob's Red Mill polenta this time and followed the directions on the bag.  The bag said to cook the polenta for 30 minutes, but mine only needed about 15 minutes to thicken.

This was the first time I used actual polenta.  I usually make it myself this way:

Stir together 1 1/4 cups of yellow cornmeal, 1 tsp of salt, 1/4 cup of flour, and 1 cup of cold water.  Boil 3 cups of water.  Stir in the cornmeal mixture and whisk until it boils.  Cover and simmer on low heat for 5 minutes.

I have no idea where I got this recipe.  It has been saved on my phone notes under "polenta" since October 15, 2009.

I didn't notice much of a difference between the polentas.  My only advice is to not get the polenta in a tube.  That stuff is nasty.

Back to the hash.  So then I added a can of black beans.  I rinsed them off first.

 

Once the hash was warm throughout, I made 2 egg wells and cracked 2 eggs into the wells.  Then, I cooked the whole thing, uncovered, until the eggs set.  This took maybe 20 minutes.

This was the end result:

Apparently bigfoot took this picture and cast his shadow over my delicious meal.  It turned out good!  I put some pepper, salt, and sriracha on it also.

Veggie Sweet Potato Hash with Polenta

Ingredients:
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 an onion, chopped
1 can black beans
2 eggs
olive oil
Polenta

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Cook the sweet potato and onion in the olive oil for about 20-30 minutes, until the potato is soft and browning.  Add black beans and stir.  Make 2 egg wells and crack eggs into the wells.  Bake until eggs set - maybe 20 minutes.

Make polenta.

Put polenta in a bowl.  Put hash on top.