Sunday polenta

Polenta with heirloom tomato sauce and mixed bean salad.

You may have noticed that we often make a quick bean salad to accompany dishes that take a little more thought (like polenta, which does require a little stirring when made from real cornmeal rather than an instant mix). We generally use canned beans for these salads, for convenience's sake. We've found that adding a couple tablespoons of vinegar (balsamic, white or red wine vinegar - whatever you have around) to the standard olive oil and lemon dressing really brightens the flavor and pulls a bean salad together.

The nice thing about these quick salads is that you can use up whatever you have on hand. Tonight we combined white beans and chickpeas, and added some extra dill and scallions that didn't end up in last night's dinner.