Baby Nutrition – Gluten Free Recipe of the Month: Pear Polenta Muffins

Labor Day is this weekend, signaling the transition from summer into fall.  It also means back to school or just starting school for the first time for your little ones.  Fall also brings pears into peak season so they are featured in this month’s gluten free recipe along with polenta.

About Polenta
Polenta is actually boiled cornmeal, corn being a naturally gluten free grain.  Unless you have a corn allergy, cornmeal or polenta are great staples in a gluten free kitchen.  Polenta is a word borrowed from the Italian language, as polenta has been a staple dish in Northern Italy for hundreds of years.  Once considered a peasant food, polenta is nutrient dense providing excellent sources of potassium, calcium, and protein as well as being high in fiber. 

Preparation
Traditionally, polenta was a slow-cooked dish usually made in a copper pot requiring hours of constant stirring.  Since polenta itself does not have a great deal of flavor, the versatility of this grain is endless. Polenta is now on the menu of many restaurants as everything from a main dish to a dessert. Due to the long cooking time, there are now several varieties of instant polenta on the market that cook in a matter of minutes, without loosing nutrients or flavor.

Ingredients
3/4 cup organic ground cornmeal
2 cups peeled, cored, and diced ripe pears (about 2-3 depending on size) at room temperature
3/4 cup rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup light olive oil
1 soft ripe banana, mashed well
1/3 to 1/2 cup soy, rice, or almond milk, as needed
3/4 cup organic brown or raw sugar
1 tablespoon good vanilla extract
A sprinkle of organic raw sugar for topping, if desired

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a twelve muffin tin with liners.
In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients- cornmeal, rice flour, tapioca starch, sea salt, baking powder and cinnamon; whisk with a fork to blend. Set aside.

In a separate bowl beat the light olive oil with the mashed banana; add 1/3 cup milk, sugar and vanilla; beat until smooth. Add the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and beat lightly until well blended; but do not over mix. The batter should be like a thick muffin batter (not as thin as a cake batter). If your batter is dry or stiff add 1 tablespoon of milk at a time and stir until it loosens up. Stir in the pears. Drop the batter into the muffin cups by spoonfuls; distribute evenly among the twelve cups. Sprinkle tops with sugar, if desired.

Bake in the center of a preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the muffins are firm to the touch on top and a wooden pick inserted into the center emerges clean. Try the pick method twice- you might hit a moist pear.  Set the pan on a rack to cool for a couple of minutes; then liberate the muffins from the hot pan- this keeps the bottoms from steaming and getting soggy. Let cool.

Storage: individually wrap and freeze cooled muffins; they thaw well and taste delicious at any temperature
Yield: 12 muffins.