So use a more direct technique. Shape the soft polenta in moistened bowls and you will get attractive mounds to top with a colorful sauce, like this Eggplant Marinara. If you have a bowl with a textured shape or pattern, you might use that. The first course uses ingredients that cook quickly. Take advantage of those packages of trimmed and washed spinach leaves now available in most supermarkets to save time fussing with the leaves.
Some markets even sell baby spinach leaves in bulk.
Buy those if you can. There's not enough goat cheese to give it an overwhelming flavor, just a subliminal hint. Once the spinach is finished, the scallops need only about 2 minutes of attention as they cook. You can start spooning the spinach sauce onto the plates as the scallops finish cooking off-heat. Dessert is a simple salad of bananas macerated in a mixture of balsamic vinegar, a little sweet wine and apricot preserves.