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Ashley is extremely passionate about making everyday food healthier and helping you LOVE cooking. Her background was firstly in engineering so she loves problem solving to make things faster and easier to do – healthier cooking included! …But cooking is her passion!
She also wishes that every single child could receive a positive upbringing around food and the kitchen. Ashley believes that by helping parents redefine their relationship with food and by up-skilling them, they will be more able to help their kids enjoy cooking and enjoy making healthier choices. If you have kids between the ages of 3-15, check out her Generation Food Cookbook for kids and families. All recipes have a video of Ashley cooking with a different child (or two!) and kids love following along. Older kids can even follow the videos by themselves and ask adults for help with the stove or oven etc. You can sit back and relax while dinner is prepared for you and while your kids are learning valuable life skills.
Hello everyone and welcome to cook with me live another episode of me in the kitchen and hopefully you doing the same thing cooking along with me so thanks for coming back those of you that are brand new to cook with me live welcome the whole purpose of everything
That i’m doing with these videos is to hopefully help you enjoy the kitchen more and do things smarter not harder in a better way in an easier way and hopefully in a healthier way so that everyone can start feeling better and as i always say to everyone that i
Work with the sooner you can start feeling better the easier it is to take the next step forward and then you feel even better and then we take the next step forward so the whole purpose of doing these videos and those of you that are doing this regularly
I’m sure you have already and thank you for those of you that have been writing to me and telling me about it i know you’ve already started experiencing the benefits of just picking up a little tip here or a little trick there or maybe quite a few in one video alone
Until you get into the motion into the flow that cooking becomes second nature for you then i’ll see you on cook with me live so tonight we’re making polenta slice now this is one of my favorite recipes but i probably say that every time don’t i
The reason why we’re i wanted to show you polenta slice is because i do get a lot of questions about lunch boxes there’s a lot of lunchbox dramas going on in this world and i’d like to help you with that as well as provide a really quick and easy
Something that can be in the freezer ready to just grab out and quickly cook up into a dinner or a lunch maybe even for breakfast this kind of suits some nice weekend hearty breakfasts it’s a great alternative to something some of the more i guess i guess you could say it’s a plant-based
Alternative to for example eggs in a hearty breakfast okay so you’ve got so many options with the polenta slice and you can customize the flavors in a bazillion different ways so tonight the purpose of tonight’s video although this is a fairly simple recipe is to show you the versatility of it a
Few little tricks and skills along the way and also how you can customize it to your liking as well we’re going to talk about the different ways you can serve the polenta slice so you can get the most mileage out of this dish all right so shall we begin please give
Me a little wave a little hello those of you that are online with me tonight let me know where you’re cooking from who’s in the kitchen with you those of you that are not watching this live feel free to still engage and ask questions because we do check this regularly and respond and
Really want to help you on your cooking journey forward not backwards okay so first things first is you get to choose if you’ve got a fandanga little machine like this then this is a great dish to use this if not that’s absolutely okay i’m going to show you how to do it
The the usual way on the stove top okay and also some ways in which you can do this faster once you if you well i guess if you’ve tried the recipe already and you’ve decided that you love it and the next time you’re going to make it you want to double the batch
Then unfortunately this will not be able to be used we’re going to go then to a big pot on the stove anyways so i’m going to kind of do this as my main one tonight simply because it’s going to save time as a bit of a wink wink nudge nudge
Those of you that do have one of these it is the faster way to do this this particular recipe but if you have a regular food processor or something that we can do the chopping up of these couple of veggies with then i would probably make
Use of that instead of having to hand grate or hand chop everything to put in the pot on the stove so you’ve got options and we’re going to get stuck straight in the first option that you will have is um i guess the idea of this is that you could use fresh pumpkin
As in raw pumpkin okay and basically what we’re going to do is we’re just going to take the skin off of that and then just grate it down with your regular old grater all right or if you have a food processor then i would recommend using the food processor to let it do
The work for you and we would put the pieces of raw pumpkin into the food processor to blend it all up into like a fine mulched consistency basically so i’m going to show you what that step looks like but just know that this recipe is sort of intended as a convenient
Option if for example last night when you made some roasted veggies you also tended to put some extra pumpkin into the oven so that today you could make yourself a polenta slice okay so if you’ve already got roasted pumpkin then that is even quicker and even easier we just would take the skins
Off that one and we can use roasted pumpkin instead of the fresh raw pumpkin the only difference this is going to make actually there’s two differences okay depending on what you want to choose the roasted pumpkin option is going to be the sweeter more flavorful tasting option the raw
Pumpkin is going to take a little bit longer to cook but it is faster in the sense that you don’t have to already have this done okay so there’s there’s little trade-offs but it’s absolutely okay both ways it definitely works and there’s a lot of value in pumpkin guys
So let’s sneak it in even if you’re not a pumpkin lover or even if the kids aren’t a pumpkin lovers uh that’s all right it actually doesn’t taste a lot like pumpkin in the end we’re going to kind of balance those flavors out with some other spices and herbs and seasonings so
Don’t be too afraid if someone’s not a pumpkin lover they probably won’t pick up on it unless they’re uber picky about it and in that case you could use sweet potato instead you could use carrot any of those would would work for the nice orange effect okay so let’s get started
Welcome cheryl thanks for saying hello just watching tonight and you’re gonna cook it tomorrow excellent that is awesome cheryl it’s sometimes just easier to to watch it done first and then tackle it on your own later okay so like i said before if you’re not doing it with a food processor such as
This one this one’s actually going to cook it as well for me that’s what the thermomix does then you would be using a saucepan so a nice big pot get that out for yourself and you will be starting with the onions because we want to get the onion cooking straight away
So that you can get the rest of the dish happening before i get to the onion though i just want to show this step for those of you that are using a thermomix okay because if you’re working with only the one jug and that’s all right it’s definitely
Doable with just the one jug we’re going to take the seeds out of this raw pumpkin okay just roughly because the seeds don’t want to break down very easily in the machine it’d be nice if you were a little bit more organized to have a little bag or a container in the
Freezer and you were to keep all these delicious seeds every time you took a pumpkin out until you had enough seeds that you could put them on their own roasting roasting rack in the oven just absolutely bare plain no oil a little bit of salt and when they come out they
Are the most crispy delicious nutritious like not quite like a popcorn but like a toasted nut and seed snack they’re amazing right so some people know them as pepitas but it’s pretty rewarding when you get to make them yourself while the oven’s on anyways okay so in order to get this into the
Thermomix we just we’re going to want to peel it right you could use the skin if you have well roasted your pumpkin and you know if you if you’re serving this to anything other than a very picky child that would see those specks of the skin
In the in the polenta slice and go oh what’s that then it’s really delicious and i would recommend using the skin if you’re buying the organic pumpkins there’s a lot of extra value and benefit in the skin okay if we’re going to do this from raw pumpkin we probably don’t want to use
The skin but what i will say is if you are going to take the skin off like this then i would recommend that the skin be saved for your broth for your homemade broth okay now those of you that are new to cook with me live
You may not have heard me speak of this yet then those of you that are now trained to cook with me livers then you will know my trick for this is to have a bag in the freezer so what i mean by that bear with me here
Is i keep this scrap bag in the freezer at all times and these scraps have been washed it’s organic pumpkin it’s really good skin there’s a lot of value in this okay and i don’t want to throw that into the compost before i get all the extra
Nutrients out of it into my stock so that simply goes in there lives in the freezer until it’s full enough that i can make my own homemade broth which is what we’re going to use in the polenta to create extra flavor and to bring the extra nutritious element to it okay so that
Trick is something that doesn’t take much to implement guys it involves a little bit of space in the freezer and just having it there on hand so that’s easy to add to okay so hopefully that’s a little quick trick you guys can benefit from and please feel free to type in your
Guys’s questions there’s no such thing as a dumb question this is your opportunity to do it and that way then you get even more i guess benefit of this because it’s ever more clear as you go the other i guess the other little thing worth mentioning here when
You are taking the skins off this is if you’re going to be saving these skins and using them for another purpose it’s not as critically necessary that you don’t get any waste of the actual pumpkin because you’re still going to be benefiting from those uh those scraps so you don’t
Have to be as diligent and worried about the waste if you can be benefiting from it in other ways the seeds however we probably won’t put into the stock because they’re going to go a little bit bitter their tendencies to go a bit bitter in stocks
All right so to get this thing into the machine now if you were doing this raw and you were cooking on the stovetop i would just peel the pumpkin as is and then we’ll grate it like this until we have it all grated it’s just going to speed up the cooking process
And prevent having like big chunks of pumpkin in your polenta slice so if we’re going to be using your food processor then we just want to put it into slightly smaller pieces and we’re looking for approximately 500 grams doesn’t really have to be exact okay but we’re going to look for
Around about the 500 gram mark all right or 5.65 let’s call that good and because i don’t really have a purpose for these i’m just going to add a little bit extra and then as you know with the recipe it’s just a guide if those pumpkins would otherwise get wasted chuck them in
What would you have to do now to balance out this recipe technically speaking all you have to think about is okay is that going to be a wet ingredient or a dry ingredient by the time we cook the pumpkin there’s a lot of liquid and a lot of moisture
That’s going to come out of that so we’re going to call that a wet ingredient although it does have a lot of fiber as well so it just might mean we have to add a little bit of extra polenta okay so easy guys right so in this case
675 or you could adjust and you could put less of the other stuff in as well all right so one step at a time we want to mulch this up before we overload the machine too much so it’s kind of like grating it but instead it’s kind of mincing it
And it’s a lot faster so those of you that are going to be using a thermomix or any machine similar to this it’s going to be about speed six for maybe two or three seconds all right so it’s super quick and let’s see how it did sometimes there’ll be big chunks left
Okay so that’s pretty good i think we could go a little bit longer but we’ll give it a little scrape down the sides get your trusty little spatula out for that okay so we’ve got some bigger pieces on top some finer pieces down the bottom so
We just want to kind of change that up i forgot a whole piece over here and we’ll go again it’s not a big deal if you go too much for this recipe because it’s going to end up getting cooked down and we kind of want it nice and fine
Anyway so we’ll go speed six or seven another second or two there we go all right now those of you that are working with a machine like this we’ll just need to transfer that pumpkin into another bowl temporarily so we can get everything else mulched and cooking in there so you just
Need an extra bowl and i’ll transfer that one out temporarily oh that smell just reminds me of halloween in canada believe it or not in north america or in canada there’s um the type of pumpkin that we know is definitely not this green type of pumpkin it is just the kind of the
The one that you carve on october 30th just before halloween for uh halloween pumpkin carving competitions and lanterns um so believe it or not and then i guess also the other funny thing about this is that one of the culturally specific to canada dishes is pumpkin pie and yet it’s not normal
That most people make their pumpkin pie from pumpkins they normally buy the pumpkin in a can with the seasoning already in it because they don’t do it from scratch or at least that’s how i grew up with all me my family and my friends so when i
I never even tasted pumpkin soup until i moved to australia believe it or not it unfortunately wasn’t the best version of the pumpkin soup because it happened in the airplane and it came out of a packet with boiling water that the steward has poured over it
But it was delicious and then i found out when i landed in australia that people actually cook and eat pumpkins here and it’s delicious so my world has completely opened in the world of food and pumpkins when i got to australia so that’s that’s pretty exciting guys and those of you
That are still in north america i encourage you to go and seek out the more edible sweet pumpkins and start cooking with them because not only is it extremely economical it’s also really delicious and really good for you so there’s our pumpkin story tangent for the night
Now we’re on to the onion so those of you that are doing this on in a pot on the stove this is your kind of your first step because we want to get you starting that cooking process beforehand all right so we’re just going to get the onion peeled
And then in this case i’m going to let the machine chop it up similarly to the pumpkin that i just did if you’re going to do this by hand we want to just dice it up pretty fine so do a do a fair effort at getting it nice and fine
And then straight away you can get that into your saucepan and get it on the heat so we can start softening the onion and getting that getting that happening okay if ever you get the little bit of mold underneath the skin you really need to wash that off
Very well guys okay we don’t want to be eating any of these black marks any of that uh don’t want to be ingesting that but it’s usually just skin skin deep in this sense so if you give it a good wash it should be all good the other thing
That you can use here are any other types of onions so what i should have done is got you guys a fresh leek from my garden because we’ve got these beautiful leeks growing at the moment but alas we have regular onions so into your machine if you’re going to
Let it do the chopping for you and at the same time you can put the zucchini as well so those of you that are considering getting a food processor and you’re not sure which one to get i would recommend that you start out with a secondhand one for example in
Australia you can be looking on gumtree north america you could be looking on craigslist or something like that kijiji to find a secondhand one so you can start getting the feel for it and then you’ll know exactly what you want in a food processor they are very
Different but at the end of the day it’s going to be there to save you a massive amount of time this is why okay it’s gonna do the chopping for us so same thing as we did for the pumpkin let’s go approximately speed six for two or three seconds
Sounds about mulch to me and then the coolest thing about the thermomix okay so that’s that’s a good texture it’s a good size that’s gonna shape down if you went beyond that that’s fine too okay so now what we want to do is get this thing cooking so whatever machine
You’re using if it has the cooking function we’re going to save on dishes and we’re going to turn that on so let’s just set the timer to approximately 15 minutes for now we’re going to turn the heat up to about 95 98 and we’re going to let it start
The cooking process okay so this is going to start to heat up and as this kicks in gear we’re going to add the rest of the ingredients now same thing goes if you had had your onions sauteing on the oven you’re cooking them down you’d be cooking them down with the olive oil
And then as that’s happening you’ll just keep adding in the other ingredients so that everything can just simmer down there’s nothing complicated about that guys it just needs to kind of pre-cook because by the time we add the polenta it’s only going to be another three minutes of cooking time so we want
Everything to be pre-cooked before we add the polenta super simple all right so three tablespoons of olive oil or thereabouts one two three tablespoons of olive oil kind of enjoy it guys gotta have some fun and then when it comes to seasonings this is where you can have a bit of fun
This is where you can make the polenta slice your own so i’ve currently called for a bit of italian spice mix and some fresh herbs other things you could do you could get really funky really creative you could do a curried polenta slice and put curry powder in this
If you were using that probably unless it’s a really spicy one you’d be adding probably two teaspoons of curry powder to this but write down what you do and measure it the first time so that you know what how to adjust next time okay you could be adding
Moroccan spice seasoning you could be adding your own mixture some people might like to do a cajun or a taco kind of spiced polenta slice you could just be adding the fresh garden herbs and doing more of uh herb de provence kind of french style polenta slice so basically the spices here
Are what really shine through and this is your opportunity to get into your spice jar hopefully get yourself some fresher better quality spices so that that really shines and then think of the polenta slice almost as a blank canvas that you can kind of tweak and adjust to your liking
If you want a really simple flavor even just a little bit of nutritional yeast probably two or three tablespoons of nutritional yeast with maybe a bit of these fresh herbs will be enough for a lot of people okay those of you that are wanting to introduce this for kids but you’re not sure
If the kids are gonna go for it and you know that they love cheese and you’re eating cheese then obviously you could and you might not want to do this but you could start off by adding a little bit of cheese into the mixture to gain their approval to get them on
Board and then every time you make it you could be putting in less and less less and less cheese if you choose or that could be how you do it so i’m just going to use this homemade blend of italian spices and it’s already got my black
Pepper in there so i’m not going to add any extra black pepper but i’m going to add a bit of extra spice all together so a couple teaspoons of that whatever you choose like i said write it down so you know for next time
I have a bit of a love for rosemary at the moment as well so in addition to my italian spice mix i’ll just put a little bit of a teaspoon of rosemary into there okay and then we just need some salt and ideally some miso paste
Now if you don’t have the miso paste that’s okay you could be using a homemade stock or broth concentrate that you maybe you’ve made if you have a thermomix you’ll know how to make that um some people are buying the really good quality it’s also a little bit more expensive but
The good quality dehydrated bone broths as a stock concentrate so you could be using a little bit of that in there if you wish the miso paste as long as it’s a like a proper paste and and fermented uh unpasteurized is what we’re looking for okay this is quite a nice it’s almost
Like a stock substitute so it’s a thick paste you can get different versions of this but kind of think of it as a stock cube concentrate that isn’t full of msg and isn’t full of i guess some of the the lesser good quality ingredients all right so with the miso paste
I’ve called for four teaspoons that’s roughly the equivalent of a heaping tablespoon so i’m going to put my heaping tablespoon of miso in there now those of you that are looking at this seeing the steam coming out of there and going oh my gosh she’s ruining the miso paste
I know miso paste is a living fermented food so long as we don’t cook it in this case it’s pretty hard with the polenta to add it at without cooking it okay so in this case we’re gonna have it for its flavor guys sorry about that and you can get your
Benefit of the fermented probiotic nature of it from your sauerkraut that we’re gonna serve with it is that okay all right and then we’re also going to need two teaspoons of salt now when i say salt anytime i say salt please understand that i always mean good salt as in
Himalayan or celtic salt only not table salt not iodized table salt nothing like that okay so the good salt and that’s cooking away for us whether you’re doing it this way whether you’re doing it on the stove top we’ve got that kind of reducing down it’s looking good so far
And then last but not least we’re going to add our fresh herbs and let that continue to simmer before we add some more liquid okay now depending on whether you’re using the roasted pumpkin or the fresh pumpkin is going to determine when you add the
Pumpkin okay so if we need to still cook this raw pumpkin we need to add that pretty soon so that it has a chance to cook down so i’m going to do that i’m just going to let this lid come off and i’m gonna add this mulched up pumpkin
Okay so we’ll add all that in there and then just to give it a little bit of extra liquid to cook down in we’re going to add the rest of the liquid cold for in the recipe so we’re going to add the one cup of broth and the one cup of coconut cream
If you don’t have coconut cream you can use any other non-dairy milk it’ll all just add a little bit of extra richness and creaminess to the dish which is what we’re after okay so let’s do a cup of broth this is a nice um purple carrot broth actually it went
Kind of a nice brown brown color so a bit of extra nutrition bit of extra flavor makes it easy get in the flow we’re talking a lot about getting in the flow lately and it’s just going to make your life easier so let’s get that back cooking
Uh let’s just turn that on we still have our timer set good okay so i’ll get that get that happening and then about a cup of coconut cream now i like the coconut cream as opposed to the milk because it’s a little bit creamier basically so it’s going to give a bit more
Nice richness to this without feeling like you absolutely need to add something like a cheese or like more oil or something to carry the flavor so this is just another way around that plus coconut is naturally quite sweet actually so it makes this makes us quite delicious just having that
Little bit in there okay so our cup of coconut cream alright so all we have left are the fresh herbs and the polenta and then literally guys that’s that so this is honestly a recipe that you can have as your go-to staple to whip up very quickly
The only little kicker is that it benefits from chilling completely in the fridge before we put it in the frying pan now those of you that were expecting to eat dinner tonight you definitely still can it’s just gonna feel different when you when you eat it so it won’t
Have had a chance to set and absorb and thicken so in this case you could either have it as a like as a fresh thick polenta dish with a spoon type thing or with a fork or you could still try to let it sit for
Even if you’ve got half an hour up your sleeve let it sit in the fridge for half an hour and then maybe you’ll be able to gently scoop it out and give it a little fry in the pan at that point okay so this is a recipe that you could
Quickly whip up after you’ve made dinner one night so it’s ready for tomorrow morning’s breakfast in the frying pan or even tomorrow morning in the frying pan before uh before school lunch boxes are made okay so when it comes to the fresh herbs i just wanted to show you guys this too
While we’ve got this cooking this is called mother of herb and if you haven’t already experienced this i’ve just picked this out of the garden they’re very thick and plump leaves like really thick and succulent like juicy leaves and they’re quite firm they’re also really fuzzy
So they feel like a little bit like a teddy bear actually quite fuzzy on the top and they’re called mother of herb because no one can decide what they most resemble but they kind of resemble most of the other green herbs so they kind of got a bit of oregano a bit of
Basil maybe a bit of chive bit of thyme maybe so they’re a beautiful flavorful addition and they’re so easy to grow in your garden so even a couple of these is not only going to bring you a whole bunch of nutritional benefits but an amazing flavor to something like
This anything that you would otherwise put basil or oregano thyme those types of herbs into so i’m going to chuck a couple of those leaves in i have a few sprigs of parsley and then i have some homegrown i think these ones are the garlic chives
Yes i think these ones are the garlic chives the onion chives are still out there so just giving them a little wipe down but it just ah if you guys have never experienced growing your own herbs it is so rewarding to get to find your own bugs in your own dinner
No just kidding uh it’s so rewarding to get to feel like somehow i contributed to the growing of this food which then nourishes my body it’s the best feeling ever so if you haven’t already experienced that as an adult i would please please please encourage you to give it a shot
Especially if you’ve got kids and have them experience it at a young age as well okay so i’ve just stacked everything up i’m just going to chop through it this will not necessarily get chopped down much more once we’re putting it into the machine or into the
Pot so i just want to get it down to bite size nice little bite-sized pieces before we put it anywhere okay how’s everyone going any questions so far hey casey hello lainey welcome jennifer and carmel’s on too thanks guys sorry i’ve just been like head down bum up in this haven’t been
Watching you guys casey love polenta making this in the morning to serve us some roasted veggies and poached eggies beautiful what a good mama you are casey thank you all right i’m even gonna put those stems of the parsley in as well they are very edible and very good for you Okay none of these pumpkin seeds though yet all right now again if you’re using the machine like this you might need to give a little stir once we put the polenta in for now we can give it a little mix around just to make sure that we’re getting some even cooking action there
You could also just turn up the speed to see if that’ll blend it in but let’s put the herbs in now so that we can get that cooking down with it that was probably a little bit more than a third of a cup that i called for but i like it herby
So up to you and look if you don’t want to put in fresh herbs that’s okay i get it especially if kids are really picky about green bits however you might want to use this recipe to your advantage for that reason like i said if this is really pushing
The bounds for your kids right now and they eat cheese add a bit of cheese in maybe half a cup to a cup of grated cheese and put the green bits in or start without the green bits get them to love it and then put the green bits
In and as long as they know they love it they might try the green bits there’s lots of strategies and we just got to figure out what it takes to make it work your mama’s instincts will know all right so that’s probably cooked down now long enough generally about 15 minutes for the
Pumpkin and the onion and everything to cook down is is probably going to be enough so i’m just going to give that a little extra speed here of the blades so i can spin all those herbs into it there we go so they’ve just kind of sucked down into the mix
Just getting a bit of more motion there and then the last step with this is going to be to add the polenta okay so at this point if we feel as though it’s cooked down enough you could let it go a little bit longer it could benefit from a few more minutes
On this but let’s get our polenta ready to go okay so we’re going to need two and a third cups of polenta and remember i put that extra pumpkin in as well so i’m going to just guess a little bit extra than two and a third cups so that’s probably going to be
Maybe a little bit much but it’s okay because the if you if you are on the side of too much polenta you’ll just get a slightly firmer potentially crumbly but probably not a firmer slice and if you put a little bit less in you can customize your texture preferences with a softer slice
By putting in less polenta okay so the first time you make it is your measuring point measure things really well this applies to any recipe you make measure it well the first time you make it write down anything you did differently and then you have a base to know how to
Adjust that after alright so let’s just get that polenta in there while it’s mixing so i have it on speed two and a half while it’s mixing it’s gonna help us mix that through okay and then that’s gonna thicken up pretty quickly here we’re gonna need the wand to give it a
Little stir but it does fit easily within this um jug just gonna give that a little stir and at this point we can turn up the speed now to three and a half i still have the heat on okay and this is going to be the same process
If you’re doing it in the saucepan is that you’re going to continue to stir while it cooks all right it’s the same process this just has a little bit of electrical help with this for the stirring so we can give it another couple of minutes you don’t have to stir this the whole
It time need very long at all but we want a chance for the polenta to thicken up okay so in future you’d let this go for about like i said another two minutes but i kind of want to show you now what we’re going to do with the polenta
Uh well actually i could just take it off soon here i just want to show you two properly so we’ll let this finish up here and then we’re going to get ready to put it in a pan so let’s get the pan ready Something about this size is going to be good size for a thicker polenta slice all right so the one that i’ve actually made the last batch in so i can show you the final step of this is a slightly bigger pan okay so this is what it looks like
After it’s had a chance to cool it’s quite a firm texture and it’s going to come out of the pan really easily so i have not oiled that okay and i’m going to show you how to work with this here in a second so that’s probably my desired size but it’s probably pretty
Close to that anyways all right let’s call that done and we’ll get this guy out so this is how easy it is this is actually a recipe that you could be doing with the kids to kind of help get them interested in cooking as well it’s very easy it’s very forgiving
And then maybe they can have a say in what flavor you get to do as well so we can play with different herbs you could get them you could even do sort of a sun-dried tomato and olive one you could do kind of a mexican variety there’s just a lot you
Could do with this okay so let’s get all of this out before we flatten anything down forgive my left-handedness and then like i said guys if you know that this is a staple favorite for you it freezes really well so try to make a double batch
Every time you do it and then benefit from getting to put some more in the freezer the only thing obviously with that double batch is you won’t be able to do it all at once in the thermomix so you’d have to do it in a big pot
But you can still use the thermix to do all of your chopping of your ingredients okay there we go so we’ll spread that thin and then this can go into the fridge to set if you were to have this straight away tonight it is okay to eat it like this
This is absolutely fine we don’t have to bake this it just needs to set in the fridge so this is considered perfectly fine cooked as in that’s all it needs if you were to serve this at a party you could bake it instead of having to fry the pieces off to sell them
To serve them so you could just let this chill then you could cut it up and then put it in the oven or just bake it whole and serve it cut depending on whether you want finger food or a sit down sit down dish
Okay so if you were to bake it in the oven you’d probably bake it at about 180 degrees for maybe 30 minutes or so and that would help make it a bit more servable for you there we go polenta slice right so those of you wondering i guess nutritionally
This is potentially going to get more vegetables into some kids than they would otherwise eat the corn polenta is a corn product guys so really make sure that you try to source organic polenta only and it’s only because there’s a lot of i guess messing around with corn crops around
The world whether it’s genetically modified or just highly sprayed doesn’t really matter in my opinion let’s try to go organic with the corn products the corn that they use to make polenta and corn chips and pastas is actually a maze for a maize corn m-a-i-z-e as opposed to
The fresh cob of corn that we eat um like sweet corn it’s it’s a different variety okay but that is the same uh same corn as in most of the other corn products so really try with all of your corn products to go organic okay so that one’s going to go
To the fridge and then here’s one i prepared earlier just so i can show you guys how to finish the cooking process and actually serve this as a meal all right so while i’m getting this cut up i’m actually going to turn the frying pan on so that i can
Get that heated up ready to go for dinner so we’re just going to let that preheat let’s turn that on and then you could get a little bit creative here with your shapes you don’t have to but why not i don’t know about you but when you have
A day in the kitchen you don’t get much other opportunity for creativity so let’s make it into the food so if we’re going to do triangles we probably need to go half well in this distance we’re going to go half first half again and then let’s do
Thirds the other way just to test your math skills here do thirds this way so we’re doing squares first and then we’re going to take the square and cut it into our triangles so i’ll show you i know it’s hard to see there right now the first one might be a little messy
Till we get under it there we go okay so then you’ve got your little triangles and we’re just going to go through and cut cut those we have something that we can work with in the frying pan and cut our little triangles and those of you that are doing really
Creative really cool lunchboxes and and making all the other parents and kids jealous with your children’s lunchboxes at school then you could be doing shapes you could be letting the kids get into this with their shapes if that’s going to help them have some other veggies in their lunchbox i am
Totally cool with cutting them into custom shapes and then you being the wonderful parent that you are you’re gonna eat all the scrap pieces between the shapes there we go okay so we’ve got some triangles to work with next up we’re going to put them in the frying pan and that’s it
Guys now if you’re not using a frying pan you could be using a sandwich press it’s kind of nice if you’ve got one of the ones with the little grill marks in it you could be doing these on the barbecue but really low heat so it has time to actually
Heat through pretty much any way that we can kind of sandwich press them or fry them uh just to warm them up they’re quite nice served that way otherwise they’re perfectly edible like this and some kids might prefer it cold so i’ll leave that choice up to you
So coming back let’s get these in the frying pan and then we can discuss some of the other things that you can serve with it because about five minutes before i started this video i went right okay what else are we having with this for dinner
And i looked in the fridge and i’ll show you what i came up with later because that’s the benefit of being in the flow which is something like i said that i talk about fairly often all right so we’ve got our pan heating up let’s put
A little bit of oil in there now this is a deodorized cooking oil cooking coconut oil sorry okay so i talk a lot about this i’m not going to go on about it now again but if you’re going to be cooking with coconut oil please try to get the one that’s designated for
Cooking not the extra virgin or the virgin one all right let’s get a little bit of heat here and that’s about it guys so straight into the frying pan okay you could put more in there if you needed to cook more at once probably now that it started off at a nice hot
Temperature now we would want to bring the temperature down and we just want to cook them long enough so they can actually warm all the way through so lower is going to be better unless you’re in an absolute pinch for time if you’re really pinched for time then i would say
Cook it with the lid on so we can keep more of the heat in and kind of almost steam cook the polenta through as well okay so that’s that so we’re going to let that cook on that side for maybe three or four minutes then we’ll flip it
And that’s your polenta slice easy or what and you can see that with the amount that it makes you’re going to be able to probably put some away in the freezer potentially just get your lunches ready to go for the next couple of days or yeah have somebody to bring to a friend
If you’d like to do that it’s a very like i said economical but also quite nutritious dish provided you’re sourcing the organic corn so let’s talk about the rest of dinner once you’ve got this happening in the pan how are we going to pull this into a meal and the same thing applies
Here is if you’re going to turn this into your lunch in a pinch or you’re trying to pull together lunch and you go oh i don’t know if i’ve got enough to actually make a meal then if you can pull a couple of slices of that out of the freezer
In time and then defrost them in a pan with the lid on low heat for longer not the microwave that’s another way of doing it so literally guys i’m not kidding you five minutes before this video i went oh yeah the extra parts of the dish
So i went into my fridge and this is you know this is me bearing all here this is what i found so i have a jar left with some sauerkraut okay i found a big bucket of olives that’s pretty exciting so we’re gonna have olives with it
I found some leftover kale salad with a little bit of beetroot carrot salad that i chucked in there i found a tomato and i found some dressing that was already made and this is exactly what i’m talking about just eating real food guys it doesn’t have to have a recipe name
The polenta squares are just going to conveniently round out this dish you could think of it like that and it’s just amazing how quickly you can pull together something that’s not only satiating but it’s delicious and it’s actually going to nourish and feed your body rather than just fill you
Okay so i get really excited about this kind of thing because once you’re in the flow once you have the skills and you have the know-how on how to make yourself more efficient in the kitchen next thing you know you’re eating better you’re feeling better things are flowing
There’s more harmony in the household win-win for all how are we doing here guys uh jennifer what temperature did you use with the thermix good question i had it on 98. you probably could vary that anywhere from 90 to 110 i just didn’t necessarily want to bring
It to a rumbling boil so i kept it just below the 100. 98 should be about good good question so i’m going to start kind of plating up while these finish cooking so you can stay right there i’m just going to grab a plate and check on these little guys they probably
I’ll probably need to flip them but you probably don’t need to see all this detail we can if you want to come back and we just want to get under them and we’ll give them a bit of a flip they haven’t really had a chance to brown yet
Oh that piece stuck all right i probably didn’t quite properly heat up my pan first but that’s all right there’s always a sacrificial anode and then the next ones will be perfect Okay so we’ll turn that down a little bit now they can kind of cook a bit slower and then we’ll put the rest of the meal together around it so guys yeah whatever else you want to be cooking with this if you were actually planning your meal around this it’s really nice
With a big green side salad okay so big green side salad add some other grated veggies it doesn’t just have to be cucumber lettuce and tomato in your salad all right uh you could get more creative you could have it with a side of soup
You could just have it with a bit of hummus cut up some extra raw veggies to go with it uh you could be having it alongside of some leftover food from last night’s dinner that doesn’t really make up an entire meal on its own okay some people like to cut it really thin
And have it almost like a sandwich or kind of like instead of a wrap just put your flavors and stuff within it okay and then you put it in your grill press and next thing you know you’ve got like a polenta sandwich it’s kind of cool all right so
As i said before totally putting myself on the line this is going to end up being dinner so we’ve got a little bit of leftover kale salad bit of beetroot in there why don’t we have a couple slices of tomato with it okay how about a little bit of sauerkraut
Because our bellies will love us if we keep a little bit of that into us every day oh okay i’ll put it beside the red that’s all right and i love olives so we can put some of those on the plate these are nice certified organic beautiful olives actually some of the
Best ones i’ve had in a very long time and it’s obviously more economical to buy them by the bucket so let’s do a couple of olives and then we’ll have that with our polenta slice okay and put a little bit of extra cashew dressing that happened to be in the fridge
This is so nice guys you just make up a big batch of your favorite dressing for the week and then you have it on hand we can do a little bit of dipping sauce for our polenta slice and pull that into our salad there as well okay
Otherwise you might just be having your polenta slice as an after school snack for the kids for yourself like i said you have it with breakfast if i was doing it for breakfast i would probably saute it up with a bit of kale some spinach maybe throw in some mushrooms and onions
You could have it with some baked beans maybe some grilled tomatoes it’s just like there’s so many satiating options i’m salivating here it’s really nice with hot sauce if you’re making your own hot sauce you’re on barbecue sauces really good with a bit of hummus or chutneys some nice chutneys
I’m gonna stop talking and i’m just gonna serve it so i can eat and hopefully you guys are cooking this so you can smell it otherwise you’ll be making it soon all right so maybe not my best grilling efforts but you get the picture okay so let’s do some
Polenta slice nice and warm come here there we go and that can be a yummy dinner or snack or breakfast whatever you’re feeling And why don’t we have a little bit of mother mother of all herb with that today too there we go guys thank you so much for being on cook with me live i really hope that you can taste and enjoy your polenta slice and i do hope that it actually becomes
Something that is a quick and easy option you can have on hand a little bit of extra nutrition and i hope that you learned something tonight so thanks for being on guys we’ll see you next time on cook with me live
1 Comment
I love watching you cook Ashley, I’m inspired an I’m now heading out to buy pumpkin 😂