Pass the Polenta Please

Polenta, Broccoli, and BBQ chicken (recipe to follow)

Polenta. It's something I've seen in magazines but by just looking at it, I couldn't really tell what exactly polenta was. Fast-forward to cooking for a 14-month old who no longer wants to be fed by Mom and Dad, but wants to eat his entire dinner himself (I guess soup's off the menu for now). This recipe is great because it can be eaten hot, warm, or cold. You can make the pieces as big or as small as you'd like. You can also add different spices to change the flavour to better coordinate with dish you are serving with it. I also like it because it's easy to make, and it's a very inexpensive side dish that uses ingredients that I already had at home.  If you have older children at home, they can also help to make it!

Ingredients

½ cup cold water

½ cup yellow cornmeal

1⅓ cup water

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon olive oil

Lightly grease a 9x9 inch baking pan or dish. 

 

Stir cornmeal and ½ cup cold water in a medium bowl until blended to a thick paste.

In a large saucepan, bring 1⅓ cup water and the salt to a boil. Stir in the cornmeal paste and return to a boil, stirring frequently.

Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the polenta thickens enough to hold the trail of a spoon, 5 to 10 minutes. (It should resemble soft mashed potatoes.)

Remove polenta from heat and add the butter and 2 tablespoons of Parmesan, stirring until the butter is melted.

Working quickly, pour the polenta into the prepared baking pan and spread it evenly with a spatula. Sprinkle the top with the remaining Parmesan.









Let it cool, then cover pan and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or until the polenta is chilled through and firm.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. 

Press small cookie cutters into the pan of chilled polenta to cut out shapes.  Or, use a knife to cut bars/strips. Use spatula to transfer the shapes to a lightly oiled nonstick baking pan. 

With a pastry or basting brush, paint the top and sides of each shape with the olive oil. 







Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the polenta shapes are lightly browned, crispy around the edges, and soft inside. Serve warm.

My initial recipe said to use shapes which I did try once, but I found that there was too much waste and the Little Man doesn’t really care what shape his food is right now. Once he’s older, fun shapes might be appreciated more, but for now, polenta bars are what we serve.

You can get your children involved in this recipe too. Let them help to measure out the polenta (tip: put the measuring cup on a cookie sheet to catch the spill over and reduce waste), have them help to sprinkle the Parmesan cheese, let them use cookie cutters to cut out the shapes.  Children who spend time in the kitchen and help cook are less likely to be picky eaters, and will be more aware of how to pick healthy choices.

You can dip the polenta into anything really, marinara or pizza sauce is our favourite. You can also change up the flavour by adding different herbs when you’re cooking it. What flavours have you tried?

Pumpkin Roll-Out Cookies

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

       To celebrate the season, today is going to be a double post. We'll start off with some fun pumpkin cookies. What better way to get into the Halloween spirit then to make some ghoulishly delicious cookies? Now, In my own opinion, they were not pumpkin-y enough and tasted a little doughy, but I received rave reviews from many others for them, so despite my reservations I have decided to share the recipe. I will also include some tips that I think would make them a little tastier.

Here's what you'll need:

3/4 cup unsalted butter (always use unsalted butter when baking)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon orange zest (I only had lemon, so that's what I used)

1/2 cup solid pack pumpkin puree (I used pure pumpkin, from the can)

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (Next time I would double this)

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (Next time I would double this)

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I wouldn't double this, but I would add 1/4 ground allspice as well)

1 pinch salt (just a pinch is all you'll need)

1. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and orange zest. 

2. Stir in the pumpkin. 

3. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix well. 

4. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and salt then stir it into the pumpkin mixture. 

5. Remove the dough from the bowl and roll into a log, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. Chill dough for about 1 hour. (If you skip this step you'll be peeling dough off your counter, you need to chill the butter to make it pliable.)

6. Do all the dishes and scrub the surface you will be rolling the dough out on.

7. Preheat oven to 375°F.

8. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. When you are rolling it do a few pushes of the rolling pin, then give your dough a quarter turn and continue rolling. Continue doing this until your dough is the desired thickness.(Mine were about 1/8 inch thick, but I wish I had done them a little thicker).

9. Using your cookie cutters, cut into desired shapes and place onto a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

10.Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. 

11. When you remove them from the oven let them cool about 2 minutes on the sheet, then move to a drying rack.

              Once the cookies are COMPLETELY cooled, you may ice them. You could use this recipe for Royal Icing, or this one for decorator's icing.

2 cups icing sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 tbsp + 1 tsp milk

1. Combine sugar, milk and vanilla and mix until smooth (add extra milk or icing sugar until the consistency you want is obtained)

2. Separate and add a couple drops of food colouring to tint your icing. 

3. Ice as desired.

Here are my iced cookies, I know, I know, I need to practice my icing skills.  The leaf cookie on the top left was a trial, which didn't quite work as planned as the different colours didn't fuse well when rolled together. However, all that I did was I separated some dough and dyed the it different colours before rolling it out and cutting it. 

Here's how I iced the rest:

The ghost and mummy are cream cheese frosted with gel detail for eyes. 

The pumpkin, skeletons and Frankenstein's monster are iced using only the tinted decorator's icing.

The eyeball has a base of cream cheese frosting, with red tinted decorator's icing drizzled over top. I then used a toothpick to drag the red around to make the veins. The iris is decorator's icing and the pupil is gel.

Finally, the spiderweb has a decorator's icing base and the gel is in 2 rings (outer and inner), then I used a toothpick to pull the gel from the inner ring out passed the outer ring.

I  only had Christmas cookie cutters, so for the ghost, I just pressed the legs together. The leaf was a traced paper and the dough was cut out using a knife.

Good Luck! Happy Halloween!

                                                                                                                              Enjoy!

                                                                                                                                  Mel