- Hi, I'm Jerry James Stone,
and happy Meatless Monday.
So I'm super excited about today's recipe
because one, it's delicious.
It's this pumpkin polenta with these braised carrots,
and it's just, the polenta is creamy and wonderful,
and the carrots are just tender.
It's a really great recipe,
but I wanna talk a little bit
about the Meatless Monday thing.
So I've been a vegetarian for a very long time,
and I don't get too preachy about it,
but I'm gonna talk a little bit about it, the reason, one
of the reasons why today, is the environment.
So a quarter pound of hamburger
takes about 449 gallons of water to make that hamburger.
449, that's 11 bathtubs full of water.
That's a lot of water.
For that quarter pound of hamburger.
Now for a pound of vegetables,
you need 1/10th the water,
so meat requires a lot of water,
and a lot of energy,
you use about 10 times the energy
than to just also make those vegetables.
So it's really important
if you can incorporate eating meat free,
you know, if you're a meat eater,
if you're a carnivore, omnivore, whatever,
if you can incorporate eating meat free into your diet
at least somewhat regularly,
and here's a really great recipe to do that,
this delicious pumpkin polenta.
So let me show you how to make it.
Okay, so I melted a tablespoon of butter over a medium heat,
now I'm just gonna add in my carrots,
and we're just gonna saute these a bit
until they just start to get a little bit tender,
just a little bit, not much,
because we're gonna braise them.
So you don't have to over cook them,
but you just want to cook them over a medium
to medium high heat,
and get them a little bit tender.
They should just start to sizzle.
Okay, those are cooking up nicely.
I love the little trail that
the purple carrots leave in the pan there.
So you just wanna saute these
for a couple minutes.
Like I said, we just wanna get them
a little on the tender side.
We're gonna braise them,
which is really gonna soften them,
and make them quite delicious,
but braising is a lot more effective
if you tenderize the carrots a little bit
with a saute first.
Just a few more minutes, they're almost ready.
Okay, those are looking quite nice,
and a couple ways to tell when they're ready to go,
the colors in the carrots will start to brighten,
you'll also start to smell those aromas.
So now I'm gonna turn the heat down a little bit,
and I'm gonna add in some vegetable broth.
I'm gonna add in a couple cloves of garlic,
and a fresh sprig of thyme,
and I'm gonna bring this to a simmer.
Okay, so that's starting to simmer,
so now I'm going to cover it,
and cook it for about 10 minutes.
Okay, let's see how these babies are doing.
They're looking pretty good.
So when they're ready they've gonna be really fork tender.
Oh yeah, these are good to go.
Perfect.
So now I'm gonna strain out the carrots.
(snaps)
Okay, so now I'm just gonna bring the liquid to a boil.
This is completely optional.
I'm gonna add in a little flour,
and I'm just gonna whisk that in,
just to thicken it up.
I think it'll make a really nice sauce
just to drizzle over the top of the polenta and the carrots.
You don't have to do this.
You know, if you're gluten free, just avoid it.
Just gonna thicken it up by bringing it
to a boil with the flour,
getting all the chunks out
Okay, that's looking quite nice.
There we go, yeah.
Okay, now let's go finish our dish.
Okay, so to make the polenta,
first thing I'm gonna do is bring some water,
heat it up, add in a few sage leaves,
and then I'm gonna add in some half and half,
and this is what we're gonna cook the polenta in.
So we're just gonna warm this up until it starts to boil.
Okay, so it's starting to boil,
so I'm gonna fish out the sage leaves,
and now we're gonna whisk
in our cornmeal to make our polenta.
Just do it a little bit at a time,
and now we're just gonna keep stirring this,
and cook it for about 30 minutes
until it gets nice and thick.
It'll start to get denser and denser,
and be harder to stir.
That's how you know it's cooking.
Once it calms down a little bit,
you don't have to stir it quite as much,
you can just let it cook and continue to cook.
It looks so good.
Okay, this is looking pretty good.
Now we're gonna add in our remaining ingredients.
We're gonna add in some cheese.
Now we're gonna add in our pumpkin,
because you can't have pumpkin polenta
unless you add pumpkin,
and go ahead and work that in.
Now the heat is off,
but I'm leaving it on the stove
so I can take advantage of the warmth
to get these ingredients mixed in.
That's looking pretty awesome
I didn't show it to you,
but I actually added in salt too.
I forgot to show that step.
There we go, we have our pumpkin polenta.
Let's go top this off with some carrots.
Okay, our polenta is ready.
Now we're just gonna top it off with some
of these delicious braised carrots.
How wonderful does that look?
I'm gonna add in some of the braising sauce,
top it off with some chopped pine nuts,
a few more pine nuts,
a little freshly cracked pepper,
and then just garnish it with a sage leaf.
Enjoy.
Okay, so how delicious does that polenta look, right?
Super, super tasty,
hearty, really filling,
those beautiful roasted carrots,
those heirloom carrots,
you just can't go wrong with this dish.
A wonderful way to celebrate fall,
but also a wonderful way to be kind to the environment.
Like I said, meat takes a lot more energy,
a lot more water,
but also it accounts for 15%
of the greenhouse gasses that we produce.
So eating more meat free meals makes everything better.
I hope you try this recipe.
If you like it, give me a thumbs up,
and if there's something that you want to see,
just drop a comment.
Let me know, let me know what you think of it,
or if you just want to say hi,
that works too.
I'll see you guys next time.
(energetic music)