The kids have been complaining about the wet, cold, miserable weather. (Why does it always come just in time for school holidays?) I told them, "It might be rainy outside, but it's sunny inside!!", and made them some of this rich, creamy Thermomix hot chocolate. It's the perfect antidote to the wet, winter weather - makes you feel all 'sunny' inside! Mmmm... And if you're dairy free, don't despair, you don't have to miss out - this one's made with cashew milk.
Feel free to change the sweetener to whatever you prefer, to taste. You could use palm sugar, honey, a little stevia, some pure maple syrup or agave nectar - it's up to you. I just love the rich taste of Rapadurawith cacao - delicious! And you could also change it to a Mochaccino by adding some coffee. Try serving it after dinner when everyone's bugging you for some dessert, but you really can't be bothered. It's so rich and filling, they won't need any sweets after this!
By the way, I'd just like you to know that I've posted three recipes in a row that do not involve chocolate - can you believe that?? I'm so proud of myself. But enough is enough, I need a chocolate fix. Enjoy!
Serves 6 (if using cappucino cups) or 4 (if using mugs).
1. Weigh into Thermomix bowl and grind up on speed 9 for a minute or so: - 100g raw cashews - 600g filtered water - 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup (optional)
2. Add and cook on 80 degrees, speed 4, for 5 minutes: - 25g raw cacao powder (or good quality cocoa) - 50g Rapadura (or other sweetener, to taste) - 1 tsp vanilla extract
3. Whiz it up for 20 seconds on speed 7 to froth it up, then serve immediately.
Okay, I just want to say that I LOVE how quick and easy it is to make gravy in my Thermomix. No dashing back and forth to the stove, stirring gravy madly with one hand so it doesn't stick, go lumpy, or bubble out of the pan onto the stove... whilst desperately trying to slice the roast without hacking it, letting it go cold, or losing half of it to picking fingers!
That's all I wanted to say.
I hope you weren't expecting a recipe.
You were? Oh. Well, this is my gravy 'recipe'...
When you make a roast, cook it in at least an inch of water, with some garlic cloves, a quartered onion, and all the veges sitting in it. Sprinkle the roast with herb salt and pepper, and herbs if you like, then cover it with foil. (Or cook it in the crockpot - same deal.) Basically, you want lots of yummy juice left over when you're done.
When it's cooked, tip the juices into the Thermomix (with the mushy garlic cloves and bits of onion) and add a couple of heaped tablespoons of cornflour (or arrowroot or rice flour). Yep, straight into the juice - no need to mix it into water in a cup and all that kind of nonsense. Then add a few sloshes of tamari (or soy sauce), and cook at 100 degrees on speed 4 for a few minutes - maybe 5 - until as thick as you like it. Season it if you like. I know, not much of a recipe, but that's what I do, and it works! :D
And while it's cooking, you can carve the roast and arrange the veges, and slap the picking fingers and generally feel quite peaceful and unstressed.
Love my Thermomix. :)
[Note: I just wanted to see if I could do a blog post in 15 minutes or less - I did it!! No excuse for slackness in posting now...]
Bread is a bit of a sore point with a lot of people who can't have gluten. Gluten is the protein in bread that makes the dough all stretchy and elastic. It gives bread that lovely, light, slightly chewy texture. It makes the bread soft and pliable, so you can fold a piece of bread in half and it doesn't break and crumble. (Didn't you love eating folded-over sandwiches as a kid? I did.) But it's also the thing that causes bloating and discomfort in a lot of people, and does such terrible things to coeliacs!
When my son and I had to go totally gluten free for three months, the most difficult thing for us was not having bread. I mean, we could have gluten free bread, but have you ever tried the gluten free bread from the shop? Yeah, not so exciting. And it's expensive. And it's totally useless for sandwiches or for wrapping around a sausage.
I did end up making my own gluten free bread with Cyndi O'Meara's recipe (originally from the Changing Habits Changing Lives cookbook), which is much nicer than the shop bought bread, and cheaper, and you can grind up the grains in your Thermomix. I still had to force my son to eat it though - he wanted his spelt bread back.
Then recently I bought the cookbook'Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day' and the first recipe I tried was the gluten free artisan bread. Wow. It turned out better than any gluten free bread I'd tasted before. I mean, look at this - it even bends without breaking!!
You can wrap it around a sausage, or make sandwiches with it, and it won't disintegrate into crumbs! And believe it or not, this photo was taken when the bread was a day old!!! (Sorry about all the exclamation marks, but I just can't help being excited about this bread!) :D
When my first loaf came out of the oven, it suddenly seemed like half the neighbourhood were in my kitchen, all wanting a slice of bread... Even when I told them it was gluten free it didn't scare them off - they loved it! (So, yeah, that first loaf didn't last long.)
The crust on this bread is thick and crusty and chewy, which I love, and the flavour is slightly sourdough-ish, which I also love, and it turns out looking very rustic, which I love as well... So as you can see, I'm pretty pleased with this bread! (Those of you who are followers of my Quirky Cooking Facebook Page are probably tired of hearing about this bread, but I thought I should share it with the non-facebookers out there.)
Have a look at the texture - isn't that great for a gluten free bread?
The addition of sorghum flour gives it a better texture, and bit of fibre. If you like, you could add more texture with the addition of some seeds - linseeds, pepitas, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds - they'd all be great in this bread.
So here's the original recipe for this bread: Recipe for Gluten Free Crusty Boule(I've just re-written it to make it more 'Thermomix friendly'.) Before you start, it would be best to watch the video clip by Zoe, one of the authors of the book - it'll give you a better idea of the method than just reading the recipe.
This recipe makes four 500g loaves - the dough stays in the fridge and you just bake a loaf when you need it. So easy!
1. Grind up in the Thermomix in two batches on speed 9 for a minute per batch:
- 300g brown rice(or use brown rice flour)
2. Add the dry ingredients (with all the rice flour) and mix in on speed 5 until well combined:
- 220g sorghum flour(find in health food shops or Indian/Asian grocery stores - also called 'Jowar Atta' flour)
- 380g tapioca starch (tapioca flour)
- 2 Tablespoons instant yeast
- 1 Tablespoon fine sea salt/Himalayan salt(adjust to taste)
- 2 Tablespoons xanthan gum
Tip flour mixture into a large mixing bowl.
3. Weigh liquid ingredients into Thermomix and mix on speed 4 until combined:
4. Pour liquid into the bowl with the flour mixture and mix together with a wooden spoon until all the dry ingredients are well incorporated. There is no need to knead! Dough will be like a wet, sticky, scone dough, not like a regular bread dough - see photo below...
5. Cover (but not airtight) and allow dough to rest at room temperature until it rises, approximately 2 hours or so. You can use it immediately after this initial rise, but the flavour is nicer if you refrigerate it in a lidded (not airtight) container overnight first. You can use the dough over the next 7 days, although bear in mind, the flavour gets stronger each day.
6. When you're ready to cook it, wet your hands, and take out a grapefruit-sized piece of the refrigerated dough. Quickly shape it into a ball, gently pressing into shape, and smoothing with a little water if you don't want it rough and rustic.
7. Allow the dough to rest, loosely covered in plastic wrap, on a pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal, or on baking paper on a cookie sheet if you don't have a pizza peel. It will need to rest for about an hour and a half, or even 2 hours. (If it hasn't been refrigerated and you're using it straight away, it will only need about 40 minutes to rest.) It will rise a little in this time, but it won't double like regular bread dough does.
8. Thirty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 230 degrees C (450 degrees F), with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. (If you don't have a baking stone, a cast-iron pan or heavy pizza tray will do.) Place an empty grill tray or baking pan on the rack underneath.
9. When the loaf is ready to bake, slash the top with 1/4-inch-deep parrallel cuts, using a very sharp knife, or a serrated bread knife. This isn't just for looks - it seems to bake better inside if you do this.
10. Slide the loaf directly onto the hot stone or pan. (If using baking paper, leave it under the bread). Quickly pour a cup of hot tap water into the hot grill tray or baking pan and immediately shut the oven door. Bake for about 35 - 40 minutes, until lightly browned and firm. If you used baking paper, carefully remove it two-thirds of the way through the baking time and bake the loaf directly on the hot stone, cast-iron pan, or oven rack.
11. Allow bread to cool on a rack before slicing.
Note: Smaller or larger loaves will require adjustments in resting and baking time. If you like, you can make two loaves at a time, as they're small enough to sit side by side in the oven.
This is one of our family's 'go-to' snacks which my friends think I really should share - they're the easiest, yummiest snack around!
This isn't a Thermomix recipe - it's so simple, it's hardly a recipe at all... All it involves is some nuts, a liquid sweetener, some sea salt, and an oven. Oh, and a baking tray. And it only takes 20 minutes.
Sweet 'n' salty nuts are great for a quick snack on the go. I often take a little bag of them in my handbag when I go out, which helps me control the urge for buying something not-so-healthy to munch on!
I buy my nuts bulk from Trumps in Brisbane - it's a lot cheaper that way. I buy organic raw cashews, insecticide free almonds, hazelnuts, brazil nuts - all sorts. I can also get lovely pecans and macadamia nuts locally, which are probably my favourites. I always have a variety of nuts in my freezer. (And at the moment, in bags on my kitchen floor because I can't fit them in the freezer...) We're a pretty nutty family! :D
There's lots of possible combinations of nuts and sweeteners - here's a few of my favourites, but see what you can come up with!
- Macadamias, rice malt syrup, sea salt
- Cashews, raw honey, sea salt
- Pecans, pure maple syrup, sea salt
- Almonds, raw honey, sea salt
I'm wanting to try yacon syrup too, just haven't gotten any yet, but I've heard it's amazing!
Okay, here's the simple method for making sweet 'n' salty nuts:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
1. Spread the nuts on a baking paper lined pizza tray (or baking tray) so that they're in a single layer, like this:
2. Drizzle with honey or syrup, back and forth - no need to cover them! Just a drizzle, like this:
3. Sprinkle over a couple of good sized pinches of sea salt or pink Himalayan salt. I use Himalayan salt crystals which I grind up in the Thermomix until fine. (There, see, I just couldn't do a recipe without using the Thermomix somewhere!)
4. Pop the nuts into the preheated oven and let them cook for about 10 minutes. Take the tray out and stir the nuts with a fork, turning them in the melted honey/syrup so they're evenly coated. Pop them back in the oven and cook another 10 minutes, or until they're golden and crispy. Don't burn them!
5. Let them cool for a few minutes before eating. Once they're completely cool, store them in an airtight jar on the counter.
P.S. You might want to do a couple of trays at a time - they go quick!
We've had a lovely week this week with my little brother up for a visit. He lives 2000 kms away and it's just too far! It was so good to get to spend some time with him again. I wanted to make him a special dessert, so after playing with a few different ideas, I decided on chocolate mousse. If in doubt, always choose chocolate! And just to make sure it wasn't dull and boring, I thought I'd add some blueberries and chocolate 'dirt'.
I've never actually seen any recipes for chocolate dirt (although I'm sure they're there), and I was in a hurry, so I made my own up. I figured it would be good made out of dried blueberries, my homemade dark chocolate, Rapadura and almonds. Unfortunately, I didn't have any dried blueberries or homemade chocolate on hand, and after a busy day I only had half an hour left to invent my dessert, so I frantically dug the Lindt blueberry chocolate out of the freezer (where I'd been hiding it!) and used that instead. (I always seem to work best to a deadline!) And everyone was kind enough to wait for dinner until I'd gotten the mousse whipped up and popped in the freezer to set. They were all glad they'd waited. :)
Here's what I did.
First I made the 'dirt':
Chocolate Blueberry Almond Dirt
1. Grind up the Rapadura in the Thermomix to make it fine, about 30 seconds on speed 9:
...added a good sprinkle of chocolate blueberry almond dirt...
...then poured over the chocolate mousse. I put all the dishes on a tray in the freezer so they'd set while we ate dinner. When it was time for dessert, I got them out (they were perfectly set - took about an hour), sprinkled each one with chocolate dirt, and topped them with a blueberry each.
So, so good.
My brother told his friend (who was having dinner with us) that my desserts are 'so healthy you can eat them for breakfast'! Which I think scared his friend a bit, and he said he really wasn't very hungry... but after tasting it he must have changed his mind, because the whole thing disappeared quite quickly!
And I'm not so sure about this one being healthy enough for breakfast - it might be a bit rich with the Lindt chocolate and all. But I think if I found one hiding in the fridge tomorrow morning I would try my best to eat it. :D
