Chicken Pasta with Zoodles {oh, and a bonus Chicken Zoodle Soup Recipe!}

Chicken pasta sauce with 'zoodles' (zucchini noodles)

I've had a few requests for this simple-but-delicious recipe, (mostly from my friend Sue-Ellen, who won't stop hassling me!) so here it finally is. ;-) I've been a bit absent on my blog for the last couple of weeks due to overwhelmingness of all sorts, but I'm determined to get this posted... I had thought of keeping it up my sleeve for my cookbook, but that's going awfully s-l-o-w-l-y (inducing some of the aforesaid overwhelmingness) so I thought I might as well post it.

This is one of those recipes that is great to make when you want a chicken to 'stretch' a long way. If you buy organic and/or free range chicken like I (usually) do, it's nice to have recipes that only need 300g of chicken but still feed six people. If I'm starting with a whole chicken, I cut off the thighs and brown meat from the legs and use that. I use the breasts for another recipe, and then I use the meaty carcass to make soup from.

However, this time I did things a bit differently. It all started with a crazy day and no menu plan, which I wouldn't usually recommend, but somehow it worked out...

At 5.30pm I realised everyone was going to be bugging me very soon for dinner, so I dashed out to the freezer to see what I had. I dug around and found a kilo of chicken thigh fillets, which were of course frozen into a solid block. I have no microwave (yep, I'm one of those weird people who refuse to have one), so I chucked the frozen block of chicken into my big stock pot on the stove, covered it with about 4 litres of water and turned the heat on full blast. I roughly chopped an onion, a leafy celery stalk plus some extra celery leaves, a couple of carrots, a handful of parsley and a few cloves of garlic, and chucked them all in (Jamie Oliver style - well, I like to think so anyway), splashed in a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, added a bay leaf, some Italian herbs and a couple of teaspoons of Celtic sea salt, and popped the lid on. Then I started the pasta sauce in the Thermomix for the chicken pasta. As soon as the thighs in the soup pot were cooked a bit on the outside and I could pry a few off the 'block', I added them (slightly frozen still) to the Varoma to steam above the pasta sauce. (Oh, and I turned the heat down on the stove so the chicken soup was simmering more gently, and left it for a couple of hours.)

So here's the pasta recipe - I'll get back to the chicken soup in a minute...

Chicken Pasta with Zoodles
(Serves 5-6)

1. Chop in Thermomix bowl on speed 5 for 3 seconds:
- 1 brown onion, halved
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 half a red capsicum, deseeded

2. Add oil or butter and saute for 3 minutes at 100C, reverse speed 1:
- 30g olive oil or butter

3. Add tomatoes and chop at speed 6 for 6-10 seconds, depending how chunky you like your sauce:
- 800g fresh, ripe tomatoes, halved (preferably organic vine ripened for extra flavour!)

4. Add mushrooms and chop on speed 3 for 5 seconds (or less if you like them chunkier):
- 150g mushrooms

5. Add remaining ingredients (except chicken) and cook at Varoma temperature for 30 minutes, reverse speed 1. Place Varoma tray on top, with chicken thighs (halved) inside (more if you like) to steam while the sauce cooks:
- 100g tomato paste
- 100g water
- 2 Tbspns chicken or vege stock paste
- 1 tsp Italian herbs (dried) or some fresh oregano & basil, chopped
- 1 tsp Rapadura
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 300g chicken thigh fillets

6. While the pasta sauce is cooking, make the zoodles (zucchini noodles). If you have a Benriner (pictured above) or other type of vege spiralizer, you can use that - I highly recommend them, they're awesome! You just pop the raw veges in and turn the handle, and you can use different sized blades for different types of 'noodles'. Here's Miss C making the zoodles for me...

If you don't have a Benriner, don't despair - you can just use a potato peeler to peel thin strips of zucchini for the 'pasta'. (See this recipe for 'Raw Pasta Sauce' for a picture of zucchini noodles made with a potato peeler.)

7. When the pasta sauce is finished cooking, pull chicken apart roughly with two forks and add to the sauce. Serve over the raw zoodles.

Okay, back to the soup...

After dinner was done and cleaned up, the soup had been simmering for about 2 hours, the chicken was spoon-tender, and the liquid was reduced by at least half. I turned off the heat and added a couple of handfuls of raw zoodles (which were leftover from dinner), and left it to cool. Because the liquids had reduced so much, it had become a condensed soup, which is perfect for me as I never have much room in my fridge. A condensed soup takes up less room, and you just add some water (to taste) when you are ready to heat it up again.

We ate the soup the next day for lunch, warmed gently on the stovetop with a bit more water added. (Sorry, don't remember how much, but just taste and see how strong you like it.) Let me just mention here that the Celtic sea salt makes a big difference in flavour - regular table salt just won't be the same. If you don't have Celtic sea salt (the chunky, grey, wet kind of salt that's hand harvested), you may want to add a little stock paste for more flavour.

Chicken Zoodle Soup

And I caved in and made spelt bread to go with it, which totally negated my 'grain free' idea, but anyway - this chicken soup and hot-out-of-the-oven spelt bread is the best comfort food there is, in my opinion. Even better than chocolate. And that's saying something for a chocoholic like me!!

I hope that adequately explains how to make the soup and pasta - I'll make it again soon and check if I wrote that down correctly - it was all a bit slap-dash at the time, as usual. Please tweak to taste!

Jo :-)

Chocolate Chilli Chai {dairy free}

My daughter India and I love making chai in the Thermomix with cashew milk -

it's gorgeous! So creamy. (I ♥ cashew milk! Especially vanilla cashew milk...)

Creamy vanilla cashew milk - just add some vanilla bean paste (or the seeds from a vanilla pod) to your cashew milk. Drink it chilled, or heat and froth in the Thermomix to add to cappucinos, hot chocolate, or chai. Make a batch of vanilla cashew milk before you make the chai if you like, so you can drizzle a little into the cups of chai and swirl through to make it look pretty.)

The other day I decided we really needed to add some chocolate and chilli to our chai for a change. It was so good. Although I admit I added a little too much chilli the first time - I didn't mind it, but the kids had to keep adding cashew milk to their cups to tone it down - oops! So the next day I made it again for friends, and used half the chilli - they pronounced it to be just right. I think it's better to not use too much chilli, or you just get a numb mouth and can't appreciate the chocolatey, spicey flavours. :-)

There are so many possible variations when making chai. I started with the Chai Masala Tea recipe in the Thermomix cookbook, 'Fast and Easy Indian Cooking' (yes, I write all over my cookbooks as I tweak, don't you??) adding and substracting spices to taste, as well as grinding up raw cashews and chocolate to make a creamy chocolate milk base. I ended up with a big mess, on a day when I was supposed to be madly cleaning the house, but the results were worth it!

(And I must say here a big THANK YOU to Lucy, who sent me a whole pack of organic New Guinea vanilla beans - so lovely of you, and very much appreciated!)

So here's my recipe, but feel free to change and tweak it to taste - use more or less chilli or cinnamon, maybe some coriander seeds roasted in the Thermomix bowl and ground up with the other spices - there's plenty of ideas in the Indian cookbook recipe, so have a look and tweak to your heart's content. The purpose of a recipe is to give you a starting point - you don't have to stick to it. I never do. Not even my own. ;-)

Enjoy! ♥

Serves 6

A whole nutmeg

1. Make sure your Thermomix bowl is very dry. Turn the speed dial to 7, and drop a whole nutmeg onto the blades through the hole in the lid (quickly popping the MC in place) and let it grind for 30-40 seconds. Remove to a small dish. (The reason you grind the nutmeg separately is because it needs to be added in the last minute as it loses flavour quickly when heated.)

- 1 whole nutmeg

Spices ready to grind

(a bit too much chilli in this batch - I used half a chilli in the second batch)

2. Roughly grind remaining spices in Thermomix bowl on speed 7 for 10 seconds. (You don't want them ground too fine, or else the 'bits' will get through the strainer.)

- 1 cardamom pod
- 2 large or 3 smaller sticks of cinnamon
- 2 whole cloves
- 5 peppercorns
- 1/2 a dried red chilli
- 1 vanilla bean, cut into a few pieces
Set spices aside in a small bowl.

3. Add to Thermomix bowl and grind on speed 8 for 10 seconds:
- 80g raw cashews
- 80g dark, dairy free chocolate, broken in bits (eg. Green & Black's 70% cocoa, or a 65% cocoa chocolate if you like it a little milder)

4. Add water and blend for 30 seconds on speed 9:
- 1200g water

5. Carefully push strainer basket down into the chocolate milk in the bowl, and add the ground spices (except the nutmeg), tea, fresh ginger and sweetener. Cook for 10 minutes at 80C on speed 4.
- ground spices (except nutmeg)
- 5 teabags of organic black tea (or 5 tsp loose tea leaves)
- 3 or 4 thin slices of fresh ginger
- 40g Rapadura (or other natural sweetener, to taste)

[Note: you may get a bit of foam coming out of the hole in the lid, but it shouldn't be enough to be a problem. Just take the MC off and it'll be fine.]

6. Add nutmeg through hole in lid and cook for 1 minute at 80C on speed 4:
- a couple of pinches of ground nutmeg, to taste

7. Remove basket from bowl (carefully - can get messy!), squeezing tea bags against sides with spatula.

8. Pour the chai through a strainer into a jug. (Not a fine mesh strainer, as it'll take too long and drive you crazy!)

9. Pour into cups and add a little hot, frothed cashew milk and swirl through (optional), then grate over a little more chocolate for decoration.

Fajita Chicken & Salad Pizza on Quinoa & Chia Seed Flatbread

* This recipe includes support for Paprika * 

This morning when I got up I decided that the last thing I wanted for breakfast was porridge or granola or eggs - I was starving! I wanted PIZZA!!

I looked in the fridge and spied a lonely chicken breast and some baby spinach, and decided on a quick chicken and salad pizza... I know, that doesn't sound much like breakfast food, but I tend to have all sorts of odd things for breakfast. I prefer a savoury breakfast to a sweet one. (Although I will make an exception for chocolate.)

The base of this pizza is made from quinoa and chia seeds, so it's a lot higher in protein than a traditional base. Protein is great in the morning as it fills you up for longer and gives you energy, whereas carbs will make you feel stodgy and sleepy. So skip the cereal and toast and go for pizza! ;-) That is, healthy pizza - not a stodgy, carby pizza. This one is gluten free, dairy free, egg free... even grain free if you don't count quinoa as a grain! (Which I don't, since it's really a seed.)

You can make the base soft or crunchy, depending how you like it. I use this pizza base recipe for flatbread too - I make mini ones for the kids lunches quite often. Spread them thin and cook them until just cooked, and they'll wrap around a filling. Or cook them longer so they're crisp like crackers and serve them with dips.

Snack size quinoa & chia seed flatbread with avocado & fire-roasted capsicum

Try some different toppings, like smoked salmon, sheep's fetta (if you can have it), olives, avocado, or fire-roasted capsicum. Or for a more 'breakfast-y' breakfast, top with scrambled eggs, sun-dried tomatoes and spinach, or a poached egg! Yum.


Quinoa & Chia Seed Flatbread (gluten free, dairy free)

Makes 2 large pizza size flatbreads, or a few mini ones

1. Toast the quinoa in a dry frying pan by stirring over medium heat for a few minutes. Or toast in Thermomix at 100C for 10 mins, speed 1, with MC off. [Optional - to get rid of saponins on outside of quinoa as it may otherwise taste bitter.]
- 150g white quinoa

2. Grind quinoa, chia and salt in Thermomix bowl for 1 minute, speed 9:
- toasted quinoa
- 2 Tbspns chia seeds
- 1/2 tsp sea salt

3. Add water and mix on speed 5 for 10 seconds:
- 180g water

Note: For a soaked version of the flatbread, skip the toasting of the quinoa. Instead, cover quinoa in water and leave overnight, strain in the morning and add quinoa to the Thermomix bowl with the chia, salt and water. Blend on speed 9 for 2 minutes, adding a little more water if needed, and scraping down now and then with the spatula.

4. Drizzle pizza trays with some extra virgin olive oil (use baking paper if needed), and divide dough between trays. (The dough will be more like a sticky batter.) Drizzle the dough with some more oil.

Using your fingertips, pat the dough out evenly into a thin circle, about 3mm thick. I find it's easier to use my fingers than a spatula, as the dough is very sticky. The oil will stop it sticking to your hands.

There should be oil all around the edge of the dough, and a thin sheen over the top. This will make it crispy. If you want it soft, there's no need to use much oil.

5. Bake at 200C for 20-30 minutes, depending how crispy you like it.

(You'll notice mine's quite brown after 30 minutes - don't cook it this long if you want it soft like the picture of the snack size flatbread.)


Fajita Chicken & Salad Topping (gluten free, dairy free)

While the pizza bases are cooking, make the toppings.

1. Chop garlic on speed 7 for 3 seconds

- 2 garlic cloves

2. Add the remaining ingredients except the chicken and mix on speed 5 for 5 seconds

- 20g extra virgin olive oil
- 10g tamari or gf soy sauce
- 1 Tbspn honey
- juice of 1/2 a lime
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/8 tsp onion powder
- dash of mesquite smoke seasoning (optional)

3. Add chicken and cook for 5 minutes, Varoma temperature, reverse speed soft, with MC off

- 1 chicken breast, thinly sliced

   (There will be a bit of 'juice' left after cooking the chicken - you can just lift the chicken out with a fork or slotted spoon. I actually drizzled the juice over the top of the pizza because it was too yummy to waste!)
 

4. When flatbread is cooked, remove from oven and top with
- baby spinach
- chopped tomato
- thinly sliced Spanish onion
- fajita chicken
- dairy free sour cream (optional - I didn't have any and was in a hurry to eat!)

Warning: this can be messy to eat, but it's worth it. :)

Thermomix Menu Plans - 2nd July

Well guys, I have heaps of food photos to share this week to give you a bit of inspiration... Thermie has been getting a workout! Here's some of what I've made in the past week:

Seeded Spelt Challah

I love making bread. When I have a 'day off' I like to just spend the morning baking. There's so many different kinds of breads you can make, and I love to get a bit creative with them. This is a mini, braided wreath made with half a batch of the spelt challah dough (uncooked in this photo), sprinkled with sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds and rock salt. I made a double batch of the spelt challah dough (ground 250g grain, set aside, then made two separate 500g batches of dough - took only a few minutes), let it rise, divided it for one large loaf and two small, and braided them into wreaths. The little ones were going to be gifts for a neighbour and a friend who'd babysat the kids, but the neighbour was away, and the kids thought we should make a cake instead for the friend. So we ate them. :)

This is the larger 500g loaf, cooked. The good thing about all those seeds is they hide any messiness in your braiding! ;-)

We only have bread a couple of times a week, as we're trying to cut down on grains a lot, so this bread was a special treat.

And so were the sandwiches I made... crispy bacon, dijon mustard, watercress, tomato, and sauteed mushrooms. Yummo!

For those of you who didn't see these on my Facebook page, we also enjoyed the Char Siew Pow (Barbeque Pork Steamed Buns) from the Asian cookbook this week... delicious! I love the Asian cookbook - I'm getting quite a few favourites from that book.

Above are the pork buns being made and placed in the Varoma on pieces of baking paper, so they don't stick to the tray. I strained the char siew sauce off the cooked pork and kept it for another dish. (We actually used it to cook some fish and marinara mix in, and it was delicious too!)

The finished pork buns. Yep, I had two Thermomixes going at once, with rice steaming in the basket inside the bowl, and the buns steaming on top. I had lots of cooking to do that day - it was the same day as my son's 13th birthday party when I had to cook for ten boys all day, plus the family's dinner and our Thermofest dinner that night! Phew, thank goodness for Thermomix(es)!! (And if you're wondering why I have two Thermomixes, that's one of the perks of being a consultant - you can earn a free one with your sales... woo hoo!)

I did tweak the pork bun recipe slightly - I used spelt flour instead of wheat flour (needed a bit more to make the dough less sticky), rice milk instead of dairy milk, and rapadura instead of sugar. They turned out great, and were delicious served with laksa, fried rice, prawns and seafood in char siew sauce at our Thermofest dinner. :) (I was too busy eating and forgot to take any photos at the dinner - sorry!)

And just before I dashed off to the Thermofest dinner I slapped together a quick birthday cake for my son - it doesn't look too flash, but it tasted good!

The cake is a flourless chocolate cake - I used the basic 'Too Easy Chocolate Cake' recipe in the Everyday Cookbook, just substituting pecans instead of the flour (same weight), macadamia oil instead of the butter, and 100g Rapadura instead of the sugar. (Chuck everything in together and whiz it up for a few seconds on speed 8. That's it.) I cooked it in two 20 cm round cake tins, and layered it with cashew cream and fresh strawberries, with some dark chocolate chips scattered on top. Too easy.

The only problem with this cake is that it turned out a bit small - next time I would double the recipe and cook two cakes, then put them together. Otherwise it was great. And quick!

Some days I use my Thermomix 15 times or more, doing everything from grinding grains, nuts, coffee and chocolate; to making dairy free creams, milks and sauces; mixing up cakes, smoothies and soups; as well as making breakfast, lunch and dinner. No wonder my kitchen often looks like this...

...or worse! (I have a very small kitchen. That's my excuse.)

So what's on the menu this week at your house? Here's my basic plan, leaving room for the unexpected... I'd love for you to share your Thermomix Menu Plan on my Quirky Cooking Facebook Page, by posting the link to your plan in the comments under my menu plan link. Inspire us!

Have a great week :)

Monday:

Leftover roast beef and veges, warmed up in the Varoma while cooking mashed potatoes in the bowl below, and leftover soup and salad.

Tuesday:

Fish pie with cauliflower mash topping (prepared in tmx, baked in oven), and salad. (I've been promising to get this recipe on the blog - will try and do that this week!)

Wednesday:

Baked sweet potatoes with Tuna a la King sauce (tmx)

Thursday:

Mexican black bean & chorizo soup (prep in tmx, cooked in slow cooker as I'll be gone all day)

Friday:

Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, mashed potato (tmx) and steamed veges (tmx)

Saturday:

Grilled fish with almonds, garlic quinoa (tmx), and leafy green salad

Sunday:

Baked meatloaf with roast veges (in oven slow cooking, as out all morning) and salad

Mexican Black Bean & Chorizo Soup

Almond, Lemon & Coconut Steamed Puddings {grain free, dairy free}

Today I decided to experiment with a grain free recipe for the steamed lemon and coconut puddings we make at the Thermomix Varoma demos. My daughter absolutely loves those puddings, but she reacts to gluten (and I think grains), and isn't supposed to have all that sugar. There is a grain free version of the puddings on the Varoma recipe cards, but I find that recipe a bit heavy - I wanted them to be lighter, and also dairy free and more naturally sweetened. I was really happy with the result of my experimenting! Anyway, I think I'd better not chit chat too much here and just hurry up and post the recipe... seems like there's a few people on Facebook who want it NOW!! Lol :D So here it is...

1. Peel the lemon zest into the Thermomix bowl with a potato peeler:

- zest of one lemon

    (Make sure your bowl is nice and dry.)

2. Add and blend for 10 seconds on speed 10:

- 100g blanched almonds*

- 40g coconut flour** (not dessicated coconut ground up, it's too oily)

- 40g Rapadura

- 1/2 tsp green stevia powder (or white stevia if that's all you have)

3. Add and mix for another 6 seconds on speed 5:

- 100g macadamia oil

- 2 yolks + 2 eggs (save the whites for fruity dream or sorbet)

- 180g coconut milk**

- 2 tsp baking powder

  Scrape down bowl and reblend for another 5 seconds on speed 5. Don't overmix.

4. Pour batter into silicon cupcake cups (or greased ramekins) and place in two layers in the Varoma trays. (No need to grease silicon cupcake cups.) Rinse out the Thermomix bowl and fill to just above the blades with water (just cool tap water), and place on base with lid on. Place the Varoma on top and cook the puddings for 20 minutes at Varoma temp, speed 2.

(Tip: When you lift the lid off the Varoma at the end of the cooking time,

tilt it back so the steam escapes away from you, and the condensation

on the lid drips down into the vent on the side of the Varoma dish,

and not onto the puddings! Soggy puddings are not so nice.)

5. Set the puddings aside. Tip the water out of the bowl and place back on the base.

6. Weigh into bowl and cook for 2 minutes at 100C, speed 2:

- 50g Rapadura

- 50g pure maple syrup

- 50g fresh lemon juice (approx. 1 lemon)

  Meanwhile, turn puddings out of silicon cupcake cups (or ramekins) onto plates. They come out easiest while warm.

7. Drizzle puddings with a little syrup, top with a raspberry (or some fruity dream), and serve.

* To blanch your own almonds, weigh raw almonds into a bowl, pour boiling water over and leave for about 10 minutes, then the skins will pop off when you 'pinch' them between your fingers. Spread on a tea towel to dry out before grinding.

** If you want to make your own coconut flour, you need to first grind up 100g of dried shredded (or dessicated) coconut, add 300g water, cook for 10 mins at 100C speed 2, then blend for 1 minute on speed 9. Then squeeze through a nut milk bag (when cool enough) until you've got as much moisture out of the coconut as possible. (Use the coconut milk to make the puddings, or in curries.) Spread the coconut out on a dehydrator tray and dry for a few hours until there's no moisture left at all, then grind it up in the Thermomix. If you'd rather the easy option of buying coconut flour, you can get it at health food stores or online. (You can buy it here.) It seems expensive, but you really don't need much to make a cake, so a 500g bag lasts for ages.