Berry Nougat with Raw Cacao Nibs

This recipe is an old favourite of ours from the raw food cookbook "Rejuvenate Your Life" by Serene Allison, except with a couple of tweaks of my own. I've added raw cacao nibs, for a delicious, chocolatey crunch, and I use my homemade nut butter. I make this quite often for snacks, desserts, cake toppings, and even for breakfast... it's delicious. The amounts can vary to taste, so don't stress too much about measuring. I make my own nut butter first in the Thermomix - it's very quick and easy.  Otherwise you can use bought almond butter if you like.

You can let the berry nougat thaw a little before eating, or have it still frozen - I like it about halfway in between frozen and thawed, as it's juicier and has more flavour. You can keep it in the freezer and just thaw it out a little when you want some. It's delicious on it's own, or on top of a raw cheesecake or a chocolate gateau or torte caprese - especially with chocolate drizzled over the top!

Recipe makes a little over 4 cups.

1. In Thermomix bowl, chop almonds on speed 6 for about 5 seconds, or until roughly chopped:

- 100g raw almonds

2.  Add and mix on speed 3 for a few seconds, until combined:

- a couple of heaped tablespoons of almond butter (or mixed nut butter) (to 'glue' it together)

- a handful or two of raisins or sultanas (for chewiness)
- 30g pure maple syrup (to taste - make sure it's still tangy, not too sweet)

- a handful of raw cacao nibs

3.  Add and mix in on reverse speed 2 for a few seconds:

- about 400g of frozen mixed berries

 

Menu Plan Monday - 6th December

I had a great week last week, with two big Christmas cooking classes (about 100 people came all together!), which was a lot of fun.  We worked really hard to feed and inspire everyone, and I think we did a good job :)  If any of you are waiting for the Thermomix Festive cookbook, they're on their way and will be here in a few days.  There's some really good recipes in there... although I do think I'll have a little break from the Chicken and Potato Salad (with sun-dried tomato dressing) - four big batches in two days is enough for a while, no matter how delicious it is!


So with Christmas holidays almost here, we're working hard to get school work finished up and Christmas presents made, and I've been trying to work out my Christmas menu.  I've decided to try Helene's Slow Baked Ribs for Christmas dinner - they just look so good!  What are you planning in the way of Christmas cooking?  Come on over to the Quirky Cooking Facebook page and share your ideas!


Here's my menu plan for this week - as you can see we often have our main meal at lunch time, especially when my dh is working nights.  Sometimes our meals are a little mixed up - like today... the neighbour boy came over and wanted to do some cooking, and decided on crepes and plum jam (after seeing a lovely photo in the "My Way of Cooking" cookbook) and I thought that would be fun, so we cooked up a big batch of both and they were delicious!  By the time we finished it was 6pm, so we had crepes and jam for dinner, and steak and veges for dessert - lol!  As the saying goes, 'Life is uncertain, so eat dessert first!'  :D


If you'd like some more menu planning ideas and recipes, have a look at Menu Plan Monday on "I'm an Organizing Junkie", and also the wonderful Thermomix Forum!  Have a great week :)

[tmx = prepared and/or cooked in my Thermomix]

Gluten free crepes with plum jam

Monday:
(lunch) Spelt spaghetti carbonara (mushrooms, garlic, shallots, baby spinach, sun-dried tomatos, no bacon) (tmx)
(dinner) Gluten free crepes (tmx) with hot plum jam (tmx - based on this recipe)... and steak & veges (tmx) for dessert!

Tuesday:
(lunch) Salmon fishcakes (tmx) & salad
(dinner) Cacciatore chicken risotto (tmx - from Thermomix Forum)

Wednesday:
(lunch) Quinoa chicken & vege curry (tmx - recipe coming - it's soooo yummy!)
(dinner) Leftovers & pasta salad (tmx)

Thursday:
(lunch) Salmon tikka (tmx - from Thermomix Forum)
(dinner) Pumpkin soup (tmx) & Cyndi's gluten free bread (tmx)

Friday:

(lunch) Potato salad (tmx) & green salad

(dinner) BBQ Christmas party - taking spicy-salty nuts, and a torte caprese with berry nougat topping :)

Saturday:

(lunch) 

Marinated lamb chops & salad (tmx & crockpot)

(dinner) Leftovers & gluten free crepes (tmx)

Sunday:

(lunch) Tuna pasta salad with gf noodles (tmx)

(dinner) Omelettes with salad

Beautiful Food

I just had to share this recipe for perfect poached eggs, created by Trissalicious, because they're just so gorgeous!

This may seem like the long way round to making poached eggs for breakfast (they cook in their shells at a very low heat for 43 minutes), but believe me, they're worth it!  Start them cooking and go have a long, lazy bath... or if you're energetic in the mornings, go for a jog... and when you get back, your perfect poached eggs will be ready.  When you crack the top off your egg and slide it out onto your toast, it seems kind of magical...

Isn't that beautiful?

And if you want hollandaise sauce on top, that only takes 8 minutes - just leave the eggs in their shells to stay warm while you make it.

(Yes, I did have butter with these - sometimes I give in to my butter craving!)

I had these for breakfast with a great big glass of fresh orange juice - 2 peeled oranges and a handful of ice whizzed up in the Thermomix on speed 10 for 1 minute... yum :)

*     *     *     *     *

Here's a couple of other links to food (and photos) that make my mouth water...


Super Kitchen Machine's Succulent Slow Baked Ribs!  (Make sure you watch the YouTube clip!!)

The British Larder - a recipe diary with lots of Thermomix recipes, and amazing photos (oh, and don't miss the post explaining how to temper chocolate in the Thermomix!)

What Katie Ate - a foodie photography blog by Katie from Sydney

Tartelette - gluten free, French-Southern-American style recipe blog with beautiful photography

Kapture Studio - food photos to drool over

"Enchant, stay beautiful and graceful, 

but do this, eat well. 

Bring the same consideration 

to the preparation of your food 

as you devote to your appearance. 

Let your dinner be a poem, 

like your dress." 

Charles Pierre Monselet, French author (1825-1888)

'Letters to Emily'

Spicy Chicken & Vege Sausage Rolls with Spelt Rough Puff Pastry

I love to make homemade sausage rolls with spelt rough puff pastry - they're so easy, and really yummy! I use spelt as it's non-hybridized and easier to digest than wheat. It has a lower gluten content than wheat, and the germ contains the enzymes needed to digest the gluten. These are not gluten free - I'd like to try some gluten free rough puff pastry and have seen a few recipes online that look interesting - anyone tried making gf puff pastry? If so, let us know!


I usually make quite a big batch of these, using fresh meat so that they can be frozen uncooked (separated with baking paper), and I can get a few out of the freezer and pop them in the oven as I need them.  


The last time I made them I wanted to jazz them up a little, so instead of tamari and sweet chilli sauce (which I usually use to give them more flavour), I added some of my homemade tikka paste.  It really spiced them up and the kids loved them!  It's best to fry up a little 'taster' of the sausage mince before you assemble the sausage rolls so you can check the seasonings - you might like more or less tikka paste than I use - kind of depends on how spicy your paste is, and how hot you like it.  If you don't want them spicy, just use tamari (or soy sauce) to season them instead of tikka paste.

*     *     *     *     *

The Pastry...


1.  Make a batch of the rough puff pastry from the Thermomix Everyday Cookbook, and place in the fridge.  (I use spelt flour instead of wheat flour, and if you can't have butter, you can just use all lard.)  Don't overwork it - it should be quite rough at first...

 (ready to wrap and place in fridge...)

Chicken & Vege Filling:

2.  Grind up on speed 9 until fine:
- 120g spelt bread
- 2 cloves garlic
- handful of fresh parsley or coriander

3.  Add and chop veges in the Thermomix on speed 5 for 5 seconds:
- 1/2 an onion
- 1/2 a stick of celery
- 1 zucchini, quartered
- 1 carrot, quartered

4.  Add remaining ingredients and mix on speed 6-8 until finely minced and mixed together - you may need to use the spatula to help it along:
- 600g cubed chicken
- 1 egg
- 2 Tblspns vege stock concentrate (from Everyday Cookbook)
- 4 Tblspns tikka paste (from Indian cookbook)

5.  Fry a spoonfull of meat mixture in a hot frying pan and taste to check seasonings.  Add salt or more tikka paste if needed.

6.  Take pastry out of fridge and cut off a third of it in a rectangular shape, (replace remaining pastry in fridge to keep cold).  Roll it out on a floured silicon mat. It should be quite thin, about 2 mm.  Place a third of the sausage mixture down the centre of the pastry...

 Roll it up, seam side down, slice in desired lengths (carefully with butter knife so you don't cut the silicon mat)...

Cut slashes in the pastry with a sharp knife and place sausage rolls on a lined tray, or in a container to freeze (separating sausage rolls with baking paper).

7.  Repeat with remaining two thirds of pastry and sausage mixture.  When you're ready to cook them, preheat oven to 220 degrees Celsius, brush sausage rolls with an egg and water wash, and cook for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.  If you're cooking them from the freezer and they're not thawed, cook at 180 degrees until nicely browned, and check the centre to make sure it's cooked through!  Will take a bit longer, obviously, but I can't remember how long :)

Hope you like them!

Look at that yummy pastry!

Lime, Kiwi Fruit & Mint Sorbet

There's so many different variations of sorbet you can make in the Thermomix. This is one of our favourites, and I thought I'd post it since Christmas is coming up, and I'm thinking of red and green sorbets and drinks and breads and dips...  This would be lovely with a bright red raspberry or cherry sorbet served beside it!

1. Grind up in Thermomix bowl on speed 9 for 30 seconds:
- 100g Rapadura 
- peel of 1 lime 

2. Add remaining ingredients and blend on speed 9 for 1 minute, or until smooth:
- juice of lime
- handful of fresh mint
- 200g fresh kiwi fruit
- 1 egg white
- ice cubes to fill bowl to 2 litre mark

So simple :)

Christmas Jelly Salad

I love this jelly salad as a side dish with Christmas dinner!  You can also serve it as a dessert, if you'd rather - it's kind of halfway between a dessert and a salad.  You can add or subtract fruits as you like - green grapes and strawberries are nice in it too.  Hope you like it :)

1.  Drain pineapple, and pour juice into the Thermomix bowl; set pineapple aside for later:

- 2 x 440g tins of crushed pineapple, unsweetened

     There should be approx. 400g of pineapple juice.

2.  Add berries to the juice in the Thermomix bowl and cook at 100 degrees for 15 mins, reverse, speed 1:

- 450g frozen berries (cranberries/mixed berries/cherries)

3.  Juice an orange and stir gelatine into juice until dissolved:

- 1 orange, juiced

- 2 heaped Tblspns gelatine powder (3 sachets)

(For a vegan version, substitute agar agar powder for gelatine)

4.  Add thickened orange juice and honey to berry mixture in bowl and cook at 100 degrees for 2 minutes, reverse, speed 2:

- orange juice mixture

- 180g raw honey

5.  Pour juice and berries into a large jelly mold (or bowl), leaving about a cupful in the Thermomix bowl.  Add orange to Thermomix and blend until smooth, moving speed dial slowly up to speed 9 for about 20 seconds:

- 1 peeled orange

     Add orange-berry mixture to berries and juice in the jelly mold (or bowl).

6.  Place in Thermomix bowl and chop on speed 4-5 for 5 seconds:

- 2 sticks of celery (no leaves)

- 1 green apple, quartered

- 65g raw walnuts or pecans

    (if you want pretty slices, you could chop by hand)

7.  Add to the berry mixture in the bowl:

- chopped celery, apple & nuts

- reserved crushed pineapple

     Stir together, and cover.

8.  Chill for a few hours or until jelly is set - you can put it in the freezer for a little while if you're in a hurry!

Menu Plan Monday - 22nd November

So what's cooking at your house this week?  Last week's menu was completely jumbled up, because my brother and nephews and nieces came to visit, and we had some impromptu trips to places like Green Island, and Tinaroo Dam - lots of fun!  Now I need to knuckle down and start thinking of Christmas... it's getting closer, and I am NOT prepared!  Hopefully I'll get some Christmas recipes posted this week - for example my favourite Christmas Jelly Salad, which I meant to post the recipe for last year...

... and a Cherry Fruity Dream with Chocolate Swirls (no pic yet)... and some Christmassy breads and meat dishes... If you've got any great Christmas recipes, please share!  

I've also been experimenting with steamed, gluten free bread - it's more moist and less crumbly than the oven version, and quicker - so I'll be posting that soon too.

I often plan salads into the menu but don't specify what kind, because it really depends on which veges come in my vege box, which doesn't come until Tuesday.  And I don't usually include sweets/desserts in the menu - they're a now and then thing that we make when we have time.  My oldest daughter made a lovely pineapple and pear upside down cake today that was dairy free and gluten free - we'll have to post that one.  

So here's the basic plan for this week - check out Menu Plan Monday at "I'm an Organizing Junkie" for more menu plans and recipes, and of course Forum Thermomix for lots of Thermomix recipes!  Have a great week :)

[tmx = prepared and/or cooked in my Thermomix]

Monday:

(lunch) Chicken & vege pasta (one pot - tmx)

(dinner) Baked potatoes, veges & steamed fish with lemon-parsley sauce (cooked together in tmx)

Tuesday:

(lunch) Beef chop suey with rice (tmx)

(dinner) Dinner out - taking Jelly Salad (tmx), and making Cherry Fruity Dream with Chocolate Swirls in tmx for dessert (I quite often take my tmx with me when I'm invited somewhere for dinner - he gets lonely at home!)

Wednesday:

(lunch) Tuna salad wraps with spelt tortillas (tmx)

(dinner) Beef & bean chilli (tmx) with corn chips and dairy free sour cream (tmx) & salad

Thursday:

(lunch) Baked potatoes with leftover chilli & salad

(dinner) Salmon-rice casserole (made ahead - tmx) & salad

Friday:

(lunch) Sandwiches

(dinner) Steamed stuffed chicken breasts with steamed veges & creamy df sauce (tmx)

Saturday:

(lunch) out at demo

(dinner) Toasted quinoa vege curry (tmx)

Sunday:

(lunch) Roast with veges (gravy in tmx)

(dinner) Sandwiches on steamed gf bread (tmx)