Hazelnut Chocolate Strawberries

Strawberries are back in season - YAY!!  Try this for a yummy treat...

Wash and trim strawberries (saving the leaves), and slice in half.  Dollop one half with some homemade chocolate hazelnut spread, and sandwich together with the other half.  Place leaves on plate and top with strawberries.

Easy and delicious!

Creamy Citrus Smoothie

Sorry I've been out of touch for a couple of weeks - been moving house, and I was sick for a week too!  I can still barely see the floor for boxes, but we're getting there :)  Here's a quick recipe that I hope you'll enjoy...

In winter there's plenty of citrus fruit around - isn't it great when friends give you great big bags of oranges and mandarins off their trees!  Here's a delicious alternative to the usual orange juice - the nuts turn it into a calcium-rich fruit 'milk'!  Sometimes I call it 'orange milk', or 'orange smoothie', but you can really use any citrus fruits in it - mix and match: grapefruit, mandarin, lemonade fruit, and bush lemons - and I often add some kiwi fruit too.  As you can see from the photo, I leave a bit of skin on the fruit, as the bioflavinoids in the skin help you to better absorb the vitamin C - and the Thermomix does such a good job of blending it, your kids will never know it's there!  (Use organic fruit if possible, especially if you're including peel.)  See below for some more great variations and tips.

I don't measure amounts, so just make it to taste...

Place in Thermomix bowl and blend on speed 9 for 1 minute, or until smooth:

- a mixture of 3 or 4 oranges/mandarins/grapefruit/bush lemons/lemonade fruit/kiwi fruit (get most of the seeds out, and most of the peel off - just leave a little bit of peel in there)

- a spoonful or two of raw honey (to taste)

- ice cubes, to about the 1.5 litre mark

- a good handful each of raw almonds and raw cashews

- water to barely cover (add more if needed to thin it out)

Here's a few more tips and variations from my friend Barbara...

"As a little extra – if you want to ‘mellow’ the stronger citrus taste because of the lemon and or grapefruit, include a washed and quartered apple. Depending on the relative quantity of citrus, one or two apples will do. Leave the skin on and the core in – more bioflavonoids in them. If you want to make it creamier and a little thicker, drop in one or two bananas. A handful of mint if you have it and/or 2cm of washed fresh ginger – sliced roughly - makes it extra refreshing and healthful for coughs, colds etc. Finally – the most daring is a chilli added at the beginning of the blending or a good shake of cayenne pepper in each glass then a quick stir. It is very warming when slightly under the weather! "

Thanks Barbara!

Menu Plan Monday - June 14

I know, I know - it's not Monday!  But I'm running a bit late with the menu planning... I thought I should post something since I haven't gotten around to it for nearly two weeks.  (Although I did play around with the look of my blog the other day - what do you think of it?)

We're busy packing up to move - again!  It's only been about eight months since our last move, so at least this time it won't be such an upheaval (maybe).  It was all a bit unexpected, and we've only had a week and a half to pack, so meals are pretty basic around here at the moment.  I'm trying to use up what I've got in the fridge and freezer, frozen chicken stock and things like that, and mostly making do with what we've got.  The Thermomix really comes into it's own when you need quick meals - my dd (12) made some buckwheat pancakes for us for breaky, and now she is making some tuna pasta for lunch, and later I'll get the kids to put on a vegetable & barley soup with meatballs steaming on top.  (We're fighting colds here, so having lots of soups!)  I love that I can keep packing while the kids make dinner - the Thermomix is so easy to use, and I don't have to worry about them chopping their fingers!

On another note - I got to help out at a cooking class with Chef Laurent Vancam last week, and got lots of great ideas for cooking with the Thermomix for large groups of people.  Chef Laurent is trying to get the word out to tuckshops and canteens about how to get rid of the pre-processed junk 'foods' that are often served to kids, replacing them with healthy, homemade alternatives... at the same time saving time and money.  He uses the Thermomix for quick, healthy food preparation, and his recipes are really yummy - I wish he ran my school tuckshop when I was a kid!!  If you get the opportunity to go to one of his cooking classes, you'll really enjoy it - and his cookbooks are great too - I bought them both.  There's one for families, and one for larger groups, which will be very helpful when we're cooking for youth camp - can't wait to try it out :)  I made his 'Snails' recipe for a bunch of people the other day, and they were a great hit.  The kids were a bit worried when I told them the French chef had taught me to cook snails, and I was going to make some for them... hee hee.  (They are actually made with brioche dough, rolled out and filled with a thick custard, chopped apple, and sultanas, cut into scrolls and baked - YUM!!  I used Rapadura and rice-almond milk for the custard, and it was delicious and caramelly, plus apples, berries and almonds, and spelt brioche dough.)  Here's a video of Chef Laurent making mini Lemon Tarts... enjoy!  (P.S. I would use ground up Rapadura instead of castor sugar.)

Anyway, I'd better hurry up here and get back to my packing.  So here's my belated and very basic menu this week...  If you need some menu planning ideas, check out Menu Plan Monday at "I'm an Organising Junkie"; and you may like to read my post on how I plan my menu, and why.  Leave a comment and let me know what you're enjoying cooking in your Thermomix - I'd love to hear from you!  Have a great week :)

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

Monday:
(lunch) Chicken & vegetable soup (TMX) with spelt bread rolls (TMX)
(dinner) Chicken & vegetable soup with a big blob of mashed potato (TMX) in the middle!

Tuesday:
(lunch) Tuna gf pasta (TMX)
(dinner) Barley, vegetable & meatball soup (TMX)

Wednesday:
(lunch) Homemade hamburgers on spelt rolls (TMX)
(dinner) Lamb chops & rice salad (TMX)

Thursday:
(lunch) out for lunch
(dinner) Tacos & Spelt Tortillas (TMX) & Mexican Quinoa (TMX)

Friday - Moving Day!:
(lunch) Spelt tortillas (TMX) with leftovers
(dinner) hmmm.... maybe dinner at G'mas! :D

Saturday - more moving...
(lunch) Sausages in bread
(dinner) Crockpot spaghetti sauce (with lots of veges - TMX) on spelt pasta

The Family Gets Creative!

Here's an idea for your next Thermomix soup - while it's cooking, steam some 'choko flowers' in the Varoma on top!  These cute little flowers are thin slices off the end of a choko - aren't they pretty?  (Discovered by my dh!)  (This soup is a kind of Irish Stew with pumpkin, variation on the one in the 'Meat on the Menu' cookbook - yum!)

My 6 year old daughter also wanted me to post the photo of her mashed potato and carrot dish... very creative, I thought ;)  (I'm not one of those 'don't play with your food' type of mums - I'm afraid my daughter quite often makes food sculptures before eating!  Chefs are always playing with their food, so why can't we??? lol)

“Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music.”

- Julia Child -

Menu Plan Monday - 31st May

What a beautiful day - the kids are running around outside embracing the cool, clear weather and the return of the brolgas!  What beautiful birds.  With the cooler weather, my favourite lunch of soup and bread will be seen more often... yay!  Today I made the Chickpea and Spinach soup from the 'Full Steam Ahead' cookbook (Thermomix Varoma recipes), using some of my homemade chicken stock paste instead of salt - it was delicious!!  The kids loved it too.  Also made a Warm Chicken, Pumpkin and Couscous Salad using the Varoma, but I'm not too keen on couscous (partly because it's wheat, partly because it got too mushy) so next time I'll try quinoa instead of couscous.  We love quinoa, and it's high in protein, so it's great for lunches - gives you lots of energy.  One of our favourite lunches is quinoa used instead of rice in Mexican Quinoa.  Yum!

I'm very tempted to make a Chocolate Souffle this week, posted by farfallina on the Thermomix forum (see her blog here)... I just need to think up a good excuse ;)  (I'm sure I'll think of one!)  Even though I post lots of recipes for sweets (especially chocolate ones), I don't actually make them every day - we try to eat simple, healthy snacks usually, like fruit, nuts, wholemeal spelt bread, smoothies and maybe some rice-almond milk custard for supper.  Okay, and ice cream made from frozen bananas :)  There's just so many yummy recipes to try out there, I need some more excuses to try them!!  I'm also hoping to make Tebasile's Raw Carrot Cake - at least that one's really healthy - practically like eating a salad! - so no excuse needed. 

Anyway, I'm off to have some vegetable risotto cooked in my Thermomix - 18 minutes from go to whoa, and it stirred itself while I sat here blogging!  What a great machine :D

Have a look at Menu Plan Monday at 'I'm an Organizing Junkie' for lots more menu planning ideas.  Have a great week! :)

[TMX = prepared and/or cooked in the Thermomix]

Monday:

(lunch) Spinach & Chickpea Soup and Warm Chicken, Pumpkin & Couscous Salad (soup cooked in TMX bowl while steaming chicken, pumpkin & couscous on top in Varoma)

(dinner) Leftover soup and Vege Risotto (TMX)

Tuesday:

(lunch) Potato, Chorizo & Sweet Onion Tortilla (TMX - converted from a taste.com recipe)  with homemade mayonnaise 

(dinner) Tomato Vege Pasta gf (TMX)

Wednesday:

(lunch) Leftover tortilla (above) and Crunchy Carrot Salad (TMX)

(dinner) Mediterranean Chicken Bake and leftover salad

Thursday:

(lunch) Baked potatoes with df 'sour cream' (TMX) and Greek salad

(dinner) Lamb Tikka Curry (with homemade tikka paste - TMX) and steamed veges & rice (TMX)

Friday:

(lunch) Sausages, mashed potatoes & steamed veges (TMX)

(dinner) Pizza (spelt base - TMX) topped with leftover sausage slices & bbq sauce (TMX) and salad

Saturday:

(lunch) Demo lunch (all TMX, of course!)

(dinner) Tacos

Sunday:

(lunch) Crockpot Pot Roast & veges (gravy in TMX)

(dinner) Roast & gravy on spelt bread rolls (TMX)

Toffee Pecan Crunch Ice Cream (Dairy Free)

Who would believe a dairy-free ice cream could taste this good!

We love our Chocolate Banana Nut ice cream, but I felt like a change today, and I remembered I had some Rapadura toffee leftover in the fridge from when I made the croquembouche the other day... and some pecans in the freezer... so this is what I came up with.  Yum!

If you don't have any toffee lurking in the fridge, this is how you make it...

1. Stir together in a saucepan over medium high heat:

- 1 cup Rapadura

- 1/4 cup water

Stir until granules are dissolved, brushing down insides of pan with a pastry brush dipped in water. Allow syrup to simmer until it's a dark caramel colour and has the consistency of syrup.  Drip a bit into a cup of cool water now and then to check if it's ready - if it forms a crunchy ball of toffee, it's ready; if it spreads out, it's not. (When you lift the spoon out of the syrup and let it drip, you should see a flyaway thread.)  While it's simmering, watch it carefully, and when it's getting close to being ready, TURN DOWN THE HEAT!  Don't let it burn!!!

Pour the hot toffee onto a tray lined with baking paper and leave to cool.  (Just pop it in the freezer if you're in a hurry.)  Crack it into shards with the back of a spoon.

Okay.  Once you've got your toffee ready, you can make your ice cream.

1.  Blend in Thermomix on speed 9 for 30 seconds, or until ice cream comes together in a ball:
- 600g frozen bananas, cut into 1 inch chunks

2.  Throw in and mix for another 10 - 20 seconds on speed 8, depending on how chunky you want it:
- a good handful of toffee pieces
- a good handful of pecans
- a splash of vanilla extract
- a couple of splashes of pure maple syrup
- a pinch of sea salt (I know, sounds weird, but trust me!)

That's it!  Enjoy :)

Menu Plan Monday - 24th May

I was pretty ambitious last week with all I planned to cook - didn't manage to get it all done... My sourdough bread is not working :( so I'll have to try again.  (The culture went mouldy, and I heard you could scoop off the mould and keep using it, but after that the bread dough went mouldy while it was rising, so I chucked it all!)  Then the buckwheat that I was soaking went mouldy too - aargh!!  We live in a very wet, rainforesty place, so it's not surprising.  Never mind, I'll try again and keep a better eye on it.  I find you can't soak things as long here, as they go sour quite quickly with the warm, humid weather.  Maybe my kitchen is too warm, too. 

Anyway, at least I managed to make the croquembouche, which was a bit of an epic adventure!  My favourite thing from last weeks' menu was the cheesey sauce I made for the cauliflower and broccoli - it was a dairy free sauce made with cashews, red capsicum and some other things - so yummy!!  I'll post that recipe soon.

It will be a busy week here, and with all that's going on, we sometimes have the main meal at lunch time.  I'm going to try and do some double batches of meals so there's a pre-made meal for a busy day or two.

For those of you who live on the Tablelands, don't forget we have a Thermomix Cooking Class happening tonight at 6.30 at the Atherton Golf Club!  Hope to see you there :)

Have a great week!

[TMX = prepared and/or cooked in the Thermomix]

Monday:
(lunch) Fish (caught by dh and ds!), baked potatoes, salad
(dinner) Leftover roast chicken and gravy on mashed potatoes (TMX) with steamed veges (TMX)

Tuesday:
(lunch) Tuna salad sandwiches on artisan bread (TMX)
(dinner) Lamb curry in crockpot (made with tikka paste made in TMX) & rice (TMX)

Wednesday:
(lunch) Tuna a la King (TMX) on artisan bread
(dinner) Leftover lamb curry

Thursday:
(lunch) Turkey mince ragout (TMX)
(dinner) Meatballs in tomato sauce (double batch, made in TMX) & steamed veges, brown rice (TMX)

Friday:
(lunch) Creole black eyed pea & corn stew (double batch, veges prepared in TMX, cooked in pot), cornbread (TMX)
(dinner) Fish fingers (homemade with cornmeal coating) & vege sticks

Saturday:
(lunch) Leftover bean stew with meat balls (from freezer), & cornbread
(dinner) Pasta salad

Sunday:
(lunch) Swiss steak (crockpot) & salad (TMX)
(dinner) leftovers/sandwiches