Sunday 31st October - gravy

We were out a lot of the day and ate out but dinner was roast lamb (yum!) and the gravy was made in the TMX.

Saturday 30th October - porridge, beef madras, garlic cumin rice

Breakfast - porridge

Dinner - made a beef madras (converted from the Coles Curtis Stone Chicken madras recipe with a few alterations - will post the recipe tomorrow (it's rather late here due to girls being out a party and can't be bothered typing it up).
Served with garlic cumin rice - as per Bron's garlic rice recipe (on the Thermomix forum) but with cumin added at the beginning as well and used basmati rice so cooked for 16 mins.
Was really yum!


Recipe added:

Madras (from the Coles Curtis Stone recipe)

30g olive oil

1 onion

1 cinnamon stick

2 cm ginger

4 cloves garlic

8 curry leaves

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp garam masala

½ tsp cayenne (or to taste)

550g chicken thigh fillets – cubed

2 medium tomatoes – chopped (or ½ tin tomatoes)

1/3 cup of coconut milk/milk/yoghurt

¼ cup coriander

Method:

Place coriander and cumin seeds in bowl and mill 5 sec spd 8

Add garlic, ginger and onion – chop 8 sec spd 7

Add oil and sauté 3 mins – 100° spd 1

Add turmeric, garam masala, cayenne, coriander, and sauté 1 min – 100° spd 1

Add chicken, cinnamon, curry leaves and tomatoes and cook 15 mins 100° reverse, speed 1

Add coconut milk/milk/yoghurt and cook for a further 2 mins 100° reverse sp 1.

For Beef – cook 45 mins 100° reverse speed 1 and add a cup of water.

I didn't quite have the same ingredients so used

fenugreek (1tsp) and cumin seeds (2tsp) in step 1. (for some reason I didn't have coriander seeds)

onion, garlic, ginger as above

added tsp curry powder, 2 tsp garam masala, turmeric, 1/2 tsp cayenne

And I used beef (cooking longer with 1 cup of water)

This was so nice.

Friday 29th October - cheese, orange choc chip muffins

Friday 29th October

Dinner we had left over mince, salsa etc from yesterday with salad in wraps. Grated cheese for these.

Made orange choc chip muffins. Yum!! And what's so brilliant with the TMX, just quarter the orange and throw the whole lot in, no peeling or deseeding, so quick and easy.
Used this recipe http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=1223.0 - will def make again.
Made 24 mini muffins and 4 larger muffins. So these will last us awhile.

Thursday 28th October - grated cheese, jam, muffins, salsa, ragu

Thursday 28th October
Morning - grated cheese to go on the girls puff pastry scrolls for lunch (and extra for dinner)

Afternoon - made orange and carrot marmalade.
1 lemon, 2 oranges (370g), 2 carrots (200g)
blitz speed 5 for 5 secs
Added 500g water (think this was a little too much)
cooked 30 mins, 100° speed 2 reverse
Added 750g sugar
cook 30mins 100° reverse speed 1
Didn't think it would set so added half a packet of jamsetta and cooked 10 mins more.

In the end it set very well so not sure how it would have gone without the jamsetta.

Dinner we had nachos.
So made a Salsa

300g tomatoes
1 spring onion
1 capsicum (or mixed capsicum to equiv of 1 whole - I did green and red)
bunch of parsley
20g olive oil
juice of one lime

Put tomatoes, spring onion, capsicum, parsley in TMX and chop 8 sec sp 5 (or however long for the consistency you want).
Add olive oil and lime juice and mix 10 sec, sp 1.

I like my salsa spicer so added 1/2 teaspoon of tabasco - in future will add 1/2 to 1 chili at the beginning.

Adapted from a recipe on taste.com.au



Then minced some beef and made up the EDC ragu (for tonight's and tomorrow nights dinners)

Wed 27th October - smoothie, creme brulee, chicken piquant

Breakfast - mango smoothie.

Dinner:

Chicken in piquant tomato sauce

Garlic and onion, sauté

Add

500g Chicken thighs

3/4 cup red wine

Anchovies x 4

Red pepper flakes generous pinch ( I used paprika)

Can tomatoes

Cook 20 mins, 100 degrees, reverse spd 1

From Glorious soups and stews of Italy by

Dimencia marchetti

As this was cooking I realised the anchovy taste was going to be too strong for the girls. But served it with rice and veg and just pulled a few pieces of chicken out without serving with much sauce and they all ate it happily.

Dessert was Creme Brulee - yum!

Tuesday 26th October - porridge, asian chicken and veg

Breakfast - porridge

Dinner - Made an Asian chicken and noodle dish.
Blitzed up some garlic and ginger and added water.
Put chicken breast pieces, cashew nuts and drizzled with sesame oil and various vegetables (bok choy, carrots, brocolli) in the varoma.
Cooked 20 mins, varoma temperature, speed 1.
When it was cooked added sherry, soy sauce and corn flour to the bowl to make a sauce and cooked 4 mins, 100 degrees, speed 3.

Rice could have been cooked in the basket as well but I served with rice noodles - I just put these in the thermoserver and poured boiling water over it 10 mins before serving.



Some of the ideas came from a turkey dish on the Thermomix forum - ie the cashews and sherry and soy sauce in the sauce, but as the forum is down I can't link to the recipe.
I prefer the veg only cooked for 15 mins and if the chicken had been sliced thinner that would have been easily done without having to add them later.

Monday 25th October - bread pizza scrolls, chicken balls, coleslaw

Monday 25th October

Made bread pizza scrolls for the girls for lunch tomorrow and some rolls for dh to take to work.


Dinner - chicken balls (recipe from previous post http://thermomixmeals.blogspot.com/2010/09/friday-17th-september-chicken-balls.html ) , wedges and coleslaw

The chicken balls (chicken minced, bread crumbs made, garlic, onion, herbs and vegetables chopped and all mixed) and coleslaw (cabbage, green capsicum, celery, carrot) both made in the TMX.
The chicken balls I added and egg to this time as they seemed drier and needed something more to help bind them.

Sunday 24th October - pancakes, pizza - dough/cheese, cheese and zucchini muffins, bread, soup, rice

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Breakfast - pancakes - the kids favourite and using two pans and a headstart I actually managed to keep up with demand.

Lunch - Pizza
Grated cheese and made the pizza dough in the TMX.

Made cheese and zucchini mini muffins http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=140.msg215#msg215 for the girls lunch boxes this week.
They tried these and all three really loved them so a def regular in our house.



Dinner - Girls - Brown rice and vegie soup.
We had takeaway curry (buy one get one free!) so cooked rice in the TMX

Also made a loaf of bread.

Saturday 23rd October - apricot balls, rock cakes, tuna pasta, rice

Saturday 23rd October -
Made Apricot balls http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=248.0
Super easy and nice.
(excuse poor photo)



Helped dd2 make Rock Cakes from the EDC -
These were really yummy, lovely and light and fluffy inside.


Girls for dinner had Tuna Pasta



I had leftover Butter Chicken from the freezer and made rice to go with it.

Friday 22nd October - smoothie, bread, parmesan bread

Breakfast - smoothie

Made a loaf of bread for weekend toast etc. (with wheat)

Dinner - had leftovers so made this Parmesan bread http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=4382.msg54919#msg54919,

served it with salad and the leftover chicken ballontines from Wed I cut into slices and fried.
Looking forward to summer and more salads! A lovely meal.

Thurs 21 October - juice, bread crumbs, dahl

Thursday 21st October

Breakfast - orange and mandarin juice.

Dinner - I made tomato and lentil dahl (edc) and also Parmesan crumbed aubergine.
I fell in love with this recipe http://www.masterchef.com.au/falsomagro-with-crumbed-eggplant-and-tomato-sauce.htm on Junior Masterchef.

I created the crumb using:
1 clove of garlic
small handful of parsley
80g of breadcrumbs (broken up)
40g of parmesan (in cubes)

Added parmesan to TMX and chopped 6 sec spd 8
Added garlic, bread and parsley - chopped 5 sec spd 7

Sliced the eggplant and cut in half.
Then coated the eggplant in flour, egg and the above breadcrumbs and fried for a 2 mins each side.

They were nice but not as good as I'd hoped, didn't feel the parmesan flavour came through enough with that ratio.

Wednesday 20th October - bread, chicken ballontines, rice, veg

Made a loaf of buckwheat bread.

Dinner was chicken ballontines (recipe on forum, link previous), using up the rest of the filling from the last time, with one with feta and sundried tomatoes (specially for dd1 as her fav fillings).

Made a chilli creamy cheese sauce (blitzed garlic, spring onion, parsley and chili), sauted, added stock concentrate and water to 800mls, then at the end added cream cheese (80g?) and cornflour. (based on bafs chicken dish - we only tried this once as it wasn't the hit I expected, but as think it was dd2 that disliked it the most - I know I loved it - I thought I'd make it as an optional sauce but with less cream cheese and dd2 hardly ever has sauce/gravy anyway. Think if it wasn't so spicy the other two would have liked it.)

Cooked rice in the basket, sauce in the jug, chicken parcels and veg (asparagus, beans and carrots - lol, there were carrots but I'd eaten them) in the varoma.

Unfortunately the chicken hadn't cooked, not sure what the problem was - too much foil? too thick parcels? worked perfectly last time.

So just popped the rice and vegies into the thermoserver and popped the chicken into the oven (already on and heated as was baking the bread) for another 15 mins. (quicker and easier than waiting for the sauce to finish, removing, cleaning bowl and resteaming a the oven was heated).

So took a little longer than expected but was lovely.

dd2 ate loads of the chicken and both older girls have asked for the left overs for lunch at school tomorrow.

The rice was a bit spicy for the older two (after the bland effort on the sauce last night I did pop a large red chili in so can see where they were coming from as it was infused in the rice). But dd3 had 3 lots of the rice, lol, so she liked it.

Tuesday 19th October - porridge, salmon, rice and veg.

Tuesday 19th October

Breakfast - porridge.

Dinner - Steamed salmon and veg (asparagus and carrots) in the varoma, whilst cooking rice in the basket and a sauce of onions and wine in the jug.

I sort of based the sauce on this recipe http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=4527 - Varoma meal Huelva style. Used chili flakes, used dry sherry and white wine, didn't put carrots in, but it just didn't have enough flavour for me, though was nice enough mixed with the rice. And the rice had a really lovely flavour.

The salmon was cooked perfectly and was a really lovely easy meal.

Photo of dd2's plate - without any sauce as she isn't a big sauce fan - though she did have extras of everything else.

Monday 18th October - smoothie, chicken kiev

Breakfast - banana smoothie

Dinner (and made ahead of time ready to be cooked) - Chicken Kiev (http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=3879.0 )

Oh these were so so so nice.

Love chicken kiev and these were much better than any store bought ones I've had, and lovely to know there were no preservatives or anything in them as well as much cheaper.

Really liked the texture with the minced meat, much lighter and with the parmesan cheese extra tasty.

All the kids loved them too.

Served them with wedges and veg (carrots and brocolli)

Sunday 17th October - pasta

Busy day today with dd2's birthday party and weren't hope much.

The girls had their favourite creamy tomato pasta for dinner (with left overs for dd2 for lunch tomorrow at school of course!)

Saturday 16th October - boiled eggs, bread rolls, Creamy Chicken and Brown Rice soup, Bimby Choc Cake and Icing, Apricot Balls, Gourmet Beef, Bread

Breakfast - boiled eggs

Lunch -

bread rolls and soup

Creamy Chicken & Brown Rice Soup

Though I didn't add the chicken and used liquid chicken stock. This was really yummy, highly recommend.

Made - Bimby Chocolate Cake

Cake for dd2's birthday party tomorrow

Attempted these APRICOT NUT BALLS for the girls snacks for this week.

Had to really tweak, I'd left it all to cool then added and mixed as said, but nothing was blended and the dry stuff just sat on top, lol. Not sure if it was too cool.

So I blended up on speed 6 for a bit then added a little water and cooked for another 5 mins. Worked well.

So in future I would try blending all the ingredients then cooking.

Also I used oats instead of almonds as didn't see they were meant to be chopped till after I'd started, but how I ended up doing it would have been fine putting them in whole as they'd chop up when I blended it all.

Dinner was Gourmet Beef Casserole

Served with rice, carrots, beans and peas.

This was really nice. A lovely rich but mild flavour that all the kids liked. dd1 thought it would make a lovely pie filling. dd3 had several serves. Will be making it again.

The girls shelling peas for dinner.

Also made butter icing for dd's birthday cake.

And a loaf of multigrain bread for tomorrow.

All this with a rotten cold!! So glad I have a Thermomix!

Friday 15th October - chicken croquettes

For dinner tonight I made chicken croquettes (with leftover chicken from my bargain bbq chickens yesterday).

Croquettes – makes 12 large

300g potatoes – peeled and cut into chunks

15g butter

parsley

1 clove garlic

½ small onion or 2 spring onion

½ courgette

300g cooked chicken/tuna/salmon

sm can corn (optional)

40 g cheese (parmesan or cheddar grated)

2 tbsp tomato sauce

salt and pepper

breadcrumbs, flour, egg

Cook potatoes (If doing in tmx – add 650ml water, put potatoes in steaming basket and cook for 25mins on varoma temperature – you could steam some chicken at the same time).

Mash potatoes with the butter (insert butterfly, 20 sec, spd 3).

Set aside.

Add garlic, onion, herbs and courgette and chop 5 sec sp 6

Add oil and sauté 3 mins 100° sp 1

Add the potatoes, chicken (or whatever), corn, tomato sauce, cheese and salt and pepper.

Mix together. 1 min reverse spd 2

Shape into croquettes

Dip in flour, then egg then breadcrumbs.

Cook in a frying pan until browned.

I didn't put corn in as didn't have any.

Thursday 14th October - stock, bread

Made chicken stock and a loaf of bread.

Wed 13th October - dairy free chocolate cake, mayonnaise, butter icing

Made this cake http://www.cacaoweb.net/easy-chocolate-cake.html but with rice almond milk for a dairy free alternative. For my daughter, Amelia's, birthday today.

Then made Judy Dawn's magic mayonnaise (on the thermomix forum) - still not what I'm looking for so onewards with my mayo quest. But it was very easy - but too much lemon, my lemon's must have been very strong.

This afternoon had a great idea on the Great Dairy free cake quest for Amelia's party on the weekend. (one of her friends is dairy free).

The cake today was nice but really struggling with a nice dairy free icing. So cut out a flower shaped piece of today's cake and have frozen it for her friend for Sunday and

made Butter Cream Icing (this recipe from faffa 70 in this thread http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=4154.0)

125g Butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
185g Icing Sugar
2 tablespoons milk

to ice the rest of the cake.

And will make a regular cake for the rest of the party guests on the weekend.

Tuesday 12th October - sauce, grated cheese

Dinner was lamb in the slow cooker - so chopped up the onion, garlic and herbs for that.

Grated cheese.

Monday 11 October - burrito sauce

Kids back to school today! Yah!

Dinner I had planned on making sausages, mash and onion gravy with steamed veg, but ended up at a friends after school, forgot about clarinet lesson and got home and panicked about not having time for that.

So decided to use the sausages to make a meat dish to go on wraps / burritos.

Chopped garlic, 1/2 onion, 1/2 chili

Added chopped up sausage

Added oil and sautéed for 5 mins (100degrees, reverse, speed soft).

Added 1/2 tin tomatoes and worcester sauce and cooked for 10 mins reverse, speed soft, 100 degrees.

Was really lovely.

I could have done more with herbs and spices but as this was a panic make something as quick as you can this was great. Very tasty - but they were lovely organic beef and basil sausages.

All the kids loved it - served on tortillas with sour cream, sauces (sweet chili, hot chili, mustard depending on preferences) and salad.

Given me loads of ideas for making mince for burrito's and also other things to use sausages with.

Sunday 10th of the 10th - juice, nutty milo slice, shortbread, soup, pasta

Breakfast - Juice - apple, pear and orange.

Kids are back to school tomorrow so made the Nutty Milo Slice

http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=4169.0

Only made a half recipe amount and that still made tonnes!! I wrote the recipe out with the amount of each thing e.g 100g nuts, 100g seeds, and as I was using slightly different ones to those in the recipe I just made them up to that amount.

and dd1 made shortbread, so that's the snacks for the week done.

Made - cabbage and potato soup for lunch (with leftovers for dd2 for school tomorrow).

And dinner the girls had creamy tomato and salami pasta.

Saturday 9th October - rice-almond milk, dairy free choc cake, honey soy drummettes with stir fry veg

Need to make a dairy free cake for dd2's birthday party next weekend as one of her little friends is dairy free.

Tried out Jo (Quirky Cooking's) lovely banana and chocolate cake. http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com/2010/03/gf-chocolate-banana-cake.html

Including making the rice-almond milk - was astounded by how easy this was and how much the supermarkets charge for rice milk!!!!

This was a really nice cake and think will be the goer for next Sunday.

Dinner - was one of my favourites - honey soy chicken drummettes with stir fried veg.

Made the marinade as per the recipe on the forum (linked from an earlier post)- made the marinade in the morning and left them in it for the rest of the day, I also cook them in the marinade, added the vegies to the varoma for last 8 minutes, then took the chicken out, tipped the veg in and stir fried in the sauce for 2 minutes.

Served with rice. yum.

Friday 8th October - porridge, pasta

Breakfast - porridge.

Dinner - Creamy chicken and tomato pasta.

Thursday 7th October - mayonnaise, coleslaw, Pork with Beer Casserole

Tried to make mayonaisse but forgot to put the butterfly in!!! (saw it sitting next to the machine half way through) so it didn't work properly but made coleslaw (cabbage, carrot, red capsicum, celery, apple) and used it with that.

Dinner made -

Pork with Beer Casserole

Ingredients:

1 clove garlic

1 onion

1 small chili

300-500g meat

3 tablespoons plain flour

20g olive oil

Vegetables (I used 1 red capsicum, 2 sticks celery, handful green beans, 2 carrots)

Tin of chopped tomatoes

1 bottle of beer

2 tbsp worcester sauce

1 tbsp mixed herbs (dried or you could use fresh and put them in at the beginning, I was making this up as I went and hadn't put any in earlier so used dried)

2 bay leaves

Chop garlic, onion, chili - speed 5 - 5 sec

Add meat and flour

Add oil and saute 2min 100degrees, reverse, speed soft

Add vegetables, tin of tomatoes, worcester sauce, mixed herbs, bay leaves and beer.

Cook 60 mins, 100 degrees, reverse, speed soft.

The photo is after most was served up, lol, I forgot to take one before everyone dived in.

You could use beef or any meat you wanted, I just had pork out. And any vegetables you choose.

I served it with rice.

Everyone loved this one and had seconds! A first as the kids are usually not that into casseroles.

Wednesday 6th October - sugar, stock, biscuits

Wednesday 6th October.

Milled sugar to icing sugar and caster sugar to fill the emptied containers.

Made these biscuits http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=4479.0 just plain ones which dd1 put sprinkles on top.

Had chicken and made stock from the bones.

Tuesday 5th October

Didn't actually use the Thermomix today we were out and about most of the day and home late, but it still featured in our day as leftovers were eaten and dips taken out with us to friends, so what was eaten originated in the TMX.

Monday 4th October - porridge, rolls, minestrone soup

Breakfast - porridge

Lunch - filled rolls.

Dinner - minestrone soup. Mostly following this recipe http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=1657.0

Really liked it - think I did about 400g of vegies, and 100g of pasta, 650g of water.

Later dh made himself some rolls to take to work.

Sunday October 3rd - smoothie, salad, cheese, pasta, chicken ballotines

Breakfast - smoothie.

Lunch - cabbage, carrot, spring onion, capsicum salad (to go with bbq sausages).

Also grated cheese.

Dinner - the girls had creamy tomato pasta.

dh and I had Mini Italian Chicken Ballotines served with salad. These were so yummy and gave me loads of ideas of things that could be stuffed in them. Think the girls will like these too. Filling and steaming chicken fillets like this will definitely be on the menu here.

Saturday 2nd October - cake, Chicken in Yoghurt

Made this chocolate cake http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/2223/basic-chocolate-cake.aspx - ok but not the answer to my dairy free cake quest.

Dinner - Chicken in yoghurt http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=26.0

Really yummy!!

Friday 1st October - grated parmesan and cheddar, bread, risotto

Grated parmesan and cheddar cheeses.

Made bread dough. For lunch the girls made rolls filled and topped with cheeses, salami, ham, capsicum and olives. (here is three of them, the other three had already been nabbed, lol)

Dinner - Chicken Cacciatore Risotto. -

http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=1858.0

Really nice. Think I might try it with a bit of chilli for more flavour.

And when cleaning the Thermomix I pulled the lid off and this bubble stayed across the top of the jug!