26th September 2014

I'm going to try to post more often. I think it's really interesting to see how the Thermomix has settled into life here a few years down the track.
I no longer feel I have to use it every day but it's a much loved part of the kitchen.

The last few days the Thermomix has helped make:

Sunday - being a Sunday and at home I made a few staples.

Chicken stock. Still such a regular in our house as we love soup (and other things made with quality stock). I also find store bought stock too salty. (eldest loves it, lol).
So chicken bones, onion, garlic, celery, peppercorns, bay leaf, (maybe a carrot? but don't think so) all in the basket, water in the bowl.
Cooked for 45 mins .

Pancakes for breakfast. Basically use the crepe recipe in the EDC but I make 1.5 + times the mixture, we go through a lot of pancakes and any leftovers go into school lunches.

Strawberry jam and banana muffins. Jam I use 500g strawberries, a lemon (peeled and some of the rind added), 200g sugar and 1/2 a packet of jamsetta.

Monday 25th I made chicken and sweetcorn soup using the stock made on Sunday. With garlic, chili, leftover chicken and a tin of creamed corn. Such a simple and quick soup.  

And today I made this caramel slice. Reading SFI's whilst on the treadmill at the gym this morning and saw this recipe. So simple. Packet of milk arrowroot biscuits, 295g tin of sweetened condensed milk, 125 g butter and choc chips. 

Pop the butter in the tmx and cook at 50 degrees for 1 min till melted, add the biscuits and whizz at speed 9 till crumbed, add condensed milk and mix. Then added some dark chocolate drops and mixed with the spatula and popped into a lined slice tray. Bake 45 mins, 150 degrees. Very sweet and rich and yummy!!!

10th May 2012

Sorry for being so absent and really will try to start doing some more spotlight days.

Tuesday this week I took a couple of photos. 

Dinner I made the pea and ham soup from the Robogourmet app (used chicken stock made in the tmx instead of water). You really do need a small hock to fit in the steaming basket though. Those that liked it really did, but 2 out of the 5 of us didn't like it, included the two biggest soup eaters dd2 and dd3. So not going to make it onto our regular menu, but a nice ham and pea soup. 

Also made cheese topped bread rolls to go with it. 

Dessert was custard tarts. 

Made a thickish custard in the tmx. Meanwhile take a packet of wonton wrappers. Place one wrapper, lightly wet, sprinkle on some castor or icing sugar, place a second wrapper on top so it makes a star type shape. Place in a muffin tin and bake 10-15mins. Allow the cases and the custard to cool. Then pour a bit of the custard in each case and put in the fridge to chill. 

Lovely served with berries!

Thursday 17th November - porridge, stock, cauliflower soup, rice

Sorry really finding it hard to get this updated daily. Also our eating at the moment really isn't very inspiring, lol. A lot of the same easy quick to make meals.

So Mon-Thurs this week.

Several batches of porridge (what a surprise, lol).

Chicken stock. (another not a surprise, lol)

Tonight we had cauliflower soup. (oh how I love the ease of soup making in the tmx, esp with yummy homemade stock, so economical too).

Also made rice yesterday.

It was really hot at the beginning of the week so we were just eating cold meats and salad type meals. So think that might be it.

Sunday 13th November - pancake mix, butter, stock, cream of chicken and mushroom soup, gravy

Breakfast - pancake mix.

Lunch - chicken stock, then cream of chicken and mushroom soup (so garlic, herbs, stock, chili flakes, heated, added mushrooms and cooked 10 mins, blitzed, added milk and cream and cooked chicken and mixed and heated for 2 mins on reverse.)

Made spreadable butter (usual recipe)

Dinner - roast, made gravy in the tmx.

Wed 26th October - chicken and sweetcorn soup

Dinner - chicken and sweetcorn soup.

Using yesterday's stock. chop garlic and herbs, sautee, add stock, little chili flakes, can of creamed corn, chicken.

LOL, so did well out of Sunday's roast and the chicken was on special. Got Sunday roast, Monday night chicken curry, Wed night soup as well as some lunches (some was used on puff pastry rolls for the kids lunches and also sandwiches).

21st/22nd October - porridge, stock, minestrone soup, boiled eggs, strawberry jam, lemon chicken and noodles.

Friday 21st -

Breakfast - porridge

Then made chicken stock.

Dinner made Minestrone soup (forum recipe, linked previously on here) at dd1's request. It's also dh's favourite.

Saturday 22nd

Breakfast - boiled eggs

Made strawberry jam. (pretty much edc recipe with 5 mins on varoma at the end and a little jamsetta)

Dinner made a lemon chicken and noodle dish. Usually I prefer to stir fry on the stovetop but was flat out so chopped garlic and onion and sauteed, added chicken and sauteed, added juice of 2 lemons, white wine, water, chinese five spice, mushrooms, broccoli, celery, cooked 7 mins, added noodles (shelf fresh singapore style) and cooked 3 mins. (all the cooking on reverse 100)

I love how the tmx frees you up to do other things during the cooking.

Thurs/Fri 14th October - porridge, stock, broccoli soup, naan bread

Thursday - just porridge for breakfast. Was dd2's birthday so did her chosen dinner of prawns, cous cous and stir fry veg which I did on the stove top.

Friday - porridge.

Chicken stock.

Dinner - broccoli soup (garlic chopped, chili flakes, garam masala, sauteed, added 3 potatoes, head of broccoli and stock, pepper, cooked 25 mins and then blended).

And naan bread (dough of course made in the tmx).

Sunday 2nd October - cream of vegetable soup, spanakopita, Nigella's flourless choc brownies.

Lunch - cream of vegetable soup - chopped garlic, added chicken stock (made yesterday), 2 potatoes, cauliflower and mushrooms, cooked 20 mins, whizzed up and added some cream.

Dinner - Chicken in Lemon sauce, Spanakopita and Brocolli.

Made the Spanakopita mix in the tmx based on a Gordon Ramsay recipe in his World Kitchens cookbook.

I used diff quantites depending on what I had but

- chopped an onion, added olive oil and sauteed 5 mins

- Meanwhile wilted the spinach leaves (200g, could easily use more, recipe calls for 500g)

- Added spinach and tsp of nutmeg to the onion in the bowl and 200g feta, chopped

- Added 2 large eggs and 180ml thickened cream and mixed.

(could now add pine nuts)

- Placed 10 sheets of filo pastry in the bottom of a baking dish, basting with melted butter in between, added mixture, folded over edges, topped with 4 more sheets crumpled on top and cooked 50 mins at 170° in the oven.

The chicken I did on the stove top - flattened chicken breast pieces, coated in seasoned flour, cooked a couple of mins each side and set aside. Made the sauce, couple of cubes chicken stock, splash white wine, lemon zest, garlic (sauted first), lemon juice and a little cream to the juices in the pan. When thickening added the chicken back to warm through and served.

Also made Nigella's flourless choc brownies http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/flourless-chocolate-brownies-with-hot-chocolate-sauce-22 for dessert.

Used chopped macadamia/cashew/almond instead of walnuts.

OMG this is so rich!! No way would I go the choc sauce too. Really yum and I guess the nuts are healthy, lol.

Was still warm and very gooey but reading the comments should harden up in the fridge, though I liked it as a gooey dessert.

So a really yummy dinner, the kids all loved it as well as the adults, dd2 asked for it every day, lol. As I've mentioned before I so love veal/chicken in lemon sauce and it's so quick and easy should do it more often. The flattened chicken is so tender too.

Friday 23rd September - porridge, slushie, stock. chicken and sweetcorn soup

Breakfast - porridge.

Another hot one and the pineapple slushie from yesterday was again requested, am thinking we'll need shares in a pineapple canning factory to get through the summer!!

Chicken stock, and chicken and sweetcorn soup for dinner.

Friday 16th - porridge, stock, cauliflower soup

Breakfast - porridge,

Made chicken stock.

Then made cauliflower soup for dinner (garlic, chili, stock, potato, cauliflower and a dash of cream at the end).

Friday 9th September - porridge, smoothie, stock, chicken and vegetable soup

Breakfast - porridge and smoothie.

Made chicken stock and then chicken and vegetable soup (garlic, stock, pepper, prepared soup mix, mixed vegetables and leftover chicken)

Friday 2nd September - porridge, stock, cream of chicken soup

Sorry been really rubbish at posting this week.

Wed I'm not sure, at least porridge.

Thursday was just porridge.

Friday - porridge, chicken stock, cream of chicken soup (roux of 50g butter and 1/3 cup of flour cooked till blended, added stock, cream and cooked leftover chicken, pepper).

Sunday 28th August - stock, chicken and sweetcorn soup, butter, orange muffins, vanilla pudding, mashed potato, steamed veg

Made chicken stock, and from that made chicken and sweetcorn soup (stock, cooked chicken, creamed corn, corn, seasoning) for lunch.

Made spreadable butter (recipe linked on here somewhere from Quirky Jo's recipe).

Made orange muffins (forum recipe using the whole orange) for this weeks lunch boxes.

Made vanilla pudding (recipe on here/linked, from the forum vanilla slice recipe but without the biscuits.

Dinner made mashed potato and steamed veg to go with schnitzel.

Saturday 20th August - smoothie, vanilla macaron's, minestrone soup

Breakfast - smoothie

Made Vanilla macaron's with dd1. So made the almond meal and icing sugar in the tmx. Then beat the egg whites.

Then in the afternoon after they'd been left to set, then baked and cooled made the vanilla butter filling in the tmx.

(this was a recipe from a cookbook dd1 had borrowed from the library).

Lunch - minestrone soup - this is once again the Minestrone Soup and Pasta recipe from the forum. Really yummy as usual. Used chicken stock instead of water and vegie stock concentrate.

Thur/Fri 11/12th August - porridge, rice, potato/cauliflower/brocolli soup

Thursday - the only cooking was porridge for breakfast.

Friday - guess what porridge for breakfast, lol.

Lunch tmx made rice to go with chicken curry.

Dinner - potato, cauliflower and brocolli soup.

Garlic chopped, homemade chicken stock, potato, cauliflower and broccoli, mixed herbs and chilli flakes cooked 20 mins, then blended and some cream added. (served with bread and oven baked corn on the cob).

Monday 1st August - porridge, chicken vegetable udon soup.

Wow August already!!!

Summer is coming, lol. Dreaming of sorbets.

Today, porridge for breakfast.

And dinner made soup (from chicken stock from yesterday), dd3 shouted out that she wanted her favourite vegetable udon soup and as we've not had it in ages I agreed. (I'm sure the recipe is on here several times, also added some fish sauce and because I added extra water to make a bigger batch a tbs of vegie stock concentrate - which dd1 picked up on immediately as it was saltier than my normal soups, but packed full of flavour).

Tuesday 26th July - porridge,stock, rice, wonton soup

Breakfast - porridge

Made chicken stock for tonight.

Lunch - rice to go with leftover curry

Dinner - wonton mixture (chopped garlic and ginger, sauteed, chopped carrot, mushroom and celery, added pork mince, oyster sauce, fish sauce and sesame oil)

Then made chicken broth (garlic and ginger, chicken stock, thinly sliced carrot and celery.

Think this is our new favourite meal.

Tuesday 12th July - mayonnaise, wonton soup

Made mayonnaise.

Dinner - wonton soup, wontons and dipping sauce.

Made wonton mixture - chopped garlic and ginger, minced chicken and some bacon fat, added sesame oil, oyster sauce, fish sauce (think that was it)

Soup - chopped ginger, garlic and deseeded chili, added duck stock, cooked 10 mins, added finely sliced carrot, celery, bok choy and cooked 10 mins. Meanwhile cooked the wontons in a saucepan.

And made a dipping sauce - soy sauce, sweet chili sauce, lemon juice (think there was something else?)

Put two of the wontons in a bowl and poured the soup over. The rest we ate with dipping sauce.

This was just the best dinner. These wontons were perfect and everyone loved them. (I think dd1 and dd2 having 11 each said something, lol.

Friday 17th June - porridge, stock, chicken and veg soup, chocolate custard

Breakfast - porridge

Then made chicken stock.

Dinner - using the chicken stock our Friday night soup - tonight was chicken and veg soup (similar to the last one I made) a favourite of mine!

Dessert - chocolate custard (with real chocolate as well as cocoa powder), yum. Not made custard in ages and this is real winter favourite!!! So easy with the tmx to set it going whilst eating dinner and yummy hot custard ready for dessert.

Monday 13th June - minestrone soup, chili sauce

Lunch - minestrone soup (forum recipe) dh still says this is the best minestrone he's ever had.

dh also made his chili sauce (tabasco like)