Monday 7th February - smoothie, Maria's squid, rice and vegetables

Monday 7th February.

Breakfast - smoothie.

Dinner - Made the marinade for Maria's squid

(grate garlic and ginger, add salt and juice of one lime)

Scored the squid hoods (cut down one side and flattened) and then chopped into pieces and marinated in the fridge for 1 hour.

Didn't clean out the bowl and cooked rice and vegetables in the varoma whilst frying the squid. (about 1 min - until they turn opaque - I used the small thermoserver to keep the cooked batches warm whilst cooking the rest)

This was a big hit (thanks Maria) and dd1 who doesn't like sea food had 3 helpings (ok the first was just one piece to try).

Sunday 6th February - porridge, Beef Madras

Breakfast - porridge.

Dinner - Beef Madras (the Curtis Stone translation I did a few months ago).

Once again ever so yummy.

Saturday 5th February - stock, choc alternative, soup

Made chicken stock and then for dinner made udon vegetable soup (again!!) this is the girls favourite food at the moment. Also it is still very hot here but they wanted something cooked and also dd3 has a sore throat.

I also made the chocolate alternative (think this is in the Vegetarian cookbook?) This is yummy, I had to make substitutions and think I over did the oil as I didn't think it had the right consistency (I also only made a half batch as didn't have enough dates) so it's not set right but still tastes great, lol!!!

Friday 4th February - smoothie, ice cream, chicken, spinach and mushroom curry

Breakfast - smoothie.

Dinner - Chicken, spinach and mushroom curry.

I wanted dinner to have all the flavours of a good homemade curry but without much spice as it's still soooo hot here and wanted something light - but not salad again.

Decided as the TMX doesn't produce much kitchen heat unlike stove top or oven cooking I'd do a curry.

Recipe:

2 tsp coriander seeds

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp cloves

Grind 30 sec spd 6

Add 30 g oil and saute 5 mins 100° sp 1

Add 500g diced chicken, 1 tbsp tikka paste, 200g yoghurt

Cook 14 mins 100° reverse sp 1

Add mushrooms cook 2 mins

Add spinach cook 4 mins

The sauce was quite runny so maybe would add a little flour next time - though it was fine as it was with rice to mop it up.

The girls and I enjoyed it (except dd3 who was feeling really terrible - hoping just heat and tiredness and didn't really eat - which as curry with chicken and mushrooms are her favourites) , a lovely light curry - would be a good one for kids. I guess pretty similar to a chicken in yoghurt recipe.

Dessert was JulieO's chocolate icecream (from the forum, mmmmmm)

Thursday 3rd February - smoothie

Breakfast was a smoothie, we were then out for lunch and dinner was salads. Hoping for some cooler weather soon!!

Wednesday 2nd February - smoothie, reheated lunch, strawberry dream

Breakfast - smoothie.

Lunch - I reheated last nights stew for 10 min in the TMX - perfect.

Dinner - due to the heat was salads and stuff (not the menu planned shepherd's pie) but dessert was Strawberry Dream.

Tuesday 1 February - porridge, Persian Beef and Lime Stew

Breakfast - porridge

Dinner - Persian Beef and Lime Stew from MOTM (in the soup section! I had this on my list for weeks and then went to cook it and took me forever to find the recipe).

This was a 5/5 from all of us. dd3 in particular had 2nds and scraped her plate clean.

I didn't have the lemon peel so used lime zest.

dd2 and I don't like mint so use basil and parsley (also cooked with some as missed the set aside bit, lol).

Used green lentils instead of the split yellow peas.

I also added some new potatoes. And some green capsicum for the last 6 mins.

This had a really lovely flavour and despite it being such a hot day and thinking this was a bad idea with the lime it was great.