Author: nzthermomixmum

Spaghetti Bolognese

~ nzthermomixmum
Spaghetti bolognese
Spaghetti bolognese

http://www.quirkycooking.com.au/2012/12/bolognese-sauce-in-the-thermomix/ Jumping up and down with glee! This is Quirky cooking bolognese sauce and it’s really good! Was not happy with the bolognese sauce from the basic cookbook, was a little bland and tasted like boiled mince so we had given up on thermomix mince and used the pan.  This one is fantastic because it has so many  vegetables blended into the sauce, 3 carrots, a stick of celery, red capsicum, zucchini, sundried tomatoes and tomatoes. Didn’t have olives or mushrooms but it was still great and next time I’ll omit the Tbsp sugar and add to taste later. Also minced lean rump steak on the thermomix to make the mince.

Minced meat
Minced meat

It’s all cooked in the thermomix for about 30 minutes. Note: will blitz the vegetables in the sauce  longer until they are not recogniseable, so the kids can’t complain about seeing cooked carrots in the sauce!  Tipped sauce into the thermoserver and then boiled the pasta in the thermomix. A one dish meal because all the vegetables are in the sauce. Added a drizzle of olive oil because the sauce thickened as it cooled. Love it.. this recipe’s a keeper The 100 day thermomix review  https://diaryofatm5.wordpress.com/100-day-review-of-the-thermomix-tm5/ After just over 100 days of using the TM5, I’ve just posted our review of the TM5. If you’re interested, select the page from the menu above.

Scones- Never fail

~ nzthermomixmum
Never fail scones
Never fail scones

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/baking-sweet-recipes/scones-never-fail/17595

Heat the oven now. These are absolutely the best scones ever made in our kitchen! This recipe from the recipe community (link above) is aptly named never fail scones. Made from self raising flour, baking powder, icing sugar and  cream,  so easy,  put in all the ingredients, mix 10 seconds and knead for 1 minute…. Done! Put dough straight onto baking tray, roughly cut into squares and baked for 15 minutes. Nothing to clean up, only the thermomix bowl which is set on self clean. Perfect with jam, whipped cream and a cup of tea before the storm hits tonight.  And the best thing is, if you ever have  surprise visitors,  these can be on the table in 15 minutes.

Moroccan chicken, pumpkin, cous cous salad with a kumara and lentil soup

~ nzthermomixmum
Warm chicken pumpkin and cous cous salad
Warm chicken pumpkin and cous cous salad
K
Lentil and kumara soup

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/main-dishes-others-recipes/moroccan-chicken-and-couscous-salad-sweet-potato-soup/215098

This recipe was demonstrated at the last thermomix course. The Varoma is used to steam the pumpkin and chicken and cous cous while the bowl cooks the lentil and sweet potato soup at the same time. Some things I did wrong.. I used green lentils from a can instead of dried red lentils so the soup was a bit watery but still tasty. Should have decreased the water added. And the cous cous was still very hard after steaming so had to finish off cooking on the stove. I note this comment was made by a few other members under the recipe. The sundried tomato dip converted to dressing was quite thick but with a little water and extra olive oil was easier to mix through the salad.  Will try the Italian option next time. Overall still a good meal, very healthy, and  kids ate it.  Great if you’re feeding a large family but you could chose to prepare just salad and dressing if you didn’t want soup.

Steamed thai fish cakes

~ nzthermomixmum
Thai fish cakes
Thai fish cakes

Another simple  guided recipe. Fish cakes made from fish, beans, spring onion, kaffir lime leaves, coconut cream, egg and Thai red curry paste. I cut back on the  curry paste from 100g to 40g because I thought the heat may be too much for this kids. Because there was no salt added to compensate the fish cakes lacked a little flavour but once dipped into chilli sauce they were lovely. The  look of the steamed fish cakes also wasn’t very appealing, very light so decided to  pan fry these to give them more colour. Can’t be too judgemental with the recipe because they would probably taste great with the full quantity of red curry paste.  I’ll add some chopped coriander and full amount of curry paste next time. Still a good meal. And not something I would have cooked ordinarily on a week night.  The preparation time is less than 10 minutes with the thermomix so really  can’t complain. And the family is lucky to have such variety all the time, definately keen to look up other fish cake recipes to try. This one from taste.com looks like a good one and can all be done in the thermomix.

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/17143/thai+style+fish+cakes.

Green smoothie, Mushroom soup, gluten free pizza, Beetroot salad, tuna dip

~ nzthermomixmum
image
Beetroot salad
image
Green smoothie
image
Pete Evans gluten free pizza base
image
Mushroom soup
image
Tuna dip

What’s in the thermomix today, another gluten free pizza base, a Pete Evans recipe, easier then Jo Whittons recipe ( quirky cooking) because fewer ingredients.  The base for the recipe  is almond meal and arrowroot flour. Definately be using again as a plain flat bread. All other dishes are easy guided recipes, simple tasty and fast. Green smoothie made from lemon, ginger, spinach, apple, orange and parsley.  All enough for afternoon tea, dinner, and  lunchboxes because everyone’s coming and going at different times.

Carrot muffins

~ nzthermomixmum

Carrot muffins

Our family favourite carrot muffins, made super quick by blitzing the carrots in the thermomix. I think this recipe came from a very old Alison Holst recipe. Even though I could convert the whole recipe for the thermomix, muffins are so easy to mix that it isn’t really necessary and plus it’s quite satisfying mixing baking by hand sometimes.

Carrot muffins 

  • 3/4 c flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground allspice
  • 3/4 c brown sugar
  • 1/4 c walnuts (optional)
  • 1/2 c sultanas (optional)
  • 1/2 c oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 200 g carrots ( about 2-3 carrots)
  1. Mix all dry ingredients
  2. Beat oil and eggs
  3. Blend chopped carrots in thermomix 3 seconds, speed 7. Add to oil and eggs
  4. Fold wet and dry ingredients together.
  5. Bake in greased muffin trays 190c fan bake 15 minutes. ( makes 12 medium muffins)

Prawn and saffron risotto

~ nzthermomixmum
Prawn and saffron risotto
Prawn and saffron risotto

Very blurry photography. Thats  what happens when you’re rushing to get everyone fed.  And given this is my 100th blog post, I was hoping to make it a good one! My next blog post will be a 100 day review of the TM5.

This prawn and saffron risotto is a guided recipe from the second chip and cookbook “cooking for me and you”. Very simple to follow, never used saffron before so I was excited to taste it.  Now I wouldn’t say the risotto was a fail but I’m sure serious foodies would. Because I doubled the quantity of rice and prawns,  I decided to double the cooking time which in hindsight was way too long- increased from 13 mins to 26 mins. The risotto is a little thick and probably only needed 20 mins. So used to setting the thernomix and forgetting that I didn’t even think to  check through the lid with the consistency as any good cook would do if they were stirring over a stovetop.   The flavour is still good and nobody was complaining that it was too thick. It was still gobbled up. Probably didn’t need to double the recipe, we have enough risotto to feed about 10 people. Served with a spinach sprout salad with the Caesar salad dressing from yesterday was a big hit. They’ve never been keen on sprouts but with this dressing it was up for seconds.

Ham and cheese quinoa muffins

~ nzthermomixmum
Ham and cheese quinoa muffins
Ham and cheese quinoa muffins

Attended another thermomix course last night with Miss 14. The menu was mouth watering Moroccan chicken with cous cous salad, meatloaf wrapped in prosciutto, berry sorbet, green smoothie, cashew and sundried tomato dip, lemon cupcakes, chocolate torte and sticky date pudding. All very yummy and more inspiration to try all these recipes too. Ham and cheese quinoa muffins were recommended at last night’s course. This is a guided recipe from the second cookbook and chip “cooking for me and you”. These gluten free muffins are fantastic, very light and moist and made from ham, cheese, egg, quinoa, spring onion and herbs. Perfect lunchbox food. Everyone loved them. The only problem was the recipe only made 9 so will be doubling it next time.

Chicken velouté with leek and potato soup

~ nzthermomixmum
Chicken velouté and leek and potato soup
Chicken velouté and leek and potato soup

The picture doesn’t do this meal justice.  We were surprised by how flavoursome simple food like this can be, the chicken is just popped onto a few herbs and lightly seasoned and then steamed over vegetables. It’s a nice change to eat food au natural with no marinades and extra flavours.  From another guided thermomix recipe, chicken velouté is a lovely meal for two reasons 1) steaming the chicken and vegetables makes this meal very light, perfect healthy gluten free summer food and 2) two courses are cooked at the same time in the thermomix within 20 minutes. Leek and potato soup cooks in the tmx bowl while the chicken and courgette and carrot tagliatelle steam in the Varoma tray above. Still can’t get over how clever this machine is, no stirring, no standing over the stove. The only tricky part is peeling the vegetables into ribbons without cutting your fingers. And the best thing is the soup and the vegetables catch any flavour from the chicken that drips from  steaming into the bowl and Varoma dish. The chicken and vegetables were supposed to be topped with a creme fraiche and Dijon mustard dressing but we didn’t have any creme fraiche. We were all just happy to dip the chicken and vegetables into the soup. Left the skin on the chicken to keep it even more moist and removed it before slicing.  Comments like “I really like the vegetable noodles” and “can we have this again”  make this a rewarding meal that was easy to put together. Normally my kids have an aversion to cooked carrots but not this way. The leek and potato soup is delicious, so creamy and smooth, possibly mine and miss 8’s favourite thermomix soup. The only alteration I made was to cook the onions and garlic for 4 minutes instead of  3 to eliminate any raw onion flavour.  Also pre cooked this meal earlier in the day and just resteamed for 10 minutes to reheat.  The recipe makes a large quantity and there’s plenty leftover for lunch tomorrow. And the kids even snacked on it for afternoon tea. Another big tick for a thermomix guided recipe.

Nb if you want to cook a larger quantity of leek and potato soup, like when all we want is soup for dinner, try one of these recipes from the community. Both are fantastic and commented another post in this blog, under the heading Bacon leek and potato soup. 

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/soups-recipes/potato-and-leek-soup/83059

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/soups-recipes/potato-leek-bacon-soup/163267