Used thermomix to precook the noodles by adding boiling water and noodles to TM bowl followed the boiled pasta guided recipe. Tipped cooked noodles into a thermoserver to keep warm. Then used the chinese style stir fried vegetables guided recipe to cook vegetables ( left out chillies ). Whilst the Thermomix was cooking the vegetables, mixed sliced pork with cornflour, salt and white pepper. Fried the pork in pan, added seafood and fried altogether until cooked. Flavoured with soy sauce, salt , oyster sauce and sesame oil. Once the vegetables are cooked, combined with meat and seafood, and tossed into noodles. Notes Can add sesame oil and some toasted sesame seeds. Can add a little chicken stock, water and cornflour to make a sauce with pork and vegetables.
Thermomix guided creamy tomato soup is perfect for kids afternoon tea. Requires 700g of fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion, tomato paste, vegetable stock and fresh herbs. Used milk instead of cream and sweetened a little more at the end because the tomatoes weren’t very ripe. Cooked in 12 minutes. Served with grissini dipping sticks. The kids love these sticks ! Made grissini from the pizza dough recipe flavoured with chopped garlic and rosemary, brushed with olive oil and sea salt before baking for 10 minutes at 200c. The other half of the dough was rolled less thinly and snap frozen for lunch boxes.
Our favourite sweetcorn fritter recipe. Easy Sunday lunch, with rocket salad. Kids love Pete Evans green goddess dressing and eating lots more salad and taken a liking to the peppery taste of rocket which we have growing in abundance in the garden. Pre Thermomix days, nothing edible would grow in the garden usually from lack of watering and feeding. But it’s amazing how our focus on healthy eating has somehow transformed a bare herb garden into something that adds regularly to our meals. More than ever before determined to keep replanting herbs and loving the fact we can go pick some greens straight from the garden for our salads.
Sweetcorn fritters
2 eggs
1/4 c milk
3/4 c self raising flour
1 can creamed corn
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
salt and pepper
Separate egg yolks, place eggs whites into TM bowl with butterfly and beat speed 3.5 till fluffy and set aside
Add yolks, milk, flour, corn, salt and pepper blend in reverse speed 3 until combined
Fold in egg whites to mixture and fry tablespoons of batter over medium heat, turn over when mixture starts to bubble.
What takes this ordinary fritter into something with a bit more kick is this artisan pickle which we bought from fabulous Farros. At $20 a jar definately a treat, but it’s homemade and an award winning prawn balcháo. The Kashmin chilli and curry leaves provide a bit of heat and warmth to our lunch.
Coconut twists are are an old family recipe. My mum and aunty have made these for as long as I can remember and they evoke special childhood memories. Eaten straight from the oven , sticky crunchy coconut dotting the floor as the children sneak them off the tray when mum wasn’t looking. They were so good, when my mother and aunt opened a lunch bar in Queen Street in the 1970’s, they were a top seller. You can buy them in the Asian bakeries now but they’re the mass produced kind. None can rival that homemade taste and texture. Each roll slightly different from the next depending on how it was twisted and how much coconut sugar peaks out from each twist. And now the recipe has been published in Natalie Oldfield’s latest cookbook, “Love and Food at Grans Table”, a beautiful collection of grandparents recipes. Thanks to my dear cousin for sending in my aunt’s treasured recipes.
Converted the recipe for the Thermomix and oh my goodness, they’ve turned out fabulous. For some reason there’s alot of coconut sugar left over after rolling and making the twists so they weren’t sweet enough, next time I’ll melt the butter into the coconut sugar instead of buttering the rolled dough and sprinkling over the top. 6 1/2 cups of flour makes three trays of buns.
The kids came home from school to these wonderful twists on the table and gave them the thumbs up. I am literally jumping up and down with joy, a recipe is preserved for the next generation.
Coconut Twists
125 g butter
1 c milk
3/4 – 1 c water
1/4 c sugar
3-4 tsp dried yeast
2 eggs
6 1/2 c flour (810g)
1 tsp salt
Coconut Filling
2 c coconut
1/2 c sugar
90g butter
2 tsp vanilla essense
Method
Combine and melt butter, milk and water in tmx – mix 2 mins, 50c , speed 2.
Add yeast, sugar- mix 2 mins, 37c , speed 1. Leave 10 minutes. ( yeast will activate and froth)
Add other ingredients. Knead on dough mode 4 minutes.
Leave dough in warm place till doubled in size.
Punch down dough, roll out to into a large square. Mix filling ingredients and put the coconut filling on half the square and fold dough over. Cut into strips 4 cm wide twist twice and set onto lined or greased baking trays. Cover with tea towel and leave to rise until they have doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 200c. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Leave to cool on trays. Makes 30.
yahoo … A new Thermomix cookbook arrived today so had to pick a recipe from it. Seafood chowder is super yummy. Blended and sautéed, onion, celery, garlic, added the bacon, flour, stock, and milk and potatoes to cook soup base. Then used the varoma to steam mussels and fish. Topped with chives. Ready for afternoon tea and dinner. Great easy family meal.
Pizza bread flavoured with garlic and thyme, and porridge for breakfast and school lunches
First week back from school holidays, getting back into semblance of a routine has meant less time to blog. This week is marked by food highs, one thermomix food fail( didn’t follow the recipe ) and some reliable basic recipe standards. The reliable standards were smoothies, milkshakes, pizza bread, porridge, shortbread ( a new recipe I tried from the community, had 81 top ratings and was great ) link below http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/baking-sweet-recipes/grandmas-shortbread/45249, Masterchef chocolate brownie (recipe community), wholemeal bread rolls using soft butter rolls as a base,KFC chicken recipe(road to loving my Thermomix recipe) minestrone soup,
Minestrone soup ( delicious guided recipe)Leek and potato soup (guided recipe part of chicken velouté meal)
yummy leek and potato soup, mashed potatoes , steamed potatoes, chinese style stir fried vegetables; one of our favourite Thermomix recipes and our favourite stir fry to make. Simple and cooks in 7 minutes. I usually use a kg of fresh vegetables and cook for 9 minutes and it’s done, set and forget, tip into thermomserver to keep warm, stays crunchy for ages, love it!
Perfect mash potato
The Thermomix guided mash potatoes are super smooth, tasty and super easy to prepare. Simply put on the all ingredients, no water required, and set to cook. Lastly whip for a minute and that’s perfect mash potato every time.
Porridge topped with apple cinnamon and maple syrup
Breakfast is a breeze using guided recipes for crepes, American pancakes, pikelets, poached eggs, waffles and the loveliest creamiest porridge you could imagine. Honestly, the guided porridge is really really good, ready in 11 minutes no stirring, husbands favourite! It serves up a generous 5-6 people and topped with fresh fruit, cinnamon and maple syrup or honey, it’s incredible …. Husband keeps saying “wow” and “people would pay $15 for this at a cafe.” We used to microwave porridge but this is 1000% better. Miss 8 favourite breakfast is now Thermomix porridge.
Poached eggs using the guided recipe is messy and only allows for 2-3 eggs at a time. Our favourite go to recipe is sous vide poached eggs link below
The amazing thing about these poached eggs is you place the eggs with shell on into the steamer basket, and cook between 11-12.5 minutes at 70C. We set 12.5 minutes and use between 3 and 6 eggs depending on who wants eggs . It does take a little experimentation with timing to produce your preferred balance of cooked white and yolk but it’s super cool to watch everyone crack their eggs and watch the egg slide out whole. Note the eggs have to be cold from fridge and you can add boiling water to the TM bowl and wait for the temperature to reach 70C before putting the eggs in and setting the temperature to remain at 70C for the duration of the cook time.
The Thermomix recipe fail this week was a seafood paella ( forgot to add the key spice saffron), that looked quite uninspiring but was eaten all the same . It didn’t have the lovely yellow colour and flavour but was edible. This week, I cooked pork and apple casserole with the pressure cooker and a chicken and leek pot in the oven just so I didn’t forget some old familiars. Definately enjoyed dusting off the pressure cooker. Haven’t yet converted these to Thermomix recipes, maybe later.
Friday lunch was a Thermomix high…. A pot luck paleo lunch. My friends Steph and Fran prepared some amazing dishes with the help of their thermomixes and all using paleo recipes. On the table is the yummy satay chicken ( Pete Evans Family Food) fabulous Thermomix fish cakes , healthy Thermomix Beetroot salad, crunchy seed crackers with cashew cream dip ( Pete Evans Family Food) and the most refreshing cocktail, coconut water with ginger, mango, and mint. (Pete Evans Family Food)
Thermomix paleo lunch club
We traded recipes, thernomix tips and officially geeked out on Thermomix recipes and cooking! The food was exciting and inspiring. Can’t wait to do it again.
Shortbread, bliss balls and scones for dessert
And the finale for the week was dinner cooked by Miss 14. While I took Miss 8 to ballet, Miss 14 prepared Chilli con carne (guided recipe) guacamole (guided recipe ) with corn chips for dinner. The guided chilli con carne was awesome, so flavoursome with a spice base of cinnamon, coriander seeds, and cumin, she used trimmed rump steak pre minced in the Thermomix …( we like less fat in the mince)
Chilli con carne, guacamole, nachos, and side of beetroot salad
What a treat, dinner done by lovely daughter, dessert done, glass of wine for mum … Friday night is pretty perfect!
This is the final weekend of Easter school holidays, starting with some rain, lightning and thunder, it seems like perfect weather to treat the family with hot cross buns for lunch. Using the thermomix guided recipe from the Basic Cookbook, we are rewarded with these impressive looking scrumptious hot cross buns. Previously we had looked at the recipe and been put off by the extra elements of making the cross mixture and glaze but these were literally a ‘ piece of cake’ with the thermomix and they were ready in minutes. Kneaded dough in thermomix for 3 minutes instead of 2 minutes ( note BCB cookbook states 2-3 minutes, guided mode is set for 2 minutes ) , then left in the TM bowl to prove until doubled in size. It took longer than the recommended 1/2 hour, more like an hour because of the temperature drop coming into NZ cooler weather. Lemon zest (optional) and ground cloves were excluded because we had neither in the pantry. This didn’t effect the end result. Hot cross buns buttered for weekend lunch. Super yummy and better than anything we’ve ever bought. It’s starting to feel like any time the Thermomix is on the bench there should be something proving in it because a lot of these breads, rolls and baked goodies could be frozen and taken out for school lunches during the term.
The thermomix guided mash potatoes are excellent. It’s so convenient , you add the cut potatoes, milk, butter and salt all together at the beginning and the thermomix does all the work. ( the trick is to cut the potatoes into the 1cm/2cm dice, so it cooks soft and mashes easily with the butterfly in) There’s no need to drain the potatoes, no need to stand by the stove to make sure it doesn’t boil over and it’s a quick whip at the end to finish. If they’re not soft enough, just reset the cooking for another five minutes. When they’re falling apart, turn the speed dial and whip. Then enjoy fluffy, silky smooth mash potato. A couple times I have cut potatoes too big and not checked they were soft enough and ended up with lumpy partially raw mash but just whizzed with the butterfly out to fix.
Note: need to make sure the butterfly is set securely in place for this recipe. Turn the butterfly anticlockwise to hook slightly under the blades before you add the potatoes, have had the butterfly stray off the base by the movement of the potatoes but found that as long as the potatoes are well cooked before the whipping it all settles fine.
Steamed nasi goreng… This quirky cooking recipe by Jo Whitton is definately a healthy take on the Indonesian dish. The Varoma is used to steam vegetables and eggs while the TM bowl cooks the sauce and the rice steams in the TM basket. After 15 minutes the rice was undercooked , I would add 5 minutes extra to the cooking time next time and make sure the liquid covered the rice. Found it easier to add boiling water and microwave a few more minutes just to the rice. The overall verdict is it doesn’t really taste like nasi goreng but it was a lovely healthy meal. There’s no extra oil in frying rice and vegetables so it’s definately a “lite” flavoursome fried rice. And the thermomix chops all the vegetables so the kids ate more vegetables in this rice then they normally would. If you’re expecting authentic nasi goreng you might be disappointed but I will definately try these takes on nasi goreng again with a couple of recipe community recipes next.
One of our favourite meals San choy bau is low carb, simple tasty, fast food. I turboed two chicken thighs to make mince and turboed some leftover cooked pork in the thermomix separately. Soaked a packet of bean thread vermicelli in boiling water for a few minutes Many recipes don’t have this addition but it’s one way to bulk up this dish simply. You could just add more chicken or pork. Chopped and cooked garlic, ginger and spring onion, in the thermomix. Added the chicken and pork meat and cook with sauces to taste; any combo of fish sauce, tamari, soy sauce, oyster sauce, tsp honey works well. Lastly added vegetables and vermicilli. This is such a versatile meal because you can add anything ; carrot, zucchini, capsicums, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, cucumber, water chestnuts, sesame seeds or nuts. For this meal, julienned carrot and zucchini using a mandolin but they could be easily chopped in the thermomix as per recipe link above. The vegetables when finely sliced need no more than a toss in the sauces. Served all together in lettuce cups topped with coriander and chilli sauce. My kids love eating these cups because it’s relaxed finger food. There’s something fun about heaping the lettuce cups yourself and adding your own herbs, seeds and chilli sauces.
A san choy bau closely resembling our recipe from the community is pasted above.
NZ thermomix mum's blog 