Chicken and vegetable sausage rolls

~ nzthermomixmum
Chicken and vegetable sausage rolls
Chicken and vegetable sausage rolls

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/baking-savoury-recipes/chicken-and-vegetable-sausage-rolls/139332

Yah!! Found another good lunchbox item again from ‘road to loving my thermomix’. This recipe for chicken and vegetable sausage rolls (link above) is fantastic. No sausage, no preservatives, no additives … Just 400g chicken, some leek, a carrot, one celery stalk  and a tablespoon of TM vegetable stock.  ( left out spinach today) Added an egg and a handful of cheese, some salt and pepper to the mix. Rolled into puff party and they’re delicious, light and tasty. Halved the pastry and placed sausage mixture in a line in middle before wrapping sides around the chicken mixture.  After 30 minutes at 190C they weren’t very brown so grilled for a minute. If  freezing to reheat later, they would be perfect because the second bake would brown the top more.

image

Homemade Up and go

~ nzthermomixmum
Homemade up and go
Homemade up and go

http://thermomumma.com/homemade-up-go/

For the teenagers  that don’t leave time for breakfast this up and go recipe  is a quick alternative. Used two tsp of cocoa instead of milo,  oats and LSA instead of weetbix, milled for a few seconds at speed 9 before adding the rest of the ingredients. Left out honey, kids said it’s sweet enough as is.

Homemade up and go

2 Weetbix /scoop of  oats
1 banana (fresh or frozen)
200g milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cocoa powder
150g ice

Compare the simple  ingredients in the list above with the  ingredients in the manufactured up and go makes for interesting reading.

“Filtered water, skim milk powder, cane sugar, wheat maltodextrin, soy protein, vegetable oils (sunflower, canola), inulin, hi-maize™ starch, corn syrup solids, fructose, cocoa (0.5%), oat flour, mineral (calcium), food acid (332), flavours, vegetable gums (460, 466, 407), stabiliser (452), salt, vitamins (C, niacin, A, B12, B6, B2, B1, folate)”

30 Second Whole Orange Cake

~ nzthermomixmum
Mandarin and poppyseed muffins
Mandarin and poppyseed muffins

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/baking-sweet-recipes/30-second-whole-orange-cake/45622?page=3

30 seconds to make a cake, or in this case muffins. The famous 30 second orange cake from the recipe community is made from one whole orange, peel included, and literally takes 30 seconds to make in the thermomix. We used 3 whole mandarins and made muffins instead. Baked in 15 minutes at 180c fan bake. Awesome recipe, can see why it had 300 + glowing comments. Followed some of members’ suggestions and reduced sugar from 200g to 130g and butter from 225g to 200g. Added 2 TB poppyseeds. Fantastic recipe, crunchy top moist centre and lovely flavour.

Nb best eaten fresh or on the day otherwise freeze to retain softness.

Pulled Pork with Homemade Tortillas

~ nzthermomixmum
Pulled pork tortilla
Pulled pork tortilla

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/main-dishes-meat-recipes/bbq-pulled-pork/221932

Combined a method from the community (link above)  for cooking pulled pork and adapted the flavours from a Pete Evans Family Food recipe. Seared the seasoned (salt and pepper) meat pieces first then made the sauce.

Sauce for Pulled Pork

  • 3TB maple syrup
  • 3TB garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
  • 2 TB onion powder
  • 1/2 tsp white pepper
  • 1/2c barbecue sauce ( can make your own) I used bought one this time
  • 1/4 c Worcester sauce ( adjusted down from  1/2 c which seemed alot)
  • splash of water to thin only (his recipe has 750 ml of water but this must evaporate in oven which he sets for 180C then to 100C for 6/7 hours so not needed in thermomix because temperature is set at 90C.)

Combined the meat and sauce in thermomix and cooked for 2 hours, (60 mins at a time ) 90 C, reverse speed stir. Then shredded meat in thermomix  2 sec, speed 4 after it finished cooking. Coleslaw is the simple guided recipe and done in a few seconds.

Pulled pork, lettuce, coleslaw and tortillas
Pulled pork, lettuce, coleslaw and tortillas

Homemade Tortillas 

Tortillas

The tortillas are super easy to make. Only takes a a few minutes to whizz up in the thermomix (link above) and no proving or resting required, roll out and pan fry eight tortillas takes a couple minutes for each tortilla but worth the effort to have freshly made warm tortillas. Made earlier and kept under a tea towel and reheated for dinner. Will make another great weekend lunch option because there’s no proving required.

This recipe for spinach tortillas looks good too.

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/baking-savoury-recipes/spinach-tortillaswraps/139450

Greek Style Fish Salad

~ nzthermomixmum
Greek style fish salad
Greek style fish salad

http://chelseawinter.co.nz/greek-style-fish-salad/ Chelsea Winter is a star ! Another fabulous recipe that is easily put together with the thermomix but really you don’t even need one because it’s so simple and the flavours are so delicious. This has to be the freshest  most tasty fish salad we’ve ever had. Made it for afternoon tea and dinner because we have a busy evening ahead with kids activities and concerts. Toasted some pita bread so the kids could fill with the salad. I couldn’t believe it when I saw Miss 8 eating the red onions and the olives by themselves (she’s never liked these before) and filling her pita bread to the brim. The hero of the dish is the feta herb dressing, blitzed a few seconds in TM bowl. Will be doubling the dressing next time.  Lucky for us we have tons of oregano growing the the garden so we could chop and sprinkle fresh oregano onto the fish fillets. The sumac gives the fish a slightly lemony flavour and pan fried in butter, it’s just sublime. Steamed the potatoes in the Varoma, 20 minutes, varoma temp, speed 2 with 500g water in TM bowl. Didn’t have asparagus, used blanched beans instead. This will now be our number one favourite fish salad.

Sticky Date Pudding

~ nzthermomixmum
Sticky Date Pudding
Sticky Date Pudding

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/desserts-sweets-recipes/slightly-healthier-clone-easy-sticky-date-pudding-less-sugar-less-fat-and-no

Just made these sticky date puddings (see recipe link above) in muffin trays for our dessert but I can’t wait till dessert, I’m eating one right now. It’s only 10am in the morning here in NZ and with that warm butterscotch smell wafting through the house it’s too hard to resist, feel like Nigella sneaking into the fridge at midnight eating the ” bad stuff “. But it’s really really good! And it only took a couple minutes to whip them up. There are quite a few clones of this recipe from the community with slightly different variations in the amount of butter and sugar. This recipe  has the least amount of sugar and butter and it still tastes luscious and decadent and more than sweet enough for our taste. Altered the sauce to use cream instead of milk to get a richer thicker sauce. It is amazing. Yum !!

See the link below for the other more decadent puddings, there’s also a guided recipe from the basic cookbook but decided to use one from the community because it was quicker, had less sugar and didn’t require the butterfly whisk. Maybe try the guided recipe if we’re having guests over.

http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/desserts-sweets-recipes/easy-sticky-date-pudding/40958

Swedish style meatballs

~ nzthermomixmum
Swedish style meatballs
Swedish style meatballs

Swedish meatballs

Another winner Chelsea Winter recipe from her blog, link above. Made her Swedish style meatballs tonight and they are delicious. The sauce has a beef stock, cream and mustard base which makes a nice change from a tomato based sauce. Used the thermomix to prepare the mince. Chopped onion and herbs at speed 8, added all other meatball ingredients and mixed for 2 minutes on dough mode. Then followed Chelsea’s recipe from there to roll meatballs and make sauce. Miss 8 raved about the sauce, “if you put it in a drink bottle I would drink it!”  The recipe makes a large amount of meatballs, froze half for another day, and only cooked half the sauce tonight. To save time in the evening, you could prepare meatballs ahead, refrigerate, and then make sauce later and reheat meatballs in sauce. Yummy recipe!

Hummus and crackers

~ nzthermomixmum
Hummus and crackers
Hummus and crackers

It doesn’t get easier than this, guided recipe for hummus, I substituted peanut butter for tahini today,  too lazy to make a batch. A tin of chick peas some lemon juice, tsp cumin, salt and pepper and that’s kids afternoon tea done.

Pickled Cucumbers

~ nzthermomixmum
Pickled cucumber
Pickled cucumber

 

Pickled Cucumbers  ( family recipe adapted for Thermomix)

  • 1 telegraph cucumber or two small cucumber,
  • 1 tbsp coarse sea salt
  • 1½ cups water (330g)
  • ½ cup white wine vinegar (120g)
  • 3/4 cup sugar (155g )
  1.  Thinly slice (leave skin on) the cucumber – a mandoline is perfect. This should yield about four cups of thinly sliced cucumber ( I peeled the cucumbers above because these were normal cucumbers not telegraph)
  2. Place the cucumber in a colander. Sprinkle over the salt and leave for 30 minutes.
  3.  In TM bowl, combine the water, vinegar, sugar, and bring to the boil. 8 mins. 100c, speed 2. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
  4.  Rinse the salt from the cucumbers and, using your hands, squeeze out as much moisture as you can.
  5.  Place the cucumbers in a large jar and pour the pickling liquid over them. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and refrigerate for at least three hours before using.

Chicken Satay Skewers

~ nzthermomixmum
Chicken satay
Chicken satay

Thai chicken satay skewers

Am in love with Chelsea Winter’s recipe blog. Here’s her chicken satay skewers, the marinade has been made with the thermomix. Chopped the garlic, ginger and lemon peel ( didn’t have lime) first at speed 8 for a few seconds before adding all the other ingredients and blend at speed 7/8 until combined. So easy done in seconds and then left chicken thigh pieces in marinade for a few hours. Grilled in a sunbeam grill, too cold to BBQ but probably would be equally nice pan fried or even oven baked. Extremely  tasty even without the peanut sauce.