Pavlova with whipped cream and strawberries

Pavlova with whipped cream and strawberries

So this morning I made the hollandaise sauce, which meant I had left over egg whites. I thought I may as well have a go at doing the pavlova. I did need some more egg whites though - so now I have more egg yolks to use! Oh well…I'm sure I will find something to do with them.

I used to make pavlovas a lot before I had the Thermomix, just using regular electric beaters. I used the recipe my mum told me - basically egg whites and sugar to make meringue, and thats it. It always turned out perfect so I had no need to change anything. At Christmas last year I tried doing it this way with the Thermomix, and it didn't seem to work as well. I don't know if it was because the bowl may not have been completely dry, or maybe had a bit of residual oil in it, or maybe I got some yolk in the whites…Anyway, it ended up a bit of a sloppy mess. So I hadn't tried it again since!

Whipped meringue

Today I thought it would be a good idea to follow the Basic Cook Book recipe. The meringue turned out really well this time - nice and thick and glossy, and it didn't flop like last time when I used my own recipe.

I decided to try making some mini meringues with some of the mixture. I put some into a piping bag and piped it onto baking paper, then baked in the oven on 150℃. They turned out pretty well!

Mini meringue

I baked the large pavlova for the time suggested in the book, however I couldn't leave it in there to cool, because I needed to use the oven. So I just let it cool on the bench. It seems to have worked just fine. I then whipped up some cream in the Thermomix, piled it onto the cooled pavlova and dressed it with some fresh strawberries. Yum! The meringue ended up nice and marshmallowy on the inside and chewy on the outside, which is just the way I like it!

Happy thermomixing!

Hollandaise sauce

Hollandaise sauce with poached eggs and toast

I didn't have to work this morning, so I decided to make something different for breakfast. I felt like eggs, so thought it would be nice to have some hollandaise sauce on them. This is one of those things I would never have made from scratch before getting my Thermomix. I liked to order it at cafes and if I really wanted it at home, I would get one of those pouches that you heat in the microwave. Doing it in the Thermomix is a million times better!

Ingredients in!

I have done this sauce around 3 or 4 times, and it has been perfect every time. I added all the ingredients cold, straight from the fridge. It takes about 8 minutes to cook and thicken up nicely. I like hollandaise quite tart so I also squeezed in a little extra lemon juice (not much, maybe only about 5g more). I love that you just put all the ingredients in, put the lid on, turn the dial, and at the end it is perfectly made hollandaise without any real effort or thinking. Brilliant!

Finished hollandaise sauce

While the sauce was cooking, I made the poached eggs in a saucepan, because I wanted the eggs and the hollandaise to be ready at the same time. If you wanted to do it all in the Thermomix, you could poach the eggs first using the chip instructions (note, there is an alteration on the Thermomix recipe community for the poached eggs, to increase the amount of water, so the eggs are submerged.)

The sauce turned out great, nice a smooth with a bit of tang. The eggs were poached with soft yolks, so good to mix in with the sauce and mop up with some toast.

Happy thermomixing!

Chocolate fondant cake

Chocolate fondant cake

I figured it was time I made a dessert from the Basic Cook Book since I haven't done one in a while. I had a block of chocolate in the cupboard (well, most of a block, I was desperate for chocolate the other day!), so I thought I would make the chocolate fondant cake.

It is a slightly more complicated recipe - but not much is complicated with the TM5 - it tells you what to do, and it is pretty hard to go wrong. The first step involves whisking egg whites. With whipping eggwhites, as with any method, it is really important to make sure the bowl, blades and butterfly are all perfectly clean, dry and oil free. Anything contaminating the egg whites can stop the peaks from forming. If you have recently cooked something oily in there, it might be a good idea to give the bowl a vinegar wash, including the butterfly. Attach the butterfly to the blades, add 250ml of vinegar, 750ml of water and a couple of teaspoons of bi-carb. It will fizz a bit, but that's fine. Turn the dials to 10mins/speed 3/100 degrees. I usually go a bit slower first to make sure the butterfly is correctly attached. Just remember not to go over speed 4 or you will ruin the butterfly. Once the time is up, pour out the liquid and give the bowl and butterfly a good wash. Dry all the pieces really well. If you can, do this earlier in the day and leave the butterfly to air dry so you know it is really dry.

Whipped egg whites

Once the egg whites are whipped, they get put aside, and the batter is made. The batter is heated in the bowl, and then the chocolate gets added to the hot batter so it melts a bit, before getting mixed in. I ended up only having 225g of chocolate, but it was more than enough, its quite a rich cake. The egg whites go back in and the whole lot is then mixed together gently, so not too much air is knocked out.

Pre-cooked batter

I made this for Christmas last year, but cooked it a bit longer so it wasn't quite as runny in the centre last time I made it. This time I left it in the oven for an extra two minutes, because I got distracted when the timer went off. I think this worked quite well. It was just set on the outside and gooey in the middle. Its a very quick cake to cook, and the best part is you don't need to wait until its cooled to eat it! Yum!

Happy thermomixing!

Skinnymixer's Chicken Biryani

Skinnymixer's chicken biryani

I have done most of the main meals in the Basic Cook Book now, so I have to start branching out a bit. I purchased the Skinnymixer's book, A Little Taste of India last week, so I wanted to try out some of the recipes this week. Butter chicken last night, and tonight chicken biryani.

Unfortunately I can't share the recipe, but the blog does have a vegetarian version, so you could just add any type of meat you like to that for a similar effect. You can find that recipe here.

whole spiced for curry powder

Quite a few of the recipes on the blog require Malaysian meat curry powder. This is available in most oriental stores, however I didn't get a chance to go to one today. I was very kindly pointed to a recipe on another blog, to make it at home in the Thermomix. If you have trouble finding the curry powder where you are, you can find the recipe here.

Malaysian meat curry powder

Once I had made the curry powder, the preparation of the biryani was very quick. It is an "all-in-one" dish, with the rice, chicken and vegetables cooking at the same time, then a quick sauce made at the end. It made a huge amount, so I have put a few containers into the freezer for lunches, and some in the fridge to have tomorrow night.

Rice after cooking

The flavours were really delicious, although I think next time I make it I might cut the chicken up a little more so it is a bit easier to spread through the rice. The rice takes on a really lovely colour from the turmeric, and the sauce was tasty. It wasn't overly hot for the kids either, which is always a bonus. They particularly liked the sultanas!

I will definitely cook this one again. It would be great for an Indian themed dinner party, especially if you do the vegetarian version, so it can be teamed up with other meat dishes. There is so much to go around.

Happy thermomixing!

Skinnymixer's butter chicken

Skinnymixer's butter chicken

I have made the Skinnymixer's butter chicken a few times now, and it is definitely my favourite version of butter chicken. I have always made the one that is on the blog, which is available here. The other day I purchased a hard copy of the Skinnymixer's recipe book, A Little Taste of India, which came with a free ebook of all the recipes as well. I haven't received the hard copy yet, so I used the recipe from the ebook. The only difference seems to be the omission of the tandoori/food colouring in the ebook version. I don't like adding food colouring to recipes unless it is really necessary, so I didn't mind leaving it out.

The recipe list looks extensive at first, but a lot of the ingredients are repeated throughout. Also, I have a lot of spices in my cupboard so I didn't need to buy any of those. And I always have garlic and ginger handy.

There are also quite a few steps and setting things aside. I think the first time you make this dish, it is a good idea to print the recipe out and cross off the steps as you go, that way you can't accidentally skip one. Once you have made it a few times you get the idea of what to do where.

I really like that the recipe uses almond meal, as it gives the curry an authentic texture. The spices all blend in really well together, and the tartness you get from the vinegar is lovely. Tonight when I added the chilli powder, I only used 1/4 of a teaspoon. The garam marsala I had contained pepper, so I thought going lighter on the chilli would be wise. In the end, the dish wasn't that hot spice wise, even the kids could have eaten it. I think last time I may have used more chilli because I remember it being too spicy for the kids.

One thing I have noticed with this recipe is that there is a lot of sauce in relation to the amount of chicken. If you wanted to you could cook a little extra chicken in a frying pan or even steam some, and then stir it through the sauce afterwards. This would be great if you have a lot of people to feed. However, I normally stick to the amount suggested in the recipe, and then serve up the chicken or leave leftovers for tomorrow, and the remaining sauce I freeze in a container. Then next time we want some butter chicken all I need to do is steam some chicken in the varoma, then stir through the sauce, add some coriander and almonds and its done. And because dinner is so easy that night, I might even make some garlic and cheese naan bread too.

Bang bang chicken

Bang bang chicken

Tonight I made the bang bang chicken from the Thermomix Something for Everyone recipe book. This book is great for families, and not just those with young babies. It has directions for each recipe of what to skip, or when to take certain parts out to make it suitable for younger members of the family. This means that the adults can still enjoy a bit of chilli or spice in their meals and keep it toned down for the kids (or even the adults who don't like spicy or hot food).

First up was the sauce. I haven't found many satay sauces that I really like, but this one - wow! I have discovered my new go-to sauce. I will use this for any recipe now that requires satay sauce. I didn't add any chilli sauce to it at this stage, I decided to leave the sauce separate and dribble it over the dish at the end for a bit more colour.

The next part of the recipe required the chicken breasts to be steamed in the simmering basket, however the breasts I had were quite thick, so I sliced them in half horizontally to thin them out a bit. I decided to use the varoma dish and tray to cook the chicken to make the process a bit faster. One thing I dislike is washing the varoma after cooking meat, so whenever I am steaming meat, I scrunch up and wet some baking paper and lay this over the dish/tray, making sure to leave some space around the edges for the steam to get through. Also the side vents at the side of the tray need to be free for enough steam to circulate the top area of the varoma. The food cooks just as quickly this way, and you don't end up with cooked chicken juice in all the little holes.

In the end was able to cut out the second steaming of the chicken and move onto the next step, so this made the recipe even faster - not that it is a long-winded recipe! I love how quickly the vermicelli noodles cook when you put them in the bowl. So simple!

The components of the dish went together pretty quickly, so the chicken didn't really get a chance to cool that much, and it was a bit hot to pull apart with my hands. Instead i sliced them up a little bit, then popped them into the bowl and shredded them for 4 seconds on speed 4, reversed.

That is pretty much it! Then it all just needs to go onto the plate, add the sauces and its done! There was quite a lot of sauce leftover, so I might have to have that for lunch tomorrow with something.

Happy thermomixing!

Easy tea cake

Easy tea cake

I have been wanting to make a tea cake, much like the ones that are sold at Brumby's/Bakers Delight, really soft, fine cake that doesn't crumble when it's cut. I was pointed towards this recipe on the Thermomix recipe community, so I thought I would give it a try.

The notes on the recipe state that the cake doesn't rise very much, so I decided to make a double batch. I did sift the flour, which I don't usually do, but I was just wanting to make the cake as light as possible. I also added a teaspoon of cinnamon for a bit of a different flavour.

I used a spring form tin to bake it in. The cake batter is very thick, and quite difficult to get out of the bowl. I ended up needing to remove the blades to get it all out. It was also quite difficult to spread, but with a bit of coaxing, I got it in the tin.

Cake batter

I ended up cooking the cake for 27 minutes, to account for the extra batter. The end result wasn't really the cake I was after, It was quite heavy and crumbly, but it was a nice enough cake. The kids and I both enjoyed it. However, the search continues to find the recipe for the texture I am after!

Happy thermomixing!

Minestrone soup

Minestrone soup

I wasn't really that taken by this soup unfortunately. It just seemed like a chunky vegetable soup with pasta in it. It didn't remind me of any traditional minestrone soup I have had before. However, it was quite filling and my older son finished his bowl, so maybe I have odd taste in soup! I served it with a slice of bread I made yesterday.

I did like that it didn't require a lot of work once the vegetables were added. I used small macaroni pasta, which only needed 8 minutes. I thought the soup was a little watery, even though I had used about 200grams more vegetables and not increased the amount of water.

It makes a large amount of soup, so maybe it might get a bit better overnight. We shall see!

Happy thermomixing!

Fruit and nut muesli

Fruit and nut muesli

Word of warning if you are going to make this for breakfast - choose a morning when everyone is already up, unless you have pre made LSA mix. Its not a quiet breakfast to make! I did have some LSA mix in the pantry, but it was a shop bought one from before I had my thermomix, so I made a fresh lot. It makes quite a lot, so make sure you have an airtight container to store the leftovers in.

I only made a half batch of this muesli, because my husband had already had his breakfast, and only one of my sons wanted to have some of it. I have put the leftover serve in the fridge to see if it lasts well overnight.

Once the LSA is made, its a matter of weighing in the rest of the ingredients, then giving it a few pulses on turbo. I did it 4 times as specified, but I think I would prefer it a little chunkier next time, so I might see how it goes with just 2 x 1.0 second turbos.

LSA - linseeds, sunflower seeds, almonds

I served the muesli with some greek yoghurt and a dollop of the stewed rhubarb, apples and strawberries I made a few days ago. It was a delicious, filling breakfast, and I will definitely make this one again. Its fairly similar to CADA, just with different fruits, so its a slightly different taste. You could use any dried fruits you have in your pantry, if you don't like the ones suggested in the recipe.

Happy thermomixing!

Tuna and sweet potato logs

Tuna and sweet potato logs

These delicious morsels can be found in the Thermomix cookbook Something for Everyone, by Louise Fulton Keats. I decided to make these for the kids for dinner the other night. It was the day before shopping day so I had run out of meat/chicken to make for our dinner. I decided to use some laksa broth from the freezer and make a prawn laksa for myself and my husband. The kids don't like that sort of thing, so I did these logs for them instead.

The sweet potato and garlic are steamed and cooled, before continuing on with the recipe. So this is something you could do well before dinnertime if you wanted. Pop it into the thermomix while you do some housework and leave it to do its thing. Then it can go into the fridge until you are ready to make the mixture and form the logs.

I wasn't going to add the parsley to this, because if my youngest son sees green on his plate he refuses to eat whatever the greenery is in. However, I decided to add just a little bit, so I probably only used half the amount. Also, I chopped it a little with the knife, so when it was chopped with the parmesan, it ended up chopping the parsley so small it wasn't noticeable. So the flavour still ended up in there, he just had no idea he was eating it!

I also had a little mishap, and forgot to add the tuna when I was mixing the rest of the ingredients for the logs together. So I did have to do a second, shorter mix to combine the tuna into it. It still seemed to work ok, it was just a little smoother than the one in the book.

Quick and easy breadcrumbs

The forming of the logs took a little bit of time, and coating them was messy work. I ended up enlisting the husband to coat them in flour while I did the egg and breadcrumbs. I also found that I needed a little more breadcrumbs. They are so easy to make, this was not really an issue - about 5 seconds at speed 10 for a slice of wholemeal bread, and voila! you have breadcrumbs.

Coated logs before cooking

I am not much of a fryer of foods, so I accidentally burnt the first lot a little. They were still edible though, they weren't quite charcoal! Just very well done. I added a bit more oil than specified, because I was using a large frying pan.

I served the tuna and sweet potato logs with some of the tomato ketchup I made last week. The kids enjoyed these. I actually ended up eating three of them myself, and then couldn't eat all my laksa!

We had plenty of leftovers, which were lovely cold the next day too. These would be great to take on a picnic with a bit of herb mayonnaise.

Happy thermomixing!

Hommus

Hommus

Being school holidays, we took the kids to the movies in the morning, and had a few naughty snacks! So by the time we got home we weren't all that hungry for lunch, so I decided to make some hommus and vege sticks.

Hommus is one of the dishes that is an option at a Thermomix demonstration, so you may have already tried this. It is really simple and quick, and you can make it as smooth or chunky as you wish, depending on your preference. I like it quite smooth so I processed it a little longer, maybe an extra 5 seconds.

One thing to be mindful with this, is that raw garlic can be quite strong, so use a smallish garlic clove if you can. I probably used one that was a little too big, so the hommus was quite garlicky, but not overpowering. Although it does hang around for a while afterwards, if you know what I mean!!

I added a sprinkle of sumac to the hommus and drizzled on a little extra olive oil as well. I like to keep a can of chickpeas in the pantry all the time, so when I feel like making a little healthy snack in the afternoon, I can easily make a batch of hommus.

Happy thermomixing!

Ratatouille

Ratatouille

I have to admit I didn't think I would like this, because I'm not a huge fan of meals that are basically just a plate of vegetables. I like a bit of meat in my meals! However, the flavours in this recipe are really nice, and I will make it again.

It was quite simple to make, you just need to make sure you chop the vegetables up in quite similar sizes so you don't have any really big chunky bits.

I decided to make the ratatouille into a pasta dish, and stir it through some pasta shells. Or as my four year old called them, pasta ears!

Ratatouille with pasta shells

I made the ratatouille at about 4pm, and then put it into a preheated thermoserver. This kept it nice and hot until we were ready to cook the pasta. It would actually be a good dinner for those afternoons where you remember you didn't get any meat/chicken out to defrost, or if you feel like something really quick to prepare that then looks after itself.

Happy thermomixing!

Stewed rhubarb with apple and strawberries

Stewed rhubarb

I am not the biggest fan of rhubarb, and since it can be quite expensive, I hadn't tried this recipe up until today. Strawberries aren't quite in season yet either, so they are still nearly $4 a punnet. I only bought one punnet, which had been raided by the kids at some stage, there were a couple of not so nice ones in there, so by the time I had hulled the remaining strawberries, there was only 80g worth! To make up for that, I added in an extra apple. I had actually forgotten to buy green apples, so I had to use the red delicious I had in the fruit bowl. The oranges I got from our blood orange tree out the back.

I did my usual with the zest of the orange - peel it with a potato peeler and then drop through the lid while the blades are spinning on speed 10. I scraped the bowl down a couple of times and did a few 1.0 second turbos as well.

The apples I cut into quarters, with the skin on as specified in the recipe. I found they didn't break down that much, so next time I might chop them a little bit smaller. The rhubarb I cut into 2-3cm pieces. I ended up cooking the rhubarb and apple for the extra 2 minutes, just to see if the apple would soften a little more and break up with a spoon, but it still didn't so I just left it.

Once the stewed fruit was all cooked according to the instructions, I had a taste (don't forget to let it cool slightly!). It was quite delicious with only a very slight sour flavour.

I served some of the stewed rhubarb for dessert tonight, as a crumble, with some auto vanilla custard. The recipe from the crumble I got from the recipe community, just using the crumble portion of the recipe, which can be found here. I added seeds from half a vanilla pod to the custard before cooking, and also added the pod for extra flavour. It was quite a delicious dessert.

Stewed rhubarb with crumble and vanilla custard

The stewed rhubarb recipe makes quite a lot, so I have a lot left over for the next few days. I'm thinking it will go quite nicely with CADA and greek yoghurt for breakfast tomorrow morning. Yum!

Happy thermomixing!

Three grain blueberry (banana) and fig porridge

Three grain banana and fig porridge

I bought the new Something for Everyone Thermomix book, by Louise Fulton Keats last week, and also got a bunch of grains and seeds that are used often in recipes in the book. So this morning I decided to give the three grain porridge a go. I was only making it for myself, so I halved the recipe.

It does take a little longer than regular porridge, and is a little louder - chopping dried figs and milling the seeds. Then the rolled spelt and barley needs to be cooked together, before adding oats and cooking again.

I didn't get any fresh figs or blueberries, so I decided to add about half a chopped banana. I then used the remaining banana to garnish at the end.

The porridge was quite tasty - even though it didn't have any nuts, it had quite a nutty flavour. It was very filling - I couldn't finish the whole lot, since I had actually made 1.5 serves. It kept me going well into lunch time. The end result was a bit darker in colour than the picture in the recipe book. I'm not sure why - I guess it could be because I reduced the ingredients, but not the cooking time, or maybe because I used banana.

I will definitely make this again, and next time I see some fresh blueberries on sale I will get some and try it with those instead of banana.

Zucchini soup

Zucchini soup

It was a little chilly in Perth this morning, and where we are it even got down to -1.5 at one stage! So after having a little sleep in and then some nice warm porridge for breakfast (made in the thermie of course), I decided to give the fridge a bit of a clean out before I went to pick up my groceries.

In doing that, I discovered a zucchini that needed to be used, and I was getting a few more fresh ones in my shopping order. So I thought I would make some zucchini soup for lunch.

By the time I had cleaned the fridge, picked up the shopping, brought it in and put it all away, it was already lunch time. I considered for a second just making myself a sandwich, but then thought, no, soup won't take very long.

There wasn't much chopping involved, it all just goes into the bowl in thermie sized chunks, the water and stock/seasonings are added and off it goes. In 15 minutes the soup was cooked and just needed the rest of the ingredients adding and a 1 minute blend. Done!

The soup was nicely flavoured by the stock. I did find it had a slightly bitter taste, but only ever so slight. I'm not sure what caused this, maybe the zucchini skin. Even so, it was quite tasty, and I will make it again.

Happy thermomixing!

Yoghurt cake

Since I have made mainly savoury/dinner meals from the BCB so far, I thought I should make something from the baking section. I had all the ingredients for the yoghurt cake, and I hadn't made it before, so I thought I would give it a go this afternoon.

Lemon zest

To zest the lemon, I used a potato peeler to peel the yellow skin from the rind, then I spread it out on a plate and put it in the freezer while I gathered the rest of the ingredients together. It really only needs about 5 minutes just to freeze slightly. I find this makes the zest a lot finer. After about 5 minutes, I got the rind from the freezer, turned the thermomix onto speed 10 and dropped the pieces of lemon rind through the hole in the lid. I left in running for about 10 seconds until most of it had been chopped up. I then scraped the sides down with the spatula and then did about 5 or so turbo blasts of 1 second each to get any of the larger pieces. This made quite a rough zest. I then added the sugar to the bowl and milled them together as per the recipe.

Sugar and lemon zest after milling

I used my bundt cake tin. It is probably a little bit smaller than the one suggested, so as you can see by the picture, it rose a little bit too much. I was actually going to try keeping some of the batter and try steaming some cupcakes in the varoma, just to test it out and see how it turned out. The batter filled the bundt tin to about 1.5cm from the top, and I didn't think it would rise as much as it did! Next time I will know to keep some aside and steam some cupcakes!

Yoghurt cake

Once the cake was cooled, I dusted it with icing sugar. To serve, I then made some lemon custard using the automated recipe, 3-4 serves and normal consistency. Before I started the recipe, I froze about half a lemon of zest, which I then grated in the thermomix as per the method above. Then I added the amount of sugar I wanted to use in the custard, and milled them together for about 10 seconds at speed 10. I then proceeded with the custard recipe, skipping the sugar step since it was already in the bowl. The result was a lovely, slightly lemony flavour. It went perfectly with the yoghurt cake.

Happy thermomixing!

Butter biscuits

Butter biscuits

I had read on a few Thermomix-themed Facebook groups that these biscuits were really good, considering how simple they are to make. Well, I'm here to tell you that everyone was right! The biscuit dough is made from simple ingredients that everyone would have in their fridge and pantry, and its a matter of putting all the ingredients in and mixing them together, then forming them into the biscuits.

Loose dough

At first the mixture looks a little like it needs more wet ingredients to bind it together. I used a tablespoon measure to get even amounts of the mixture out, and once you push it together in your hand, it binds quite well and is really easy to work with to roll into balls.

Rolled into balls and dipped in sugar

I used raw sugar to dip the biscuits in, rather than the caster sugar suggested in the recipe. This was just because I thought it would be more like those little Danish biscuits you get in tins at Christmas time. I love those biscuits!

Before baking

Once the biscuits are formed into balls and dipped into sugar they just need to be pressed down with a fork to flatten them out and give them a bit of a patter on top. I did find doing this formed some cracks around the edges of the dough, but i pushed them back together and they were fine once cooked.

Baked biscuits

The end result was great - crunchy and golden after only 20 minutes cooking time. They actually did taste a lot like the Danish biscuits! They would be great to whip up when you have someone coming over at short notice for coffee and you find you don't have any snacks in the pantry! There are also some great suggestions of variations in the cookbook that I will definitely be trying out next time.

Happy thermomixing!

Red Thai chicken curry

Red Thai chicken curry

I wanted to make the red Thai chicken curry for dinner tonight, and I knew it wasn't to the kids' taste, so I defrosted them some vegetarian sausage rolls I had in the freezer, with some tomato ketchup I made last week. The curry is quite quick to make, once you have sliced the chicken it's really just a matter of putting everything in as required and waiting for the countdowns to finish.

I used a red Thai curry paste that I hadn't tried before, and it turned out quite hot. A lot hotter than I prefer, but okay for my husband. Next time I will probably go back to my usual paste (I usually use the ayam brand) or I will try making my own, from the recipe in the BCB. I also found that the amount of cornflour added made the sauce really thick, so I did have to add a bit of water to thin it down towards the end of the cooking, before I added the vegetables.

I served the curry with steamed rice. I added 50g of sliced snow peas, in place of half of the frozen peas, just because I had some snow peas that needed to be used up. I did also find that the broccoli needed a little bit longer, it was still a tiny bit too crunchy for my liking. It would also be quite nice to squeeze in a little bit of lemon juice at the end. Other than that, it is a good curry, and I will experiment with it again to get the heat right.

Quick minestrone barley soup

Quick minestrone barley soup

Today I felt like having soup for lunch, so I found this recipe on the ThermOMG blog recipe site. A quick minestrone barley soup. It looked lovely and thick and chunky and had all the vegetables that I usually have in the crisper, so its great to make when you can't be bothered doing anything fiddly. I didn't have any borlotti beans, so I just used butter beans instead. Cannelini beans would work well too.

The vegetables in the dish just need to be cut up into thermomix-manageable chunks, since the blades do most of the work. Chopping vegetables was what I found most tedious pre-thermie, so I love this bit! The fact that the vegetables are chopped in 2 seconds, what could be easier than that?!

The bacon was optional - I happened to have some in the fridge for the meatloaf I am making later in the week. I used full sized rashers, so I only used 2 of them. This was sautéed with the garlic before adding in the rest of the ingredients. I generally find it is better to leave the MC off the lid when sautéing so the contents don't end up sweating too much in the steam that is created.

Once the rest of the ingredients were added, it just gets left alone to cook away. I took the MC off about halfway through and put the simmering basket on top of the lid to prevent splatters. At the end of the cooking time specified in the recipe, the soup had thickened up nicely.

I served the soup with the rustic bread I had made today. It was still warm, lovely and fresh with some of the spreadable butter I made last week. Yum!

One thing I might do differently next time is use a little less stock. I used 2 tablespoons of stock paste, so the soup ended up being quite salty, but not so salty it wasn't edible. I might just use one tablespoon of stock paste next time.

Happy thermomixing!

Rustic bread

Rustic bread

Back to the Basic Cook Book! I decided I wanted to make a soup for lunch today, so I though I should make some bread to go with it. I picked the rustic bread from the Basic Cook Book.

The recipe requires wheat grains, which I did happen to have in the cupboard. I had bought them a while ago when I first got my thermomix, to make the basic bread recipe. However since making that, I discovered Lailah's bread recipe and have made that almost exclusively since. So it was high time I tried something different!

The first few steps in the recipe requires you to mill the wheat grains into flour. This has got to be one of the most deafening things to do in the thermomix. You need to warn everybody beforehand, and a set of ear muffs would be handy! After the first 10 seconds it is bearable, but then you have to do it another couple of times, since you only mill 200g at a time.

Wheat grains after milling and before milling

The recipe also requires buttermilk - which I just happened to have left in the fridge from when I made butter the other day! If you don't have buttermilk, and don't want to go to the shops to buy any, you can just add about a tablespoon on lemon juice to some regular milk and leave it for 5 minutes to thicken up.

Dough after first knead

The first kneading of the dough resulted in a slightly sticky dough, which was then left to rise in the TM bowl to double in size (which is almost to the top of the bowl. I left mine for about 45 minutes before doing the next knead. The dough then gets turned out onto a mat, and moulded into a loaf shape.  It then rises again while the oven is heating up. I dusted with a little bakers flour and cut a criss-cross pattern into it.

Dough after 45 minute prove

The end result was lovely, with a nice thick, slightly chewy crust, and a flavour similar to rye bread. It is quite a dense bread and was great with the chunky minestrone soup I made to go with it.

Shaped dough before baking

Happy thermomixing!

Prawn stir fry

Prawn stir fry

This recipe is another from Cooking for Me and You. I made it just for myself and my husband, and the kids had some pasta with bolognaise sauce that I had in the freezer.

This is the first time I had made a stir fry in the thermomix, and it was really quite easy. The prawns are marinated first in the sauce that is made up. I ended up using a pre-mixed chinese five spice powder I already had in the cupboard. While the prawns are marinating in the fridge, the rice gets cooked in the simmering basket, and part way through cooking the rice the vegetables are added on top in the varoma dish.

The vegetables and rice then get put into the thermoserver while the prawns are added back into the thermomix bowl to cook in the marinade. Once the prawns are cooked (they don't take very long at all), the vegetables and rice are added back in and mixed with the prawns and sauce for a few seconds to mix it all together. The recipe did mention straining out the sauce but I found that not much came out, so I just mixed it all together.

The overall outcome of the dish was great - the rice was just cooked, the vegetables still crisp enough for a stir fry, the prawns perfectly cooked. The sauce was really tasty, with just a little hint of chilli. If you like your chilli, then I would suggest leaving the seeds in them before adding them to the marinade at the start.

I did find that there was a bit too much rice for just two people. Next time I will probably do a bit less so there isn't as much left over. I did share the meal out equally between 2 serving bowls, but we both left a fair amount of it, as it was quite filling. The kids could probably have had some in the end, but I wasn't sure how spicy it would be.

Happy thermomixing!

Lemon wash

This isn't a recipe as such, but just a quick blog post about a clean I do in my thermomix every week or so. I generally take my thermomix apart each time I wash it, so I can completely clean out the blades and under the blades where food gets stuck. Especially after making bread dough, or after making curries - I don't want to contaminate my next dish with what I have just cooked. Yeasty yoghurt is very unpleasant (think snotty yoghurt), and no one wants their custard to taste like curry!

Sometimes though, I notice that the base of the bowl starts to look a bit dull and as if it has a film on it. No amount of scrubbing with a brush or cloth or even a wash in the dishwasher gets rid of it. So this is what I do.

Needed:
1 lemon (if its a bit old and dry looking it doesn't matter)
Approximately 1 litre of water

Method:
Cut lemon into quarters and blitz in the thermomix for 2 seconds on speed 8. Then add the water, set the timer for 10 minutes on 100℃ on speed 3. Once the timer is finished, the scent of lemons will be filling the kitchen, and you can strain the lemon water through the simmering basket (to avoid chunks going down the drain). Separate the blades and base, grab your dish brush and give the bowl and blades a wash with hot soapy water. Rinse and dry and put the blades bowl and base back together. The film should be gone (along with any other marks) and the bowl will be looking as good as new.

After 10 minutes cooking

You can see the difference here in the before and after shots. The base of my bowl was looking dull, and then after it is nice and shiny again.

Before

After