Skinnymixers LCHF chicken kiev and beetroot salad

Skinnymixers LCHF chicken kiev and beetroot salad

I have been meaning to make this recipe for quite a while, but just hadn't got around to it. I had some chicken in the fridge that needed to be used up by today, and since it was Sunday and we didn't have anything planned, I decided to have a go. The recipe can be found on the Skinnymixers blog site here.

The recipe is really easy to follow. It has three components - the coating, the herb butter filling, and the chicken. I was a bit concerned about frying the chicken in a pan, because I have a tendency to burn things when I get distracted by cleaning the kitchen.

Chicken mixture 

Once you have all the parts ready, they need to be assembled. It is important to make sure that the chicken covers the herb butter evenly, or they will spring a leak as they do their second cook in the oven. The last thing you want is to lose all that butter goodness onto the baking tray!

Chicken mixture after blitzing

I fried them in olive oil on a medium heat, for a few minutes on each side. They were only just brown. I was pretty pleased with that, as usually I would end up with burnt bits. It then goes into the oven to finish cooking. It is quite quick to cook, because the chicken is relatively thin on the outside, despite the entire kiev looking quite thick. Remember there is a big wad of herb butter in the middle so the centre doesn't need to be cooked.

Adding the herb butter filling

I was pretty happy with the outcome, only a couple of them leaked a little bit. They turned a lovely golden brown and had a nice flow of herb butter flowing out of it when I sliced it open.

After coating is added

I served the kievs with a beetroot salad. This is the one that is in the Basic Cook Book. I have been making it a bit lately - at demos! But I hadn't actually had it myself at home, so I thought I should probably try what I am feeding people at demos!

Its a lovely fresh salad, and the lemon juice and oil creates a little bit of a dressing through it. I put the salad on top of a bed of baby spinach leaves, so the leaves got a little bit of the salad dressing on them too.

Happy thermomixing!

Quirky Cooking's walnut & raw cacao nib bliss balls

Walnut Almond and Macadamia raw cacao nib bliss balls

These bliss balls have to be among the best I have ever made! They are like truffles, they are so rich and tasty.

I had a container of raw cacao nibs in my pantry, and they have been there for so long I can't remember what I got them for. I know I got them after my Thermomix, so less than 10 months, so they are still good to use.

I happened to see this recipe come up in my newsfeed on Facebook yesterday, so I shared it to my wall, meaning to make it in the afternoon. But then cocktails happened, and the bliss balls didn't! Oops!

So this afternoon I decided to give them a go before I forgot about the recipe. The picture of them on the Quirky cooking website looked delicious. If you would like to give them a go yourself, you can find the link here.

Since I have just started following a primal style diet this week (I have cut out most grains - still using a little rice flour, and still having full fat dairy), I have been on the lookout for portable snacks. I have a pile of bliss balls in the freezer but I was getting a bit bored of the same flavour.

I had a whole pile of different nuts in the pantry - everything but walnuts! So I decided to make them with almonds a handful of macadamias.

Raw cacao nibs

The power of the Thermomix is clear in the recipe - raw cacao nibs are pretty hard little things, and in 20 seconds the Thermomix makes them into quite a fine powder. Once the raw cacao was milled, I added in the dates, but I strayed from the recipe and just threw everything else in and did the final 1 minute blitz. It didn't seem to make much difference, they still came together just fine. There was no particular reason I did this, other than I wasn't paying attention to the recipe so much as the ingredient list.

Milled cacao nibs

After the one minute of blending everything together, its just a matter of rolling them into balls. I find this quite therapeutic! It surprised me how oily the mix is at the end. The high speed blending for 1 minute warms the ingredients up, even though no temperature is set, so this helps the cacao to release the cacao butter. It makes a lovely moist bliss ball! I really liked the vanilla flavour in it. It would be quite nice to do peppermint ones, with some peppermint oil or even rum flavoured ones for Christmas instead of the traditional rum balls.

Mixture before rolling

Who knew I could talk for so long about a simple bliss ball!

Happy thermomixing!

Protein shake

Protein shake

I felt like having a smoothie of some sort today, and remembered this one from the Basic Cook Book that I hadn't tried yet. It has nuts and seeds in it, plus an egg for an extra protein boost. The egg is optional - some people don't like the idea of raw egg, but as long as it is fresh I don't mind it.

I didn't have any frozen raspberries in the freezer so I used the mixed berry option, hence the purple colour! It was really tasty and quite filling. I had it around lunch time and actually forgot to have something else to eat. It wasn't until about 3pm that I realised I hadn't eaten lunch, aside from an apple, so it did keep me going for a while. I had more than one serve though - I kept the rest to have tomorrow morning at breakfast.

I will definitely make this again. Its easy to keep frozen berries in the freezer and all the other ingredients are ones that I always have on hand.

Happy thermomixing!

Ricotta dumplings with Napoli sauce

Ricotta dumplings with Napoli sauce

Another wow dish from the fabulous cookbook Everyday cooking for Thermomix families. I have enjoyed everything from this book so far, so if you have a TM5, and have been thinking about purchasing this book and/or chip, then do it! You won't regret it.

Draining ricotta

The first thing that is done for this recipe is to make ricotta. First of all, I had never even considered making my own ricotta before having this recipe book. I had no idea it was so easy! Two ingredients that most people would have in their homes, and a little bit of time, and voila! you have ricotta. If I wasn't making it for this recipe, I might have added a little bit of salt to it too.

Drained ricotta

I didn't have any cheesecloth, muslin or a nut bag to drain the ricotta once it had separated from the whey, so i just used a clean tea towel. Now that I know how easy this is though, I think I might have to invest in some cheesecloth. Its fairly cheap at kitchen shops, I just haven't really had a use for it before.

The ricotta is use to make up a mixture for dumplings, which is all done in the Thermomix bowl. Then they are rolled into little balls and placed onto the varoma, to steam over the top of the Napoli sauce that has been cooking away while you roll the dumplings. It doesn't' take very long for the dumplings to cook at all.

Steamed dumplings

The dish is delicious just on its own. I was going to serve it with a few pieces of sliced chicken breast, but I found it was quite filling and didn't need it.

Happy thermomixing!

Chilli beef with lemon feta

Chilli beef with lemon feta

Wow! This one is an absolute winner. It was quite spicy, so the kids didn't have this one. I would give them some if I left out the cayenne pepper though. I was probably a little heavy handed with that!

The first thing that is made is the lemon feta. I always get danish feta, which is lovely and soft and creamy, and this is what the recipe requires. It definitely wouldn't be the same with regular feta. The addition of lemon made it even better! It made a lovely condiment to take away some of the heat of the main dish.

Lemon feta

The rest of the meal takes hardly any time at all to cook. I do think I might not have got a very good cut of beef though, because it was a bit tough. The next day when I warmed up the leftovers though, it was a bit better. Perhaps it needed cooking just a little bit longer on the first day. It all depends on the meat you have.

I served the dish with a little bit of crusty sour dough bread on the side, and it was perfect just like that.

Happy thermomixing!

Chorizo and chicken pasta

Chorizo and chicken pasta

This was quite an easy dish and made quite a big serve so there is enough for someone's lunch the next day. It is in the Everyday cooking for Thermomix families recipe book/chip.

The chorizo is sautéed in the bowl first, then placed aside. One thing I might try next time is cooking chorizo in a frypan - one of the few things I feel is necessary to cook in a frypan, so it gets crispy and browns up a bit more than it does in the Thermomix. That's just my taste though, so if it doesn't bother you still do it in the bowl - save the extra pan to wash up!

The vegetables in the dish are chopped up quite chunky, so they are visible in the end plate. If you have kids that don't like to see vegetables on their plate, maybe take them a bit further at the chopping stage.

Once the rest of the wet ingredients are added, the chicken is steamed on top as the sauce cooks. Then the pasta is added and the chicken cooks a little further while the pasta is cooked in the Thermomix bowl. I love a recipe that cooks the pasta in the bowl, rather than me having to cook it in a separate pot. The best part is that it is all ready at the right time, and I don't need to calculate when to turn it on.

Happy thermomixing!

Sour cream and chicken enchiladas

Sour cream and chicken enchiladas

These were fabulous! Such a tasty meal and the kids loved it. And huge servings, so there was plenty for leftovers for the next day.

First the chicken is steamed in the varoma. Then once it is cooked it goes in the thermoserver to keep warm while the sauce for it is prepared. The mixture of flavours in the sauce is really lovely, especially the olives which give it a little bit of saltiness.

Chicken filling mix

The cooked chicken then goes into the sauce mixture, and is put on reverse to shred it a little. Then it just needs to be assembled by rolling it into tortillas. I did use shop bought tortillas but next time I make this (and it will be soon because it was delicious!) I might try making my own.

Enchiladas arranged in dish

I sprinkled the chopped herbs on top of the enchiladas before adding the tomatoes on top, mainly because my youngest son will not eat anything if he spots anything green in it (except broccoli!). I also didn't add the avocados on top as pictured in the recipe book, because when I sliced open my avocado that I had bought the day before, it was all brown! A bit disappointing, but never mind.

Topped with tomato and cheese

As they say, winner winner chicken dinner!

Happy thermomixing!

End result

Sweet and sour meatballs with vegetables

Sweet and sour meatballs with vegetables

This recipe is in the Everyday cooking for Thermomix families. It is quite an easy recipe to make once you have prepared all the ingredients.

It uses pork fillet, which you mince yourself in the Thermomix. It did have instructions to freeze it slightly first, but I didn't have time to do this on the night I was making it, so I just blitzed it less than the  recipe instructed. It turned out fine.

The spices that are added to the pork give the meatballs a lovely flavour. I rolled the meatballs a bit too big, so next time I do it I will make them slightly smaller so its a bit more refined.

I did find that there was a bit too much pineapple in the dish. I might halve that next time, and maybe it might be nicer to use fresh pineapple rather than tinned. I just prefer the taste of fresh pineapple personally but its really what you like best. A small tin of pineapple juice could be used instead of using the juice left from draining the pineapple. From memory, I think it was just under a cup of juice.

I would also think about adding in some more vegetables in place of the pineapple I reduced. Maybe some broccoli or cauliflower, and even some sliced green beans.

The sauce was quite nice, although because I was in a rush I didn't get to reduce it as much as I would have liked, so it didn't turn out as thick as the sauce looks in the picture in the book.

Aside from these small adjustments, it was a lovely meal and my oldest son (7) loved it. My younger one is a bit fussy so I don't usually go by what he thinks!

Happy thermomixing!

Breakfast bars

Breakfast bars

These were really delicious and filling bars, and the kids enjoyed them too. They are great to put into school lunch boxes as they don't contain nuts. The recipe is in Everyday cooking for Thermomix families book/chip.

Milled rice and seeds

The first step involves milling the rice and seeds then setting them aside. It still amazes me how easily and quickly this happens in the Thermomix. Next the apple and dried fruits are added. You can follow the recipe or just use whatever combination of dried fruits you like, to the same weight as instructed.

Fruit mixture

Once the rest of the ingredients are added, and the rice and seed mixture is returned to the bowl, it all gets mixed together, then pressed into a slice tin. They are then cooked in the oven and left to cool on the bench before slicing into bars. The bars are quite soft, they stay together, but they aren't like a crunchy muesli bar. I might try cooking them a little longer next time to see if they do get a bit crunchier.

Baked slice

My slicing skills are not the greatest - next time I will try harder to get uniform sized bars! In the end it worked out ok having different sizes because it meant the smaller ones could go into the kids lunch boxes and the larger ones were a more substantial snack for the adults.

Happy thermomixing!

Chocolate chip cookies

Chocolate chip cookies

This recipe is from the recipe community and can be found here. They are so quick to make, once the butter and sugar are creamed, the eggs are added through the hole in the lid, and it is combined.

Instead of using chocolate chips, I bought Darrell Lea dark chocolate sleeves and chopped them up into chunks with a knife. I know I could have done this in the Thermomix, but I wanted quite big chunks of chocolate in the cookies.

Cookie dough

To make sure they were all uniform in size, I used my rounded, deep sided tablespoon measure. I moulded the cookie dough into it and dropped the dough straight onto the baking tray. They then spread nicely in the oven and were all round and the same shape.

I will definitely be making this recipe again. But not too often because I couldn't stop eating them!!! I ended up taking some to work to share the love, and they were a big hit.

Happy thermomixing!

Lamb moussaka

Lamb moussaka

This was a really delicious meal, and so easy to make. Its found in the Everyday cooking for Thermomix families cookbook/chip. The kids loved it. One thing I would probably do differently is make it in advance - maybe at lunch time, and reheat it at dinner time. I found that when I sliced it, it ran everywhere and it was quite difficult to get out of the dish and onto the plate. The next day however, when I had it for lunch as leftovers, it was perfect.

Building the layers

The eggplant is steamed in the varoma first, then it is put aside and the mince is then steamed in the varoma as well. This surprised me, it is something I would not have thought of doing before. But it is a good way to get a large amount of mince cooked, and without risking mincing it into a fine pulp in the bowl, which is easy to do with shop bought mince. The sauce for the mince mixture is made in the bowl, with the mince in the varoma to steam it as it cooks. At the end it just gets mixed through quickly to combine it, so the mince is still a bit chunky.

Bechamel and parmesan topping

The béchamel topping is then made. I really liked this béchamel, it didn't have a floury taste which you can sometimes get if the flour isn't cooked off enough. It was lovely and smooth. I added a little bit of dijon mustard as well for a bit of a different flavour.

Baked moussaka

Once all that is done, its a simple matter of building it just like you would a lasagne. Using eggplant is great for people that are trying to avoid eating too many grains, a great alternative to pasta sheets. Of course there is a bit of flour in the béchamel, but not a huge amount.

Happy thermomixing!

Sticky date pudding

Sticky date pudding

This is one of those recipes that makes people want to buy a Thermomix - just ask my sister!!! She is now a proud owner! hehe…

Its such an easy and delicious dessert, and tastes fantabulous. Yes I know, I made that word up, but it is the best way to describe the sticky date pudding!

I always use fresh medjool dates when I make this. I did try once with dried pitted dates, but it just wasn't the same! The medjool dates are a little bit more expensive, but its worth it. And you can make CADA out of the leftover dates anyway, so that's a bonus!

I usually make the pudding itself the day before if I am doing it for a celebration of some kind. Then when we need to serve it I give it a quick zap in the microwave to warm it up, ready to receive the delicious sauce!

The sauce…I need a word better than fantabulous for that. I can't even think of one. Its just the best caramel sauce I have ever had! The best part, aside from how good it tastes, is that it makes quite a lot of sauce, so there is usually a lot of leftovers. I store it in the fridge and it goes quite thick when it is cold. Perfect for anything you would want a bit of caramel sauce on. Icecream perhaps?

So if you haven't tried this one yet, on your bike and get yourself the ingredients, because its so worth it! Even the extra calories!

Happy thermomixing!

Chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting

Chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting

My sons' birthdays are quite close together, so we usually do their party on the same day, just to make it easier to find a date that suits everyone. This year we had an afternoon tea - a few savoury snacks and a few more cakes and sweets! 

I decided to give the chocolate cupcakes from the new Everyday cooking for Thermomix families a go. And since there was a recipe for dark chocolate frosting that looked quite nice, I thought I would whip some of that up as well!

The cakes turned out quite moist. I filled the cupcake pans about 3/4 full, and they rose just enough to pop over the top nicely. The chocolate I used was 70% cocoa, so they weren't overly sweet, which was good, since there was lots of delicious frosting to go on top!

The frosting was really easy to make. It also contains chocolate, instead of adding cocoa powder. I used the same chocolate that I used in the cake. I like that this frosting recipe doesn't use the butterfly. I sometimes find with the butterfly I need to stop the blades and scrape down the sides a few times and it doesn't get that light buttercream texture to it.

One think I might do differently with this recipe next time, is use white sugar milled down instead of raw. I would also mill it a bit finer as well, as I did find the texture a little grainy with the raw sugar. 

These were still very delicious cupcakes. I decorated them with mini malt balls that I found in the cake decorating aisle at the supermarket. They gave a nice little crunch.

Happy thermomixing!

Banana Bread

Banana bread

I have made this banana bread a few times now, but not since starting this blog. It is a really good recipe, and the only reason I don't make it more often is that we go through bananas so quickly in this house they never get a chance to get ripe enough for my liking!

The thing I dislike most about making banana bread in the past is having to mash the bananas. Let's face it, mashed banana is not the most pleasant looking thing in the world! The Thermomix makes short work of it though, a few sedans and its done.

The cake has quite a long cooking time, and I find in my oven I do need to keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn around the edges.

I forgot to take a picture of this sliced, but it always turns out exactly as pictured in the book. What more could you ask for in a recipe!? The banana flavour is just right too.

Happy thermomixing!

Spiced Moroccan lentil soup

This is a lovely, thick soup with a nice hint of spices, perfect for a cold winter's day. It does have quite a few different spices in it, but after you have had your Thermomix for a while, you find you will usually have most of them in the pantry anyway.

Its really easy to make, a bit of chopping and sautéing before adding the spices and cooking them off to release the flavours. Then the rest of the ingredients and lentils are added and it is just left to cook until the lentils are tender and just starting to break down.

What I like about this soup is that the ingredients are all things you have in your cupboard, so it is a recipe that you don't really have to plan for. When you feel like it, you can just gather the ingredients up and make it.

Happy thermomixing!

Zucchini slice

Zucchini slice

This recipe is in the new book, Everyday cooking for Thermomix families. It makes quite a big slice, and you can eat it hot or cold, so it is a great recipe to make for dinner one night and have for lunch the next day with a salad.

I love how quick the slice is to make with the thermomix - no standing there grating zucchini and cheese and taking off skin and fingernails with the grater. The cheese and zucchini are grated in a matter of seconds, and put aside to be added later. And as you can see in the cooked slice, it is nice even pieces. So easy to do in the thermomix.

The bacon in the slice adds a nice flavour too. The flour used is rice flour, which is really easy to make in the thermomix. I didn't have any in the pantry so I made some in a couple of minutes! Easy as that!

The kids loved the zucchini slice. I served it with oven chips made with potato and sweet potato. I dressed the raw potatoes in YIAH intense olive oil and Roma Italian spice blend before baking them. I put them in the oven at the same time as the zucchini slice and they were ready at the same time. I also put a little bit of tomato ketchup on the side. The salad is spinach and tomatoes dressed with YIAH Chamoy balsamic vinegar and grapeseed oil.

Its so easy to make all these things from scratch and great to know exactly what is going in them.

Happy thermomixing!

Rice flour

I was making a zucchini slice for dinner, which required rice flour. I didn't have any in the cupboard as it isn't something I use very often. That's okay though - it's so easy to make your own! All you need is some rice.

The rice goes into the bowl and is milled for a few minutes until it is a flour consistency. Done! Couldn't be simpler than that! 

I said the vanilla sugar was the easiest recipe in the book, but I was wrong - its this one!

Happy thermomixing!

Tomato ketchup

Tomato ketchup

I have been meaning to make this ketchup for a long time but just hadn't got around to doing it. I used the recipe from Thermobexta's blog which can be found here. It is easy to make - the tomatoes are roasted with the capsicum and garlic first. They then need to cool so you can handle them - to peel off the skins. I did have a bit or trouble getting the skins off the capsicums, they may have needed a little longer in the oven. So I did leave a little bit of the skins on those.

Roasted tomato, capsicum and garlic

The whole lot then gets cooked in the Thermomix with the spices and seasonings. By the time it is done with its first cook, its all pretty much broken down. The honey is then added and it is cooked again. I like that honey is used as the sweetener - shop bought sauces always have a lot of refined sugar added to them, so making it yourself you can add alternate sweeteners.

Pureed ketchup

Once the honey is cooked into the sauce, it is then blended until its a nice smooth consistency. It is pretty close to shop bought ketchup. The kids enjoyed it with their homemade chips for dinner.

Happy thermomixing!

Beef stew with buttermilk dumplings

Beef stew with buttermilk dumplings

Another winning meal tonight, from the new book Everyday cooking for Thermomix families. The beef stew, with buttermilk dumplings. This is a longer cook meal, so best done on an afternoon when you can start dinner early. I began cooking at around 4.20pm and it was done by 6pm. The good thing about it though is that you put it on and mostly leave it to its own devices, only having to fiddle around with it when making the dumplings and adding the stew ingredients.

One change I would make to this next time is chopping the parsley before making the dumpling dough. I found that there was a bit of excess buttermilk and flour mixture in the bowl that was a bit too sticky. The instructions state, without washing the bowl, to continue on to chop the parsley. The parsley then ends up with flour and buttermilk through it. I would rather chop the parsley in a  clean bowl, and either  make the dumplings with bits of parsley through, or give the bowl a quick rinse if you have family members with aversions to green bits!

I didn't have enough garlic cloves for the stew, so I used YIAH intense garlic olive oil to sauté the onions and garlic. I then also added a little bit of YIAH herb and garlic dip mix to the stew mixture. The stew does its own thing for 45 minutes, then the dumplings are added onto the bowl in the varoma to cook.

I loved the dumplings! They tasted a lot like the ones I remember my mum making. Yum! I haven't had them in a long time. The kids really enjoyed them too. Due to having the issue with the buttermilk and raw flour mixed through my chopped parsley, I topped the dumplings with a bit of extra YIAH herb and garlic dip mix.

This is a great dinner and definitely one I would do again.

Happy thermomixing!

Layered chicken dinner

Layered chicken dinner

This meal is a little bit like the chicken veloute meal - 2 courses, with a soup to start then the chicken and vegetables and a gravy. It is in the new book, Everyday cooking for Thermomix families, available as a book and also a recipe chip.

I made a few small adjustments to the recipe along the way, but only to use the herbs I had in my cupboard. Along with herbs and spices in the recipe, I added a couple of tablespoons of YIAH Aussie Roast spice blend. Once the herb mixture was combined I rubbed it all over the chicken, and that part of the recipe was done.

YIAH spice blend and oil

For the soup, I used YIAH intense garlic olive oil, to give it an extra garlic kick. It smelled fantastic as it was sautéing. I used a jarrah pumpkin, because I didn't really want to spend $7 on a butternut pumpkin!

Pumpkin soup

The chicken steams as the soup cooks for the first part of the recipe. The potatoes and carrots are then added to the varoma to steam for the final part of cooking the chicken. Once those are done, the recipe instructs you to put the chicken into the oven. I prefer crispy skin on my chicken though, so I put it on an oven tray, along with the potatoes and carrots that I had tossed in the varoma to cover them in the herb and spice mix that had fallen off the chicken. I then put it in the oven on 200℃ while I blitzed the soup, put the soup in the thermoserver and then started making the gravy.

Chicken and vegetables after steaming

The green vegetables steam above the gravy as it is near the end of cooking/thickening. At this stage the chicken and vegetables in the oven were nicely browned so I turned the oven down to keep it warm.

When I served the soup I added a sprinkling of YIAH Queen of the Nile dukkah to the top of it.

Complete meal

This was a great dinner, and one I will definitely do again. The chicken is lovely and moist because it has been steamed, and the soup was really delicious. This was the first time I have made a gravy in the Thermomix, and probably the first time I have made a gravy without using packet gravy powder! I was really happy with the outcome.

Happy thermomixing!