Capsicum & sundried tomato dip

From the TM Everyday cookbook, this is incredibly easy to make and very tasty. We didn't add the oil as the sundried tomatoes were in oil. No more store bought dips!

Gruyere souffle

Never having had a souffle husband thought it would be a good idea to make it. I had always heard stories about how hard they are to make and imminent deflation when removed from the oven. 

Husband followed the TM Everyday cookbook Cheese souffle recipe. It worked! Impressive. Tasty, served with a green salad and coleslaw.

Source: http://www.delightdulce.com/2011/11/cheese-souffle.html (31.12.13)

Mayonnaise

As the old year draws to an end and the new year begins, we are preparing our New Years Eve celebration meal in thermy. Why not, it cost a lot!

We need mayonnaise for one of tonight's salads. Mayonnaise was one of those store bought products that I struggled to get gluten free for my niece with coeliac condition. So I found a Donna Hay Basic Mayonnaise recipe that has always been a complete success. Another admission here - I love Donna Hay recipes! They are easy to prepare, tasty and elegant. 

Husband used the TM Everyday cookbook recipe. Complete disaster with curdled mayonnaise.  I don't know if it was whipped for too long (2 minutes 30 seconds) or what but it went down the sink.

I could tell husband was not happy (the comment 'I know I should have just bought some at the supermarket' was a give-away to his mindset). So I suggested we use the Donna Hay recipe https://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/basics/basic-mayonnaise and the TM Everyday cookbook method. All ingredients in the bowl 20 seconds Speed 4 then add the oil very slowly through where the MC should be while the butterfly went at Speed 4 and we stopped at 2 minutes.

Complete success!!! Creamy mayo that tasted delicious. 

Source: https://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/basics/basic-mayonnaise (accessed 31.12.13)

Ham & cheese scrolls

We got through Christmas without ham...then was given a leg of ham by a friend. So we now have ham, lots and lots of ham.

So Ham, cheese and tomato scrolls were on the menu for lunch. Wow. Using the white bread recipe previously used, husband halved the quantities then added tomato paste, ham and cheese. Wrapped it up like a scroll and cooked in the oven.

Yummo!

Poached eggs

This morning's adventure was poached eggs. I need to preface this with a note that my husband makes phenomenal, restaurant quality poached eggs in a saucepan of water so the eggs would have to be just as good or better in the thermomix.  Were they?  In short no, and they didn't look anything like the picture in the Everyday cookbook (as ours normally do). They were slightly hardboiled but still had runny yolk. They were still nice, served on the last of the bread made the other day and toasted. We will give it a few more tries, adjusting the procedure otherwise it is back to the saucepan.

Mixed berry sorbet

Yummo!!!! We used frozen organic berries from the supermarket.

Again the recipe was from the TM Everyday Cookbook. So yummy. We had issues with getting the second lot of ice to crush, but decided to add the optional egg white which seemed to make a difference and the ice was quickly crushed.

Definitely a must on a hot summer's day menu!

Source: http://foodfilanderer.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/img_2300.jpg

Beef stroganoff & mashed potato

The first real foray into a Thermomix made meal. And what a success!!! Both recipes were from the TM (I am getting used to the jargon) Everyday Cookbook. We had to have the instruction manual open to identify different parts of the Thermomix required for the recipe.

Beef stroganoff
Firstly, the Beef stroganoff worked a treat. So easy! I added extra vegetables as we normally have a minimum of 5 different vegetables every meal.  The stroganoff was made 90 minutes before serving and kept in the Thermoserver. Wow! It was still steaming hot at serving. Leftovers in the freezer for a quick weekday reheat meal.

Mashed potato
The mashed potato was interesting. Creamy, smooth and lovely, just had the consistency of paste. I halved the recipe as there was no way the three of us would eat 1kg of potato. It was very thick and sticky. Some tweaking of the recipe will be needed.

White bread

Today is the first day we have had time to play with the Thermomix with Christmas celebrations taking up most of our time and energy.

We have been making our own bread for a year or so now. I use the term 'we' very loosely...that is my husband's job. We found a no knead, one hour bread recipe that worked most of the time. I perused the Thermomix Everyday cookbook and then read other Thermomix blogs.

I came across the following white bread recipe  http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/node/41833. It worked beautifully, and produced a lovely loaf of white bread. It actually looked like the picture below. Yummo!

Comments on the link indicated that we can use spelt and wholemeal flours. That will be a future bread adventure.

Source: http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/node/41833

Thermomix has arrived!

Yeah!!!! The Thermomix arrived tonight! It was very exciting. Like getting a new car (and given I can get a car for the price of the machine I guess that makes sense).

Our lovely consultant Cassandra talked us through the use of the machine, cleaning and we made our first product - the basic vegetable concentrate.

Basic vegetable concentrate

How easy was that! The hardest thing was buying the ingredients at our local supermarket on a hot summer afternoon. 

All the ingredients were chopped roughly by hand, thrown in to the Thermomix to be chopped some more, cooked then pulverised. 

We don't add salt to anything so were reluctant to add any to the concentrate. In the end we added a bit to assist the preservation of the product. With salt it will last 3 months in the fridge in an air tight jar. I should add a late note here - the recipes we were using did not require the vegetable concentrate/stock. As I didn't add salt, I froze the concentrate in ice cube trays (each ice cube equaled 1 tablespoon) and now have it stored in the freezer.

The parsley was added last and didn't want to be involved in the pre-cook chop. So we just cooked it all and then blasted it with the fastest chopping available. That worked! Our learning thing - parsley should be the first thing to go in.

So now we are ready to go forth and cook with our Thermomix.

First steps....

First steps 

First steps are always the hardest. 

Since loosing my Mum to cancer and my niece diagnosed as Coeliac I have become more aware of the environment around us, the food we eat & the products we use.

I downloaded the 'Chemical Maze' app to identify what did not have gluten in it so my niece could eat the same as everyone else when she was having a meal at our home. One word summed up what I found in the products - scary. I now stick to the outer rim of the supermarket (away from the processed aisles) and buy organic when I can. For a few years we did 'without' the fancy sauces, soup was something I made in bulk & froze, etc etc etc.

Then a friend introduced me to the Thermomix. I was in awe at the demonstration. One little (and yes, very expensive) machine does so much. The food was delicious, and so easy to prepare. The price freaked me out. I could buy a cheap car for that price! My husband and I researched some more and eventually decided to take the plunge and purchase one. We both cook. We both work full time, are primary carers for my Dad, and have two cats and a dog. Our days are filled with work, family and friends. Eating healthy is our priority but it can't be all consuming of our day. There are too many other wonderful things to be doing.

This is our Thermomix story...

http://prestashop.hrnet.netdna-cdn.com/30-174/cartoon-sticker-for-thermomix-tm31.jpg Accessed 11 Dec 2013