Tomato soup and orange cake

I may just have made the easiest soup for lunchtimes ever!  Tomato soup!  I don't like tomato soup from a tin but made this for the girls to take to school and I was pleasantly surprised. .. Quite nice and not gross at all.  And easy. .

The recipe came from the old thermomix lunch box recipe book. .. so I am not sure if I can share the recipe or not. . But it is basically a tin of tomatoes, onion,  garlic, and stock.  So. Damn. Easy!

The other thing I made for tomorrow is a super easy orange cake. .. 

Preheat oven to 180, grease and line your cake tin.

Peel an orange,  separate into quarters add to bowl with 250gm of butter chopped and 25 sec/sp8 scraping the bowl down about halfway through.
Add to bowl 3 eggies, 200gm raw sugar and 330 gm s/r flour. Whizz for 30/sp 8. Sometimes depending on the orange I need to add a splash of milk of its not mixing properly. 

Bale until it's cooked,  time will depend on your choice of cake tin. I use different ones depending on why I am making the cake.  Round for parties or when I want it to look special. . Loaf for school for easy cutting.. even in Patty pans of you have the time. 

Check out my photo of my cake. ..I didn't line the tin only greased it..... Why do they make non stick tins if we still have to grease and line? ????

Lucky it will still taste good!

Chocolate Chip Cookies review

Nothing bugs me more than a biscuit recipe that makes 12 biscuits. My clan would eat a million especially if they were yummy!

This chocolate chip biscuit recipe from A Canadian Foodie is prefect for a large house hold like mine, but you could halve the recipe, freeze the dough you dont need for next time or give them away to people you love if its too much for you.

I used M&M's (aldi version) are they were delicious! 

It also comes with a non thermomix recipe so theres no excuse!

Muesli Bars and Soup review

I tend to have a little cooking frenzy on a Sunday afternoon, preparing for the many school lunches in the week coming. I rarely find something that everyone is happy to have, but these muesli bars score a 2 out of 3 children's thumbs up, occasionally a 3 children thumbs up depending on how fussy Miss 9 is feeling. I give them a big thumbs up because it doesn't seem to matter what I put in them they always taste good! 

Muesli Bars

The mantra in my kitchen is 'A recipe is only a guide!' and it is so with these!

Here is your guide-

10 min, Sp 1, 100 deg in your Thermie

• 150 gm brown sugar
• 80gm tahini or 1/2 cup of Peanut Butter
•  150gm of honey
•  150 gm butter
• 2 handfuls of pitted dates  

 then give it a couple of quick turbos to makes sure the dates are mushed up

 In a separate big bowl mix together-

• 1 cup of oats
• 1 cup of puffed rice
• 1 cup of coconut
• 4 crushed vita brits
• 1/2 cup of dried fruit

Add the thermie mixture to the big bowl of dried stuff, mix together. Press into a 20 X 30 baking paper lined dish and refrigerate. When its mostly cooled down and firm enough lift out of the dish using the baking paper and cut into rectangles or squares, which ever you fancy!

So, thats the 'guide'

Do with it what you will!

I usually only put a big squeeze of honey in rather than the full 150gms, it makes them pretty sweet (and honey is expensive!)! Although sometimes I am left with some mixture that wont mix in because of it, but the chickens appreciate the treat!

My dairy free lad can handle the butter in the Muesli bars, I have accidently made them with out it, they were just crunchy! You could probably use coconut oil instead...let me know if you try it! 

The 1/2 a cup of dried fruit ( I never measure, I am sure its more like a cup and a half by the time I am done throwing things in!) is always a mixture of what I have in the cupboard. Today it was dried apple, apricot and cranberry. I also threw in some sunflower kernals, slivered almonds and wheatgerm (usually pepitas too but we are out!) Sultanas are good, so are choc chips!

 Reviews

I also made a couple of soups from the EDC today. The Pumpkin and the Minestrone.

The Pumpkin got a thumbs down from all of us except Miss Fussypants, go figure. It tasted too much like raw pumpkin? and it wouldn't have fed us all anyway (see picture below!) I will have to convert my long standing, family pleasing favourite instead...

Pumpkin Soup

Minestrone Soup

 The minestrone was a hit, (even with out the onion) it was a bit gluggy but I think that's because I used alphabet pasta instead of something larger, it was tasty enough that I could have added some more water. It definitely fed all 5 of us, with some leftovers for tomorrows lunch. 

I also made bread for the sangas .....

but I have nothing to put on it, so jam it will probably be!

 (and I also made hot cross buns...!)

all that in 3 hours, with plenty of interuptions and facebooking...I love my Thermie!

 

Recipe Review

I got to spend most of the day at home today which only means one thing.....cooking!!

I tested out the Coconut Butter Cake, Hot Cross Buns and the Aussie Meat Pie all from the EDC.

Coconut Butter Cake

I am not much of a cake fan (unless my friend Andrea bakes them) Anyway I was visiting my sis in law today and decided we needed cake to go with the tea. I had planned on making a sponge roll but to my horror I had run out of vanilla! So a quick flick through the book to find a vanilla-less cake led me to give this one a go. As I said I am not much of a cake fan, this one probably would have been better with icing, and if I ever bake it again I will cook it in 2 tins rather than one as I had to extend the cooking time, but it burnt around the edges...

Hot minus the Cross Buns

Make them. All. The. Time. They were awesome. ( I never put crosses on them BTW, I have better things to do!) 

Aussie Meat Pie

Golly, I love being able to make my own puff pastry...! 

Recipe was great except I would reduce the Vegemite to 1 tsp rather than 1 tbls....or we will have to rename it Vegemite Pie!!! I also chose to make one large pie (much quicker!) rather than in the muffin tins as per the recipe.

The winner today is definitely the Hot Cross Buns! mmm Yum!

My dairy free yummy Curry!

I forgot to take a photo. 

But you're all pretty smart and don't need a picture, right?

Curry is my favourite and one of the most difficult to find recipes that suit our family (no dairy, no coconut milk/cream) so I have developed this recipe from a bunch of other recipes.....and its good! 

Its very flexible...go with what you have in the fridge.

This feeds my family of 5 with leftovers for a 2 adult lunch ( or mix with rice and cornflour for a curry rice pie)

Jacqs Cheap As Chips No Dairy Curry

1. place all in Thermie and roast 3 min, varoma, sp 1 then mill 1 min/ sp 9

1/4 tsp chilli (or leave out)

3 tsp cumin seeds/ground

3 tsp coriander seeds/ground

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp turmeric

3 cardamon pods

6 whole black peppercorns

1 tbsp plain flour

2. Add and chop 3 sec, sp 5 scrape down sides then saute 3 min/varoma/sp 1

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

a glug of olive oil

3. add and cook 3min/100 degrees/spoon speed

6 dates or a small handful of sultanas

1 heaped tbsp of TM stock paste

4 tomatoes in 1/4's

4. Add and cook 25 minutes/100c/reverse, spoon speed.

4 chicken thigh fillets chopped into cubes ( or replace with extra veg) 

1 drained and rinsed can of chickpeas

2 or so cups of veg

(eg, carrot, beans, zucchini, sweet potato cubes, mushrooms...whatever!)

1 cup (250gm) water

Serve with rice and/or naan bread and enjoy!

Hello Scones!

 I think the banner on top of the blog should also say

'Bringing back the art of feeding your family' 

because it seems like while many people are taking up cooking again, it seems like a competition of who can make the fanciest stuff!

I love the simple and delicious. So easy and appreciated!

Like these scones.... (makes about 12)

Preheat oven too 220 degrees

In your Thermie, whip the cream first as per the EDC.

 

Scrape out the cream into a bowl and refrigerate for later!

Don't bother washing out the bowl, add 2 cups of plain flour, 4 tsp of baking powder, 60gm chopped butter and hit turbo a few times untill its like breadcrumbs.

Add 160 gms of milk and mix on the wheat setting until it starts to form a dough, add a little more milk if needed. The trick with scones is to work as little as possible.

Tip out onto a floured bench, it should look like this

Pat down until until 1cm (or more) thick and cut with a floured MC, pat together scraps and cut out more!

Brush with milk and cook until brown

Enjoy with Strawberry Jam and the cream you whipped earlier.

And it won't be long until the plate looks like this!

I often make these after school, apparently it makes me the best mum ever!  ;-)

Make it Mexican!

Last night we had Mexican. Everyone likes Mexican, right? Everyone except me.

I came across a recipe that I thought I could just about handle. Its a vegetarian meal so not quite so pleasing to the carnivores in the family, but it works for me! 

Quirky Cooking is a very well known Thermomix cooking website, she's an all natural type, a bit too much on the wild side for my liking...I like ordinary kinds of ingredients but I can mostly switcheroo to make it suit what I have.

Anyway check out her Mexican Beans here....

http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/huevos-rancheros-and-vegetarian-nacho.html

As she does in her recipe, we had it on nachos for dinner, but we had it with guacamole (mmm yum!) and sour cream. But my favourite part was with poached eggs on toast for lunch!!! The best mexican..ever!

It begins with Strawberry Jam!

 And so begins the blogging journey of me and my friend the Thermomix, affectionately known as Thermie.

We have been working together for 3 and a half months now and our passion for cooking just grows and grows! Together we are rapidly discovering new foods for the family that are mostly quick, with ingredients that are typical with the aim to satisfy both my near obsessive need to cook everything from scratch and their need for food thats yummy and in copious amounts.

This blog will serve as a record of my success's and failures, somewhere that I can't loose my recipes and a way to share when people ask me 'How did you make that??' 

So, I begin with a breakfast/lunch/supper staple in my house over the warmer months.....

Strawberry and Apple Jam

makes 1 larger jar of jam ( or half of my favourite HUGE italian preserving jar as seen below) 

 

Place in your Thermomix bowl

• 600 gms of washed and hulled strawberries
• 300 gms of raw sugar
• the juice of one lemon 
• 2 apples (green are nice but any will do) skin on, core removed and roughly chopped

-cook for 55 minutes, varoma temp, Sp 1 with the basket on top instead of the MC
-put a small amount on a cold saucer (or straight on the bench as it do!) leave for a few minutes to cool, if its nice and jammy the way you like it go ahead and pour the lot into a clean warmed jar. If not go again for 5 minutes at a time until your happy.
-I keep mine in the fridge to guard against ant invasions...but if you  wanted to store for it a long time (why?? its too yummy! just eat it!) check out Google for canning techniques. It would also make a lovely gift, find a pretty jar, pop on a label...you could even pair it with a freshly baked loaf of bread if it's for someone you really like!

Ta Da! Super tasty, no secret ingredients!