Bad blogger

Mmm. It has been a long time since posts.

However, we are still using the TM daily and still cooking mostly failsafe meals.

I need to get photographing and writing again.

new years' resolution maybe????

Princess cakes - not failsafe or dairy-free

It was Miss 3's birthday party on Monday and I made her cakes using the Thermomix.

Cakes: I used this recipe - only problem was they did not cook in 15 minutes - needed 30 minutes

Icing: I added all ingredients (120g butter, 240g icing sugar and 2 T milk) to TM bowl. Then added the colour. Too easy.

Decorations were using Orchard white icing which hubby coloured. He did most of the faces - I did the hair and some eyes :)

Next birthday cake will be for Kate and then we'll be doing the dairy-free cakes with failsafe icing (soak red cabbage in water to get colouring... stay tuned come September for photos :) )

TMX mashed potato - dairy-free version

The mashed potato recipe in the TM Every day book is easily altered to dairy-free.

I make it with rice milk and nuttelex and it is the best mashed potato I have ever had.

We all love it.

Apple crumble - dairy-free, failsafe

I have no idea how apple crumble is normally made, but I had some golden delicious apples that needed to be used and so I made this up the other night and it was delicious.

Ingredients

FILLING

5 golden delicious apples, peeled, cored and cut in 8ths.

TOPPING

200g oats
100g brown sugar
80g nuttelex

Method

I cooked apple in the varoma for 20 minutes - they came out beautiful and soft and I placed them in bottom of dish.

Topping - added all ingredients to TM bowl and mixed on 4 for about 30 seconds till combined.

Spread topping over apple and bake for 15 minutes.

I served ours with custard made using the TM recipe.

Mine is shown with Bonsoy custard - bonsoy makes the best custard :)

Verdict

Absolutely delicious. So easy, so yummy.

Chicken & leek pie - Failsafe

Ingredients:

FILLING

1 whole chicken breast, chopped
2T canola oil
1 leek, chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 sticks celery, chopped
1/2 cup pear juice
1/2 cup rice milk
2 T flour
1 T salt

TOPPING

800g potato, chopped
210g rice milk
25g nuttelex

Method

Chop garlic in TM
Add oil and leek and saute for 3 minutes
Add chicken and cook on 100, reverse speed 1 for 5 minutes
Add celery and cook on 100, reverse speed 1 for 2 minutes
Add 1/2 cup rice milk, 1/2 cup pear juice and flour and salt and cook on 100, reverse speed 1 for 2 minutes

Pour topping into pie dish.

Make topping per mashed potato instructions in TM Everyday cook book and pour on top of filling.

Bake in oven for 15 minutes.

Verdict
This was yummy - we ate all of it.
Next time cook teh celery for longer (add it earlier) as it was crunchy

Credit
This is partly inspired from a recipe in Friendly Food for chicken and leek puffs.
I also make the same mixture and serve it with pancakes
I was inspired to make a pie from a recipe on the thermomix forum. I need some lard though in order to make the puff pastry.

Chicken wonton noodle soup - failsafe adapted

Tonight I cooked a wonton noodle soup using Karen's recipe and altering it (very minorly) to make it failsafe.

Ingredients:

wontons:
1/2 chicken breast, minced
1/2 leek
4 garlic cloves
1 small carrot
2 canned pear halves
1/8th cabbage, chopped

I followed Karen's instruction to chop on speed 6 and mix well.

Soak rice paper wrappers in hot water, corner up to middle and put spoonful of mix in centre. Place in sprayed varoma.

broth:
in basket place:
some celery leaves
1 small carrot, chopped diagonally
4 garlic cloves
leek (the green bits)

In bowl of tmx place 800g water and TM-31 (Failsafe adapted) veg stock concentrate. No need to rinse bowl from wonton mix.

Place basket in and cook for 20 minutes on varoma speed 3/4, with varoma (with wontons) on top. 5 minutes before end place chopped asian vegs (I used bok choy) in varoma with wontons.

Serve broth, with rice noodles (soaked in water per instructions) with wontons and Asian greens.
Verdict

This was yummy, though very mild. Hubby and Mr 6 added chilli sauce to theirs and I ended up adding soy sauce to mine (I've challenged soy and Kate is fine with it so I do use soy).

The wontons were gorgeous - Kate ate a very substantial amount of wontons!

Next time I will use small rice papers as my wontons were huge!

Also, next time, add salt to broth

Failsafe golden soy chicken wings

First - there is no photo - I had the 3 kids on my own and needed a quick dinner. I pulled these out of the freezer with some woolworths select chips which are failsafe and voila 30 minutes later we had a super easy, very yummy dinner. I will definitely make them again and will come back and post a photo.

13/5 - Raw photo added, cooked photo to follow :)

This recipe is modified from the Honey soy stir fry chicken winglets recipe contained on ForumThermomix.

Ingredients

MARINADE
2 cloves garlic
60ml japanese soy sauce (1/2 MC)
2 tbs golden syrup
2 tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp canola oil.

1.2 kgs chicken wings

Method

Pretty much unaltered from original

To make marinade:

Place garlic in TM bowl on reverse speed 4 for 20 seconds. Remove skins from bowl and chop on speed 7 for 10 seconds (or until all chopped up). Add the rest of the marinade ingredients and mix on speed 5 for 10 seconds.

Add chicken wings (in 2 batches) and stir in TM bowl on reverse for 1 minute at spoon speed.

Place all coated chicken and remaining marinade into a bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight. Instead of putting them in the fridge I put them in the freezer.

To cook:

Place chicken pieces into TM bowl and cook on reverse, spoon speed on Varoma Temp for 30 minutes. Place Varoma on top.

Verdict

Wonderful! The marinade was subtle and did not overpower the chicken. The chicken was melt in your mouth - fall off the bone. My 3 year old who often doesn't eat much had thirds. Baby Kate loved the chicken and ate lots of it.

It is impossible to do takeaway when you eat Failsafe foods so this is as close to takeaway as we get. I intend on making up a couple of batches and always having a batch in the freezer for those nights when everything falls apart!

Failsafe note

I have read conflicting information on sesame seeds being low or moderate - my dietician says moderate, so just keep this in mind.

Also, soy sauce is high in msg/glutomates... I have challenged soy sauce and Kate is ok with it so I have some flavour in teh way of soy sauce back (yay) but this may not be appropriate for those who are particularly sensitive to MSG.

Thermomix choc chip cookies - not failsafe or dairy-free

I made these cookies using the recipe in the TM Everyday Cooking recipe book.

I usually make a batch of choc chip cookies each week for the non failsafe members of the family for snacks, school lunch boxes, etc and for when people visit.

These cookies were a lot more "puffy" than my normal ones (which are flat) and look nothing like the picture in the TM book which makes me wonder if they've used a stock image or if I did something wrong.

Hubby says they're not as nice as my normal ones but the kids like them and it is so easy to make them in the TM.

Next week I'll experiment with my normal recipe and see if I get flatter cookies as a result.

Failsafe varoma chicken dumplings

This recipe is modified from the Varoma Chilli chicken dumpling recipe posted on the forum thermomix site. As soon as my registration is approved I'll post this there!



Ingredients

Dumpling dough.
300g SR flour
100 ml of hot water
3 tbsp canola oil
Cold water, extra - I needed about 60 ml extra!

Add all ingredients to the TM bowl, turn dial to close lid position and knead for 2 min on interval speed.
After 1 min of kneading, check dough. If not coming together to form a ball, add 1 tablespoon of water. Carefully continue to add water until dough forms a ball. If too much water is added and dough becomes sticky, add an extra sprinkle of flour.
Turn out dough onto a floured surface or a silicon baking mat and roll to 1-2 mm thick. Use an egg ring to cut circles of dough. My circles kept shrinking and I had a lot of trouble till I started cutting them on mass and then rolling them larger with the rolling pin immediately before putting mixture in them.

For the last one I rolled mixture into a ball, flattened and then rolled thin. I think next time I would do this instead of cutting all those circles only to have to reroll them out.

Chicken filling
1 half chicken breast roughly chopped
3 spring onions, roughly chopped
1 ripe pear, peeled
1/6th purple cabbage, chopped roughly
1 celery stalk
1 T soy sauce

Place chicken, spring onions, pear, cabbage and celery into TM bowl and turn dial to close lid position. Pulse several times using the turbo button or until meat mixture is smooth.
Add soy sauce and pulse a further 2 times to combine. The mixture went a crazy purple colour!

Place teaspoonfuls of mixture onto dumpling circles. Fold dumpling dough in half to make a pasty shape and press edges with a fork to seal.



Place 500ml water into the TM bowl. Lay dumplings in the Varoma and place into position. Steam for 12-15 min on Varoma temp, speed 1.


The recipe gave the tip of steaming extra mixture as meatballs. This worked beautifully and I did some for Kate with neocate and amaranth mixed in.

Verdict
Made heaps - enough for all of us, very filling and yummy, plus enough for the hubby and Mr 6 for lunch tomorrow.

Next time
Making the circles was a pain - try rice papers???

Failsafe mayonnaise

This recipe draws on the recipe on p55 of Everyday Cooking and that on of 239 of Friendly Food.

Ingredients

1 Clove garlic
1 Egg room temp and separated
salt
2 t hot water
1 t citric acid
150 ml canola oil
100 ml peark juice

Method

Peel garlic: I used the tip from the Forumthermomix board o putting clove in on reverse, speed 4 to peel - worked a treat
My egg wasn't room temperature so I separated it and put the egg yolk, chopped garlic, salt, citric acid and water in TM bowl and mixed on speed 4 at temp of 37 for 2 minutes.

With blases rotating on speed 4 I slowly added the oil and pear juice. I didn't read the book correctly - I should have left the MC ON and this would have helped with consistent speed of adding. Did this over 4-6 mins.

Then added egg white and mixed for 10 seconds.

Verdict

It is a little runny but tastes delicious. Can't wait to make coleslaw with it.

Play-dough

Not really failsafe related - especially not the colouring (but a good use of all those colours in my cupboard!) We had kids coming over today so I made up a batch of play-doh using the TMX recipe on p168 of Everyday Cooking

Ingredients
250g water
100g cooking salt
1T cream of tartar
250g plain flour
20g cooking oil
Food colouring

I used olive oil (need to use it up as not failsafe) and 20g was too much. I'll use 15g next time and may need to go down to 15g. I needed to add more flour.

Method
Put water, salt, cream of T in TM bowl and heat for 5 mins at 60 on speed 3.
Add flour and mix for 40 seconds or until mixture combined and thick. Leave to cool
Set dial to closed lid position.
When dough is cool add the oil and knead for 1-2 minutes on interval speed

Divide into bowls and mix colour through

Verdict. Fantastic playdoh and so easy

Failsafe modified beetroot salad - Moderate salycilate

This recipe is adapted from p 39 of the TM Everyday cooking book.

My lovely TM consultant actually modified all the recipes at my demo so I could eat them - this is one she did and I have further modified.

Ingredients
1 raw beetroot
2 carrots
1/3 leek
1 golden delicious apple
1 stick celery
parsley (I only had a miniscule amount)
2 T canola oil
2 T water
1/2 t citric acid
celtic sea salt

Method
As per TM instructions.

Place all veg in TM bowl and chop on speed 5 for 3 seconds. scrape sides, add dressing ingredients and chop speed 5, 3 seconds.

Verdict
Delicious!
More parsley and add mung beans next time (my TM consultant did this and it was divine!

Note
It has "moderate" salycilates so very sensitive people may not be able to tolerate.

Steamed lemon chicken, rice & veges using the varoma (Failsafe recipe adaptation)

This was my first attempt at using the varoma and it was not entirely successful. My TM consultant told me you can cook a chicken and veg and rice all at the same time in the varoma and TM. I couldn't work out how so I did the chicken first and then the rice and veg.

I did some research first and drew on the following recipes for ideas regarding sauce and cooking methods:

http://thermomix-er.blogspot.com/2009/04/drunken-chicken-version-1-in-varoma.html

http://thermomix-er.blogspot.com/2009/04/soy-chicken-in-varoma.html

(1) Lemon Chicken

Ingredients
1.4kg free range chicken that needed to be eaten same day
1/2 cup pear juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 t citric acid
2 cups water
1 clove garlic (chopped in TM first)

Method
Combine all sauce ingredients in TM bowl and cook for 10 minutes at 100°C on reverse + speed 2.

Wash the chicken

Add chicken and sauce to a Glad roasting bag

Put chicken (in bag) in side Varoma

Put 1200ml of water in TM bowl and steam the chicken for 30 minutes at Varoma temperature on speed 2.

It did not look cooked so I cooked it for another 5 minutes. Took the chicken out of the varoma and left it to sit inside the sauce in the bag.

I then went and cooked the rice and veges. While these were cooking I cut the chicken open (after it had sat for about 20 minutes in bag. It was very pink and not cooked.

So, I chopped the chicken into pieces and after the rice was cooked I took the basket with rice out of the TM bowl and put the chicken pieces into the bowl, poured all the lemon sauce in and extra water)

I then put the TM on to Varoma Temp, speed 2 reverse for 20 minutes. I had the veges steaming some more in the varoma at the same time.

(2) Rice & Veg
I followed the TM instructions for rice and it came out perfectly. The vegs were on for the same time - 16 minutes - in the varoma and were still very hard. Next time I would cut them all a lot smaller so they cook faster. They ended up needing about 35 minutes.

Verdict

The meal was lovely, if late due to it taking longer than I had counted on. Veges were beautiful, chicken was lovely and moist.

Next time I will add an extra 1/2 t of citric acid to make it more lemony

I need to learn how to use the Varoma - I wonder if there is a chart around showing how long certain items need to be cooked for?

Vegetable stock concentrate - Failsafe version

This recipe is adapted from the vegetable stock concentrate one on page 17 of the TM Everyday cooking book.

I had altered the ingredients to make it failsafe. Note that parsley has recently been changed from "low" to "moderate" so very sensitive people may not be able to tolerate the parsley in this.

Ingredients
200g celery, roughly cut
3 carrots, thickly peeled, roughly cut
1 large spring onion bulb, halved (you can buy huge ones at woolies - they sell them individually as white globe onions)
1/4 red cabbage, roughly cut
1 Clove garlic
1 bunch parsley
150g celtic sea salt
1 T canola oil

Method
As per TM instructions.

Place all veg in TM bowl and chop on speed 6 - I had to chop for about a minute and use the spatula to get all the veg down and chopped (especially the cabbage)

Add salt and oil and cook for 20 mins at Varoma temp on speed 1

Mix by slowly turning the speed dial to speed 6 then pulverising for 1 min on speed 9

Verdict

It looks like the concentrate I saw at the TM demo, basically like a pesto. Smells great (and smelt divine while cooking) and tastes very salty! I will try it in a soup later and report back.

Soy chocolate custard

This recipe is adapted from that on page 155 of the TM "Everyday Cooking" book.

Ingredients
3 eggs + egg yolk left from sorbet
500 ml Bonsoy
60g rice flour (made in TM)
20g cocoa

Method
Place all ingredients in TM
Cook for 7 minutes at 90 on speed 4

Verdict

This was beautiful. It was very thick and somewhat floury - more like a pudding than a custard but delicious. And the first custard I've had since I went off dairy 6 months ago when Kate developed a problem!

Next time I will use less eggs I think.

Neocate White Sauce

This recipe is adapted from that on page 19 of the Guide to starting Neocate booklet

Ingredients
1 T nuttelex
1 T rice flour (made in TM)
60 ml water
2 scoops neocate

Method
Place all ingredients in TM
Cook for 3 minutes at 60 on speed 4

Stir through an extra T of water to make it more of a sauce just prior to serving

This made quite a lot of sauce and I mixed with rice, chicken and veges from our dinner.

Verdict

Kate liked it - she ate a fair bit and it seemed to hold the rice, veges and chicken together and make it more into a baby food meal rather than the meat and 3 veg meal it was for us (w/o the neocate white sauce)

Neocate custard

We are fortifying Kate's foods with neocate in order to try and get some weight on her. I want to keep breastfeeding her so the idea is to get neocate (an elemental non-allergenic formula) into her foods rather than giving in a bottle.

This recipe is adapted from that om page 18 of the Guide to starting Neocate booklet

Ingredients
150ml water
5 scoops neocate
3 teaspoons of rice flour (made in TM)
1 teaspoon of golden syrup

Method
Place all ingredients in TM
Cook for 5 minutes at 90 on speed 4

Makes 1/3 cup or enough to fill a small baby food jar

Verdict

Kate seemed to like it - ate half of it during the day and the rest after dinner when the kids were having their boysenberry sorbet

Failsafe chicken risotto

Ingredients:

1 leek
2 spring onions
40g canola oil
1 large clove garlic
1 whole chicken breast
2 stalks celery
2 T celtic sea salt
200g frozen peas
1 cup pear juice (250 ml)
1/2 cup chicken stock (125 ml)
400g arborio rice
725ml water

(total liquid 1100ml)

- chop the celery and put aside
- chop the leek/spring onions/garlic, and 40g canola oil and saute for 2 mins (100, speed 2)
- add chicken and saute for 5 minutes
- add celery, rice, pear juice and saute for 3 minutes
- add stock, water, salt and cook for 15 minutes, reverse, 1.5
- in last 5 minutes add frozen peas

This is a failsafe modification of the mushroom risotto recipe in the thermomix book

Verdict:

Delicious. Everybody enjoyed it. Will cook again. Added 2 scoops of elecare to Kate's and she ate all her dinner.

Fortifying Kate's food

We met with our dietitian today and decided to take the following steps to try and assist Kate with gaining weight:

(1) Fortify her food with elemental formula
(2) Give her 4 solid meals a day
(3) Make sure every meal has protein or good fats (eg Canola oil or nuttelex on veges or pasta)

So tonight I opened my first ever tin of formula! 6 and a half years of parenting and 3 children... I thought I'd escaped without formula but I am thankful to have neocate as an option and am very hopeful that fortifying her food will help her add on some grams, maybe even kilograms?

Weight tonight: 7.23 kg

My thermomix

Last week we were in Adelaide and my friend Jo started telling me about the thermomix that her friend Julia had. Throughout my days with Jo it came up again and again. Its a blender, a food processor, scales, it cooks. At first I wasn't particularly interested but the more I heard the more I started to wonder if this might be a huge help to me.

Julia was available our last night in Adelaide and came and did a demo. My husband and I were sold after the first course (actually I think we were pretty convinced just after checking the website)

The reason it is of such interest to us is our third child, Kate, has food intolerances. She is intolerance to dairy, salycilates and some preservatives (282, 320). Kate is 7 months old and I am breastfeeding her and so our whole family's diet has changed in order that I can continue breastfeeding her. I follow the failsafe diet (with moderate fruit & veg) and most of our meals come from the RPA Allergy Unit's Friendly Food cook book.

Kate has reactions to the smallest amount of preservatives in foods that I eat. We have found that me drinking the Aldi brand soy milk causes her issues whereas she does better when I drink bonsoy . This has led us to question everything we eat - what additives, preservatives, colours, etc does it contain? We now eat less and less prepared food and make more and more ourselves. Our 6 year old is not entirely thrilled with the lack of prepared morning teas for school, but otherwise we are all enjoying our improved diet.

We have hit a plateau with Kate's weight and are struggling to get her to eat more food and consume more calories, plus it is not easy for me to follow my restricted diet in order to keep my milk safe.

The Thermomix opens all sorts of possibilities for our whole family.

There are lots of Thermomix blogs around but her I am going to record my adventures with using Failsafe ingredients with the Thermomix.