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