Filling Tummies with Sausage and Lentil Hotpot with Mash

My apologies for being absent from my blog lately. My Hubby broke some bones in his foot at work last week and is out of action at the moment. I am flying solo on the home front and finding it hard to grab a moment for my blog. How on earth single mothers cope I have no idea.

Anyhow this recipe has been one of our family favourites this winter. I converted it from this recipe on taste.com.

Sausage and Lentil Hotpot with Mash

Ingredients

8 thin beef sausages (lean)
1 steamer basket full of diced potatoes (2cm dice)
20g butter
50g cream or milk
50g water
1/2 tsp chicken stock
1 large brown onion, peeled and quartered
2 garlic cloves, peeled
4 rashers bacon, rind removed, chopped into strips
1 can diced organic tomatoes
40g water
1 tsp chicken stock
2 dried bay leaves
1 can organic brown lentils, rinsed
1/2 cup Italian parsley chopped
salt and pepper

Method:

Place sausages in deep varoma dish. Place 4 sausages across the bottom and the other 4 on top of them but laying in the opposite direction.

Place 500g of water in the TMX bowl and insert the steamer basket (full of potatoes) into the bowl. Fit the varoma on to the lid. Steam for 22 minutes at varoma temp, speed 4.

After the cooking time check that the sausages are cooked and the potatoes are falling apart easily (cook for longer if necessary). Remove the varoma and basket. Empty the TMX bowl and insert the butterfly. Add the potatoes, butter, cream, water and stock and mash at speed 4 for 10-20 seconds. Scrape the mash into thermoserve and clean the bowl.

Add garlic and onion to bowl and chop for 3 seconds on speed 5. Add bacon and oil and saute for 3 minutes, 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.

Add the tomatoes, water, stock and bay leaves to bowl and cook for 10 minutes at 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.While this is cooking chop each sausage into 6-8 pieces.

Add the chopped sausages and drained lentils and cook for a further 5 minutes at 100 degrees, reverse speed 1. In the last minute of cooking add the parsley and season generously with salt and pepper.

Remove bay leaves and serve the sausage and lentil hotpot with the mash. Enjoy!

Filling Tummies with Sultana and Cornflake Cookies

This is the second recipe in my lunchbox ideas week. Check out my first recipe here.

I converted this cookie recipe from Taste.com to use up some cornflakes that I had bought for birthday party cooking. There are other thermomix cornflake cookie recipes about but I decided to convert one for myself using rapadura, spelt flour and homemade baking powder. These are currently our family's favourite cookies and our visitors this week have been loving them too.

Sultana and Cornflake Cookies

Ingredients:
125g butter, chopped and at room temperature
150g rapadura
1 tsp homemade vanilla extract
180g spelt flour
1 rounded tsp aluminium free baking powder
20g non-homogenised milk
80g organic sultanas
40g cornflakes

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line two trays with baking paper.

Add butter, sugar and vanilla to TMX bowl and cream for 40 seconds on speed 3-4.

Add flour and baking powder and mix until just combined on speed 3 (about 10 seconds). Add milk and mix for a further 6 seconds on speed 3.

Add sultanas and mix on reverse speed 3 for 5 seconds.

Add cornflakes and mix for 10 seconds on reverse speed 2 (or you can stir them in with the spatula if you want them completely intact).

Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls and place on tray. Flatten slightly.

Bake for 12 minutes. Cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Filling tummies with Fruity Puff Bars

My weekly baking routine now includes a "lunch box element" and I thought I would dedicate this week to sharing some of our favourite lunch box snacks with you. This first recipe is my adaptation of the LTM's (little thermomix munchies) from the Thermomix Lunchbox Booklet. Whilst my kids love the original version from the booklet, there is no way I would ever send them to school with the amount of sugar and sweetener that is in them. I was stunned to read earlier today that Mum's were even adding marshmallows into that mix. Surely those bars were not destined for school. Surely! All I can say is be kind to us poor teachers and to the poor kids trying to learn while they are "buzzing".

A big bonus of this relatively healthy wholegrain recipe is that it makes oodles. Today I wrapped up 16 decent sized bars from 1 batch. Imagine the cost of buying 16 organic LCM bars from a store. Yikes! It is pretty easy to see how the thermomix can save families lots of money each year just in muesli bars. Anyway here is my version of this recipe:

Fruity Puff Bars

Ingredients:

110g butter
90g rapadura
70g organic honey
1 tsp homemade vanilla extract
90g puffed brown rice
40g organic shredded coconut
70g dried sultanas, craisins or chopped dried apricots

Method:

Place butter, rapadura and honey into TMX bowl and heat at 100 degrees, for 6 minutes on speed 3. Add the vanilla extract in the last minute.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix for 20 seconds on reverse speed 3.

Scrape mixture into a baking tin lined with baking paper. Spread out and press down very firmly with hands (don't squash the rice but be firm).

Refrigerate and slice into bars when firm.

The original recipe says that these bars freeze fine. I have some bars in the freezer now and will report back how they go later in the week.

Cooking Up A Storm With Thermie!

I am so glad that last month is now behind us. June was a difficult time in our family with our little man sick for most of the month. The poor possum got really run down and suffered from gastro, two ear infections and a shocking head cold. That of course resulted in little sleep for Mum (you need your Mum when you are sick) and in the end I was so exhausted that I got sick myself. After my two bouts of gastro, a chest infection and a throat infection I was just praying for the month to end and for some better health in July!!!

As you can imagine I haven't been doing a great deal of inspirational recipe creating or converting lately and instead have been trying out the recipes of the talented members of forum thermomix. These are some of our favourites that we have sampled recently:

Megan's Tang Zhong Bread (The best bread I have ever made):

Cookie's Oat Rockies

Robyn's Date and Butterscotch Self Saucing Pudding

Judy's Honey Beef and Beans (sorry forgot to take a photo - too hungry :-))