Filling Tummies with Homemade Goodies!

Last week a friend and I went along to listen to Cyndi O'Meara speak in Devonport. Even though I had already heard Cyndi speak before it was really enlightening to go and listen to her again. As much as I love my thermomix it was nice to just listen to Cyndi speak without the accompanying thermomix demo. Listening to Cyndi I felt really proud of how far our family has come on our healthy and whole food journey and I felt inspired to continue further down the path. I felt so emotional when Cyndi revealed her tragic family circumstances which have impacted on her life and made her so passionate about helping others lead wholesome and chemical free lives. You can listen to her interview with Richard Fidler about her family here online here.

The evening reminded me once again why I need to make most of our food from scratch. I had honestly forgotten quite how frightening many of the prepared foods out there really are and how little protection our food authorities provide us here in Australia. I must admit that I am a little sheltered from it all now though. I do my very selective grocery shopping online through Biodistributors and Coles Online and my orders are delivered to our home each month. No need to tackle the stupidmarkets :). My only regular food shopping trips are to our organic farm shop and our local fruit and vegie store. Yesterday I got a rather rude little shock however when our Coles online order was delivered.

Nestled amongst the red lentils and canned tomatoes was a little Kellogg's LCM 4D choc bar. A free sample. As quick as a flash I whipped it out of the crate (before it was spotted by my boys) and put it away for later inspection. Later when the boys were busy playing I snuck it out to have a peak at the ingredients. While some people would no doubt be caught up reading the protein, fat and calories on the packet, I now just read the ingredients. Had I not been to see Cyndi last week I may have been shocked, but I knew what to expect. Check out the ingredients of the Kellogg's LCM in comparison to my homemade LCM's.

Kelloggs LCM's 4D Choc

Ingredients: Rice Bubbles (32%) (whole white rice, sugar, salt, barley malt extract, vitamins [vitamin C, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, folate], minerals [iron, zinc oxide]), glucose syrup, fructose, dark chocolate chips (8%) (sugar, cocoa mass, milk solids, cocoa butter, emulsifiers (322, 492), flavours), milk chocolate compound (8%) (sugar, vegetable oil, milk solids, cocoa powder, emulsifiers (322, 492), flavours), invert sugar, hydrogenated soyabean oil (antioxidants (320, 306, 304), sugar, glucose solids, cocoa powder (1.5%), skim milk powder, humectant (glyercol), gelatin, (beef), flavours, emulsifiers (soy lethicin, 472e), salt.

My Homemade LCM's - Fruity Puff Bars

Puffed brown rice, butter, rapadura, organic honey, homemade vanilla extract,organic shredded coconut, dried sultanas and craisins.


You have to ask when this craziness is going to stop. Food should be made in a kitchen using real ingredients and not in a laboratory using rubbish!!!

Filling Tummies with Chow-Mein

I loved my Mum's chow mein when I was growing up and I still love it today! Such an easy, cheap and nutritious meal. This winter I set about converting Mum's recipe for the thermomix and found that it wasn't quite as straight forward as I was expecting. It took me four attempts to convert Mum's chow mein recipe and get it to the stage where it was "just like Mum's". I found a suitable replacement for the packet of chicken noodle soup (we don't do packets :-)) and I eventually found a way to cook the cabbage so that it didn't mush up in the bowl. This is a complete meal and I serve this with just a buttered roll or bread on the side. This recipe utilises the bowl and varoma and makes enough to feed a large family.

Chow Mein

Note: I used red capsicum instead of celery in this batch.

Ingredients:

1 60g cake vermicelli noodles
1 stick celery, roughly chopped
1 large carrot, roughly chopped
1 onion, quartered
1 cup green beans
40g organic olive oil
500g mince
80g rice
1 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
1-2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp vinegar
1 rounded tbsp homemade chicken stock paste (2 tbsp of commercial powder)
650g boiling water
2-3 cups shredded cabbage

Method:

Add noodles to bowl and chop on speed 7 for 10 seconds. Set aside.

Add celery, carrot, onion and beans to bowl and chop for 3 seconds on speed 5.

Add oil and saute for 3 minutes, 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.

Add mince and saute for 5 minutes, 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.

Add remaining ingredients to bowl. Add cabbage to varoma dish and fit on thermomix lid. Cook for 15 minutes, varoma, reverse speed 2-3 (keep it moving so that it doesn't catch on the bottom at the high temp).

To serve I spooned the cabbage into bowls, added the meat mixture and mixed them together a little with a fork. You could tip them both into a large bowl and mix it through that way though.

Enjoy!

Filling Tummies with Creamy Garlic Prawn Risotto

Hubby and I decided early in the week that we would take the boys out for a nice meal tonight. As the week progressed however we struggled to think of a family friendly place that we could go and enjoy a nice meal together. As much as we love our bouncing bundles of joy, they aren't exactly the easiest little people to take out to a dining establishment that doesn't include an indoor playground! By Thursday night Hubby suggested that we instead buy some nice seafood and cook ourselves a special meal at home. Having a thermomix (and a dishwasher) really does make it easy to cook a nice, restaurant quality meal at home. So that's just what we did!

This morning Hubby set off with our eldest son in search of some nice seafood and returned with a bag of lovely prawns. Hubby suggested a garlic prawn risotto and I immediately set to work to find a recipe to convert. I certainly wasn't disappointed with our converted version of this recipe. It was absolutely heavenly and would make the perfect dinner party entree or main. I think this may be my best conversion yet!

Creamy Garlic Prawn Risotto

Ingredients:

1/2 cup parsley
50g Parmesan
3 spring onions quartered (green and white parts)
2 cloves garlic (decent size cloves)
40g butter
350g aborio rice
50g white wine
900g chicken stock (I used 900g water + 3 tsp homemade chicken stock paste from MWOC)
400g prawns (medium green prawns, shelled and cleaned)
60g sour cream (optional but yummy)
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper - generous

Method:

Add parsley and chop for 5 seconds on speed 6. Set aside.

Add Parmesan and grate for 5 seconds on speed 8. Set aside with parsley.

Add garlic and spring onions and chop for 5 seconds on speed 5.

Scrape down sides, add butter and saute for 2 minutes, 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.

Insert butterfly. Add rice and wine and saute for 2 minutes, 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.

Add stock and cook for 14 minutes, 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.

Add prawns and cook for 1 minute and 30 seconds, 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.

Add sour cream (in small blobs), lemon juice, Parmesan, parsley, salt and pepper and mix on reverse speed 2-3 for 5 seconds.

Place in thermoserve and let stand for approx 10 minutes.

Enjoy!!!

Notes:

Don't be tempted to add the prawns earlier. They continue to cook in the residual heat of the thermoserve and don't need any longer cooking in the actual thermomix. They are easily overcooked in the thermomix.

MYOC is the "My Way of Cooking" thermomix cookbook. The chicken stock paste from it is really lovely and very easy to make.

Filling Tummies with Cheesy Tuna Strudels

Recently I was on a hunt for tuna recipes on forum thermomix (and more specifically tuna recipes that don't taste like tuna :-)) and I came across a recipe that I had converted and then completely forgotten about. Fancy forgetting one of my own recipes! It has recently received some great reviews on the forum so I decided to try it again. I made it tonight but with some rather big substitutions. I did have the carrot but replaced the capsicum, celery and shallots with onion and broccoli. The verdict tonight was unanimous. Yum! Even if you aren't a big fan of tuna I would recommend giving this one a go. It is tasty, easy and very economical.

Cheesy Tuna Strudels

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

3 sheets frozen butter puff pastry
1 egg
150g tasty cheese
handful fresh parsley
4 shallots roughly chopped
1 medium carrot roughly chopped
1 stick celery roughly chopped
1/2 red capsicum roughly chopped
425g can tuna in spring water, drained
150g cream cheese cubed (or in half tsp size blobs)
3/4 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper to taste (I use lots of cracked pepper)
1 tsp poppy seeds (optional)

Method:

 Preheat oven to 180o and line trays with baking paper (enough trays to fit 3 half sheets of pastry on them).

Lay pastry sheets out on bench to thaw.

Separate the egg, placing the egg white in one cup and the yolk in another cup (beat the yolk lightly).

Place the cheese in the TMX bowl and grate for 3 seconds on speed 8. Set aside.

Without rinsing the bowl add the parsley, shallots, carrot, celery and capsicum and chop for 3-5 seconds on speed 5 (until it is a finely grated texture).

Add half of the grated cheese into the TMX bowl with the vegies. Also add the curry powder, salt and pepper, cream cheese and tuna (flaking it slightly as you put it in). Mix until well combined on reverse speed 3 for 7 seconds.

Cut each pastry sheet in half, length ways. Spread the tuna mixture (in mounds) over 3 of the pastry pieces leaving a 2cm border around the edge. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the tuna mixture.

Brush the edges of pastry around the tuna filling with egg white.

Cut 7cm-diagonal slits (about 3 cm apart) down the remaining 3 pieces of pastry to form the strudel tops. Carefully place these on top of the tuna mixture (the bottoms) and seal by pressing the edges together.

Transfer the strudels to the prepared trays and brush the tops with egg yolk. Sprinkle with poppy seeds if desired.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until pastry is puffed and golden.

Cut into slices and serve.

Notes:

This recipe is based on a Better Homes and Gardens booklet recipe.

The mix is really yummy and some clever forum cookies have even been using it for a dip.

I forgot to do diagonal slits as you can see in the photos.

Filling Tummies With Chicken Stock

As I posted previously June was a pretty horrid month in our house with the kids and I battling head colds, gastro and ear, throat and chest infections. Throughout the month my poor Hubby was a regular shopper at our local pharmacy stocking up on tonics and tablets. We tried all sorts of medicines and supplements to boost our immune system but nothing helped. One Saturday morning toward the end of the month (when I was at my wits end) I asked Hubby if he could go into town again for me. He no doubt expected to be heading back to the pharmacy so you can imagine the look on his face when I asked him to go to the butcher and buy a big bag of chicken necks and wings!!!

That morning I knew what we should have done weeks ago to boost our immunity. We needed to make chicken soup. Not the chicken soup that comes from a packet or a tin. Not even homemade soup made with chicken fillets, stock powder and noodles (although that is very yummy). We needed to make real chicken soup from real chicken stock. We needed the goodness of real stock that has been left to simmer all day and is filled with the rich minerals from the bone, cartilage and marrow. That night we ate our chicken soup made from real stock and the flavour was so incredibly intense and so incredibly divine. I could taste the goodness and could feel it doing me good. Nourishing Traditions quote the South American proverb which states that "good broth resurrects the dead". Whilst I wouldn't quite go that far, I know that our chicken soup healed our family far more than anything sold in the pharmacy had done.

Here is our recipe for chicken stock (adapted from Nourishing Traditions). You will note that it is a stove top recipe. Little thermie had a rest that day (until we used it to make the stock into this soup for tea).

Highly Nutritious Chicken Stock

Add the following to a large stock pot:

1kg bony chicken pieces (necks, wings etc)
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 large onion, chopped roughly
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped roughly
3 celery sticks, chopped roughly
1.5-2L water

Let this sit unheated for 30 minutes before bringing to the boil. Remove scum. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 6-8 hours. Add a bunch of parsley 10 minutes before finishing the stock. Strain the stock carefully and refrigerate. Remove the fat from the top as it congeals. Freeze in small portions if desired.

I would love to be able to say that I make this type of chicken stock all the time for my cooking, but sadly I don't have time. This is a special stock that we have when we need a boost and for my general cooking I make the chicken stock paste from My Way of Cooking (Thermomix cookbook). It is a flavoursome paste that keeps well and the recipe for it can be found in this thread of forum thermomix).

Filling Tummies with Wintry Soup

As I child I wasn't overly fond of soup, despite my Mum making many delicious varieties. My taste buds changed entering adulthood however and I am now very partial to a warming bowl of soup on a cold winters day. Of course having my thermomix helps as preparing soups is now ridiculously easy. I make a jug of soup several times a week during winter and we often have it for lunch with fresh bread rolls or toasted sandwiches. It is a great way to use up vegies in the fridge and get the boys eating nutrient-packed vegies such as cabbage and broccoli. Some of our favourite soups this winter have included:

My Curried Pumpkin and Lentil Soup (I often make this with sweet potato)

Winter Soup (My Way of Cooking - Thermomix Cookbook)

Judy's Thick Broccoli and Cheese Soup

Sullygirl's Cauliflower and Bacon Soup (see tweaks in thread under recipe)