Not my gumdrop buttons!

Do you know the muffin man?
The muffin man?
The muffin man!
Yes I know the muffin man, who lives down on Drury lane.
 
Do a Google Images search for gingerbread men.  Now google gingerbread man decorating. Now try for Gingerbread men professionally decorated. Now can anyone tell me why they all look so bad? Is it some kind of tradition to decorate gingerbread men terribly? I dont understand? I was looking for ideas, suffice to say I didnt get any there.  Although I did find plenty of cartoon images of the Shrek Gingerbread Man, so thats what I went with.

                                                     my inspiration

I followed the recipe from http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/recipes/gingerbread-men/62806
Great recipe, super easy and delicious, then prepared the icing.  One egg white and around a cup of icing sugar.  It depends heavily on how large the egg was, so just keep adding icing sugar until the consistency is that of, well, icing.  How else do I describe it.  Sour cream consistency?  Separate into three and colour, I just used liquid food colouring, but if you need to add a lot of that to get your colour you may end up having to add a little more icing sugar.  Put the coloured icing into little piping bags, or if you cant make/dont have little piping bags then use snaplock lunch bags and you can snip a tiny corner off for piping.

 Then get to work.

 Build your army, then allow to dry for half a day or at least a few hours.

 I borrowed a cookie cutter that imprinted the buttons, eyes and mouth making it much easier to make them all the same!

Hot Chilli Woman, B B B Burn for me

I started a new job recently, Full time mum, part time thermomix consultant, and now also part time personal chef.  I cook from home, supplying daily meals to a family.  Its my dream job, I get to be at home with bubba K, and i get to COOK! Ive missed cooking soo much! When you are a chef, cooking is an addiction.  Nobody becomes a chef for the money, the wonderful working hours or conditions, the flattering attire or inevitable vericose veins awaiting us in the near future.  We do it because we are addicted to cooking and theres only so much we can eat ourselves.  Now ive got a reason to cook up a storm, literally! If you saw my kitchen around 5pm every evening when I reach critical mass on the dirty dishes front, you might actually think ive 'cooked up a storm'.
Anyway back to the new job, the first thing I made in preparation was some chilli oil.  Did you know the thermo is perfect for oil infusions? Hot oil infusions are best cooked between 110-120degrees C, and varoma temp is 114 so voila! 
Here is 150g peanut oil, a handful of chilli flakes, a clove of garlic and cooked varoma temp, 20 mins, speed soft.  At this point you can leave it to rest to cool, then strain it.  All the heat has now transferred from the flakes to the oil, and the colour too! But i left some in so sit at the bottom of the bottle, just for looks.
Now think of the possibilities, how about cinnamon oil? fennel seeds, vanilla, citrus peel, cardamom, star anise, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, garlic, your only limit is your imagination.....

The adventure continues...

Banana Bread vs Banana Cake

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Banana Bread vs Banana Cake

Whos knows the difference, I mean really?  Seriously there is nothing ‘bread’ about banana bread except that its cooked as a loaf and sliced and often toasted like bread, and delicious with butter.  But really, in my opinion its cake baked as a loaf….

Anyway, what happened to banana cake? Everyone stopped eating it, cafes stopped selling it, and along came the reign of the banana bread.  Well, Im here to say its over.  See ya later banana bread your time is done, and welcome back banana cake.  And what better way to welcome it back that with my very own 35 second cake batter recipe.  Guaranteed deliciousness!!!

And just incase you’re not done yet, ill include my banana bread recipe too :O)

Michelles 35 second Banana Cake!

2 bananas (approx. 200-250g total)

150g raw or white sugar

2 eggs

125g butter cubed

Speed 4, 20 seconds

100g buttermilk (or 100g milk and 1tsp white wine vinegar)

250g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

Speed 4, 15 seconds.

Bake 170-180 35-45 mins.  Time and temp will depend on your oven.  Check with a skewer, ready when skewer comes out clean.

Suggested Icing

40g icing sugar or 40g raw sugar milled on speed 9 for 40 seconds.

50g butter

80g philly

zest of ¼ lemon using a fine grater or zester.

Insert Butterfly

Speed 4, 20 seconds.

 

Michelle’s Banana Bread/ Banana cake LOAF!

200g Light Brown sugar

2 eggs

200g bananas peeled weight (approx. 2), broken roughly into quarters

280g Plain Flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 finger pinch of salt

1tsp bi carb soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger powder

140g unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 170, or 160 fan forced.

Place butter into TM bowl and melt on 37degrees, speed 1 until fully melted.

Remove to a separate bowl.

Now insert whisk and add to TM bowl the eggs and sugar.

Beat on speed 2 for 1 minute.

Add bananas through hole in the lid and beat for 30 seconds on speed 3.

Add all dry ingredients and mix speed 1 for 20 seconds.

Pour in melted butter and mix a further 20 seconds on speed 1.

Scrape into a baking paper lined load tin and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool to room temp, remove from tin and continue to cool in the fridge.

When cool, slice and eat either cool or toasted, both ways are nice lathered in butter.

Suggestion,

To change up the flavours, remove ginger and replace with mixed spice.

Banana can also be replaced with blue berries for a blueberry loaf, in which case I would leave out the spices and add a tsp of vanilla essence or a scaped vanilla bean. I would also sprinkle some berries into the tin before adding the batter, so they end up on the top of the loaf once cooked.

ThermoMixup: Thermomix in a commercial kitchen

ThermoMixup: Thermomix in a commercial kitchen: Here's a great video from a Canadian distributor about the many uses of the Thermomix in a commercial kitchen - it's used and loved by chefs...

Boab Nut Shortbread

                                                                                                   Photo by Ken Duncan
I dropped in on my Thermomix Group Leader Liz a few months ago, and she had just finished grinding boab nuts in the thermomix.  I found her in the backyard with the thermie plugged in and a fine pale powder everywhere!  I had been dying to try Boab since I saw a tv article on some farmers farming the actual tree as a 'vegetable'!. They plant the saplings and then once the tree is about the size of a large sweet potato, they are harvested and eaten in various ways.  Fresh with a crunchy, apparently water chestnut like flesh, or sliced up in salads, stir fry's or wherever you want a crisp fresh bite in a dish.  I am still yet to try the 'tree', and am dying to, but I was excited enough to get a container of the nut powder to experiment with!
Here's the thing though, it has taken me months to decide what to do with it! It was a small takeaway container, and the contents were so light it weighed 60g.  She had suggested custard which is what they love it for.  Tasting the powder dry, it was surprisingly tangy and citrusy, and I also wanted to make something that would really pay homage to the ingredients itself. ie keep it simple!  So I finally went with the simplest thing of all, shortbread.

60g boab nut powder, finely ground
280g plain flour
100g raw vanilla icing sugar, made by milling whole beans with raw sugar.
290g butter
pinch salt.

Follow as per normal shortbread recipe of your own, or as directed in the Everyday Cookbook.

I pressed out into a tart tin, baked until just starting to lightly brown, I took it a bit further because I had the nut powder a few months I wasnt sure if it goes stale.

Once out of the oven, score and cut if you want shapes, and allow to cool in the tin.

What did it taste like? Passionfruit shortbread.  The flavour of the boab nut is uncannily like passionfruit, when you just bit on one seed at the same time.  So theres that slight bitterness at the end, but barely.  Different, and delicious!

I took it to a Thermomix meeting at my GL's house and she loved it, and got so excited she gave me two more containers!  What to do with it next!?  As I had tasted the flavour of the first piece of shortbread, and thought back to her custard suggestion, I did actually have the thought, 'Pity I dont have any more or I would try making a Boab nut souffle'.  So I should probably honour my thoughts and follow through with that idea.

I will let you know how it goes!

Oh and btw, if you're wondering where to source Boab nuts from, as I was, I asked my GL where she got them from, and she said she picked them off the trees!  Up near Broome somewhere......

Thermie Yoghurt

Hi Guys,

Im so excited to announce my yoghurt recipe is finally mastered.  Thanks to some tips from my friends grandma!  I know it should be so simple but I didnt have any luck with the EDC recipe but this is my second batch in the photo and its perfect!!

So here goes

I used 99% fat free banister downs milk but the milk shouldnt matter, the more fat the creamier the yoghurt!

1 lt milk

2 tablespoons natural yoghurt containing cultures.  (I used brownes 99.7% fat free natural).

Heat the 1 lt of milk on varoma temp, speed 3 until it boils up to the MC.  This took about 8.5 minutes in mine.

Take the lid off and allow it to cool until the light reaches 37 degrees.

Pour it into the container you wish to store it in for eating, and add the 2 tablespoons of yoghurt, barely stirring, now put the a lid on it and wrap it in a towel and leave it on the bench 8 hours or overnight.

From here on store it in the fridge, eat it at will, and it will continue to set firmer, some watery liquid will separate from it, this is normal you can pour it off and use it as buttermilk or simply discard.  For greek style creamy yoghurt you want to hang it using a strainer and cheese cloth or clean chux for 12 hours in the fridge to allow as much of this watery liquid to drain out. To make labne cheese simply continue to hang it until its firm enough to roll into bocconcini size balls, delicious flavoured with garlic and herbs or marinated in a herb oil.  Or served sweetened too!

For your next batch remember to reserve 2 tablespoons from the previous batch.

If you like it sweet you can sweeten with sugar, agave syrup, honey, maple syrup, stevia, rapadura, fruit, or even make up a fruit syrup for example scrape the contents of 3 passion fruit or 60g fresh citrus juice into the tm bowl, add 100g raw sugar and 15g water and cook on speed 2 90degrees 3 minutes.  Strain out the seeds or leave them in.

Even when I buy the expensive bannister downs milk it still works out to be half the price of buying the yoghurt on special! If you score the 2lt milk for $2 it will cost you 1/4 the price!

Happy Cooking!
Michelle

More than one way to skin a cat

Ok slightly off on the title there, Im a cat lover really, but you know what I mean.  Tonight I'm making Fettuccine marinara and I thought I'd try and do it 100% in the Thermomix.  Usually my dinners are kind of half and half.  Usually involving Thermie + a pan to complete a meal.  Mostly I think because I'm a much bigger fan of pan fried protein than steamed, so nothing against good ol' Thermie.
There must be more than 1000 ways to make a good marinara, but I wanted it to be start to finish in Thermie, timed and delicious, and healthy too, so there was my task.

So here's what I did

1/2 a large onion
1 large clove garlic
1/2 chilli
Chop speed 7, 3 seconds
Add  1 Tbs olive oil
Cook varoma temp, speed 1, 4 minutes
Add 2 carrots (roughly quartered)
Chop speed 7, 5 seconds
Add 400g tin diced tomatoes or equivalent fresh (if using fresh, then puree again)
600g water
1 heaped Tbs tomato paste
2 Tbs TM stock
100ml white wine
1 tsp balsamic vinegar or pinch sugar
Good pinch dried herbs or 1 Tbs fresh
Cook 10 mins, 100C, speed 2



Add 450g fettuccine through the hole in the lid and set for 16 mins, varoma, speed soft, reverse.








Now prepare bottom varoma tray with assorted seafood and brocolli, and sprinkle with sea salt, fresh cracked pepper and a splash of good olive oil.

Occasionally push on the pasta so that the blades take it in, I play with the reverse button at this stage too so that the pasta doesn't get stuck together, but make sure its on reverse once it has all entered the bowl.

Once it gets below lid level check how much time is left on the dial vs how much time your packet instructions say.  Mine was 14 minutes which was perfect for cooking the seafood and brocolli.  If you were using quick cook or fresh pasta you would probably want to steam your seafood 5 minutes before adding the pasta so that its all ready at the same time.

Now sit your trays on top while the pasta is cooking, and stir seafood once, around half way.







The pasta will end up around the blades, as you tip in out use your spatula to turn the blades gently and the pasta will all just fall out.  Some of the sauce was a bit stuck to the bottom as I had cooked on varoma temp, but came off easily with a chux.

This will feed 4-6 easily and is too much for the 2lt thermoserver.

I have to say, I had my doubts, I always do.... Every time I cook something in the Thermomix that I have cooked hundreds of times before with more 'traditional' methods, I never expect the result to be as good.  But it was delicious.  Topped with a bit more diced chilli, bon apetite! (and meow).