Pavlova baby!

For Mother's Day, I decided to make pavlova (I have a home delivery fruit and veg business and had a few passion fruit left over this week so that was what made me do it)

I have never made a PAV from scratch in my life... But it seemed to work well... Because I had a few random fruits, I made mini pavlova... And they were a hit!

The toppings we had were

Pineapple, manderin and passion fruit with whipped cream

Strawberry and banana with whipped cream

Strawberry and cream

And for me, malteasers and cream!

It was a pretty simple recipe 

Ingredients

3 egg whites

250g raw sugar

1 tsp corn flour

1 tsp vinegar 

Pinch of salt

Seasonal fruit

Method

Preheat oven to 150 degrees

Mill sugar for 3 seconds speed 9 and set aside 

Wipe out bowl (bowl needs to be clean or the egg whites won't whip up)

Place the butterfly in the mixing bowl.

Add egg whites and a pinch of salt to bowl and cook for 7 Min. 40° Speed 3.

After 3 Min. add the sugar, little by little over the next minute or two.

At the end, pour the vinegar and the cornflour in the bowl. Mix with Speed set on 2 for about a minute

Cover a tray with baking paper and spoon heaped dessert spoon portions on to paper

Cook for 15-25 mins and wala! You have mini pavlova!!

I used a fan forced oven... Each oven made need more or less time but you can kind of see when they are cooked!

They were super delicious! And a great way to use your fruit up!

Chicken and sweet corn soup

Tonight was my wedding anniversary... We went out for a big lunch as my awesome mother in law had the two munchkins for us... So come dinner time, we weren't very hungry... 

We couldn't agree on take out, so I looked in the fridge and seen egg whites that I forgot to take to the in laws to make the meringue yesterday... And then I seen the chicken and a crap load of corn (I have a fruit and veg business and had lots of corn left this week)

Hence the decision to have chicken and sweet corn soup.

This makes A lot! So we will be eating it again tomorrow night. But it was delicious and the closest I've come to making something that tastes like something from the Chinese shop.

Ingredients

1 420g can sweet corn (or 3 whole cobs de corned. I don't know the correct terminology for that so I hope you know what I mean)

1 300g can creamed corn

1200g water

20g olive oil

10g sesame oil

20g kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)

2.5cm fresh ginger (maybe 1 teaspoon crushed?)

2 chicken breast diced

1 small onion, peeled and halved

3 tablespoon corn flour

3 tablespoon water

2 egg whites (I used 6. Because it's what I had) slightly whisked

2 shallots, cut into 1 cm lengths

1 heaped tablespoon veg stock

Directions

Put ginger and onion in and cut speed 7 for 3 seconds

Add olive oil and sauté for 2 mins speed 1 @ 100 deg 

Add corns, water, chicken, sesame oil, stock and chicken and cook for 15mins @ 100deg

In the last 2 mins add the shallots, egg whites, sweet soy and corn flour

Honestly, this was delicious. We had some no name dim sims with it, using some additional sweet soy with fresh (spicy, thanks Emma) chilli and some toasted dinner rolls. It will def be a go to meal during the week for us!

Hope you all had a fab Easter! Let me know how this one goes for you!

Fish Friday!

Well, today in the Wonderful Land of Oz, it's Good Friday!
I'm not the biggest lover of Seafood... In fact the only seafood I eat is Calamari... So Good Friday for me is a bit of a fail in that area....
That said, i do love the Bread and Wine part of it ;)

Anyhow, today, i decided to make our own battered fish and salt & pepper squid.... And WOW, what a success it was. Mr Thermie's Brother come over this morning so i invited him to stay for lunch (boy, he was glad he did. He was actually willing to pay the $15 I told the boys they owed for lunch as a joke)

I even ate the fish. And that says ALOT.

So here is the recipe for the yummiest battered fish i have EVER had!

I used Fresh Basa Fillets from the local depot. 

Yields approx 12-15 cocktail size fish pieces.

Ingredients

3 Basa fillets, cut into 4-5 pieces each (i sliced down the middle and then halved the smallest side and cut the larger side into 3)
Batter
200g Plain Flour (plus extra to dip fish in)
1 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
300ml COLD water 

1. Place Flour, Salt, Pepper and Water into thermie and mix for 14 seconds on speed 8
2. Place batter in a bowl and put in refrigerator for around 20 - 30 mins
3. Once batter chilled, coat the fish in flour and then dip in batter.
4. Fry fish to 3-5 mins in hot oil (we used a deep fryer... unhealthy i know, but soooo darn nice!)

It is honestly the best fish I've ever eaten! 
Since there was the tiniest little bit of batter left, I loaded it up with Cracked Black Pepper and Sea Salt and dipped three calamari rings in it. Just as an experiment.
Looked like a pineapple fritter when i was getting it out of the fryer (which makes me realise... i have 2 whole pineapples here.... might try them battered later!) Anyhow, i decided to not eat the calamari as it looked a bit too battery.... Hubby came up and picked one up and took a bite (i'm still cooking at this stage)
He gave me a piece to eat to see what i thought.
It was Freaking Awesome.
Even he gave it a 10. Which is a pretty big deal!

Guess how we are having the remaining squid tonight? :)

Hope you all have a fabulous Easter!

Hermie and Me.

So i named my new machine "Hermie". because frankly it's not quite a thermie. Actually, it's no where near one.... I might rename it ermie. But let me outline my recent experiences for you....

So i tried cooking my super awesome Thermie chicken dish.
It Sucked. I don't understand what went wrong...
It Boiled over cooking rice. Yep. That Happened.

And My favourite.

I was making Pizza Dough... and it over heated. I actually had to throw out the dough, because it had started to cook. I also had to open the window to try and unstink the house of that awful burnt out motor smell. Which was so awesome in this heatwave we are having.
And because Pizza was on the meal plan that week (check out Budget Family Ideas on FB) i had to make dough. And i wasn't going to have time to do it after work... So i done it from scratch like they used to in the 1700's.

And what do you know. The fricking machine is still working. (Sad Face)

On the upside, I made my own bread today. and it was AWESOME! Too Awesome in fact. I ate way too much of it lol...

There will be more to come next week! It's just a quick update from me before i hit the hay!

Shall Blog you all soon x

****UPDATE****
the over heating isn't actually my favourite. I thought i might have already blogged this.
When i was cooking the stock, it burnt to the side of the machine. Like Charcoal. I actually can't get it off. Tried a brush, boiling water in it, elbow grease. Nada. Still there after 6 weeks. Awesome. 

Update from thermie land

Well, as it nears that fabulous time of year, my husband told me he has two surprises for me! My heart was racing! What letter do they start with??? 

His response?

T!

Oh be still my heart!?! 

"Is the next letter H?" I ask

Yes he responds!

This could mean only one of two things! He either got me a thermomix or that giant Thor totem from the cinemas!!!

Which did I want more? I couldn't decide! 

I look on the lounge...

There is a box... Not quite big enough to fit thor... But possibly a thermie!

I open it up to find.....

This.

 A no name imitation thermie. (Aka thermoblend)

I can't complain. I know we don't have the $2K we need to buy a thermie but it's still my aim! So anyhow as you can see, I have opened it and it is currently in my kitchen cooking some stock! So you will get to see a bit more action from my blog! First thing on the menu? That Chinese pepper chicken dish I have been craving (and failing to replicate in my fry pan!) but it does mean I *should* be able to whip up a mean sorbet for Xmas!!!

Merry Xmas to you all and keep your fingers crossed for me!

P.S. He got me the Thor totem as well! He is a good husband!

And i'm back...

Well after a bit of a break, I am Back!
If you follow me on facebook, you would have seen me post (a few weeks back) a pic of the Sticky Date and Custard... My Thermiexpert Julie had it on my list of Must Cooks, and boy was she correct!

The recipe is actually almost identical to the recipe i use, which was provided to me many many moon ago by the fabulous Kaz. But Gosh Darn It, Thermie whipped it up with so much ease! It didn't even take that long to bake in the Oven, but Mel Mel assures me it was because I was using a Gas Oven ... apparently we can't get Gas where we live unless we want bottles... Booooo :( 

So I went up to visit Mum with my kids for the weekend and invited Mel Mel and Jibbles up for Dinner... Made them the asian chicken thing and we had Sticky Date and custard for Dessert. Mum was super impressed with Thermie, and kept asking me what else can it do??? Mum was keen to cook bacon and eggs using Thermie the next morning, so I imagine when i get my own thermie, Mumsy will be down here testing it out :)

I will start uploading recipes once i have my own thermie, so any of your Thermomix Lovers be sure to follow me on facebook for the latest blog updates (www.facebook.com/thermieandme)

So my thermie Demo is on Sep 7 and i can not wait! I am trying to convince Mr MBBT it would be a good idea for me to become a consultant :) Anyone want to buy a Thermie? 

Home Made Yogo? Are you for Real?

Yes Thermie Lovers, I am.

Tonight we made Chocolate Custard and it was delllllissh! Miss Boo assisted in every step of making it, so of course, she thought it was the bestest thing ever.... Super easy to make and i simply got up half way through dinner and turned Thermie to Speed 4. 7 minutes later, we had Chocolate Custard...

It was super yummy, and again, super easy to make.

Here is the recipe:
150g raw sugar
50g bakers flour
500g milk
25g cocoa
2 eggs.

mix the sugar and flour on speed 9 for 20 seconds
add all other ingredients and cook for 7 minutes on speed 4.

Damn that was easy ;)

And in other exciting news, during my Google adventures today, i found recipes for Crumpets & Condensed Milk.... (Picture me sitting at my computer, Homer Simpson style with drool coming out my mouth... oooohhhhhhh sooooooo yummy)

So since i am only working 1/2 day tomorrow, i intend to make those two items... I have about 4.5kg of bakers flour left, so expect to see some carb loaded recipes next week!

I'm also headed to the nock for the weekend.... i think Thermie might come with me ;)