Friday 27 April 2012

Recipes Galore

I've been spending too much time eating & Facebooking instead of blogging and sadly this means less posts. I tend to cook a number of favourites often or variations - i.e. Pumpkin soup: Thai curry pumpkin soup, Sweet potato & butternut pumpkin soup, Ironbark pumpkin soup (I hate peeling pumpkin). Also Borscht or just beetroot soup variations - with carrots, raddish, Spanish onion, cream, sour cream, TM Butter. Soups are so easy when you have limited time. That and baking cheese & vegemite scrolls. These are all sort of average easy recipes plus it all looks average :( Shall have to try something novel this weekend.

On a side note: why I'd make a very bad vegetarian/pescetarian:
I've been trying Meatfree Mondays / Meatless Mondays & Pescetarian Tuesdays (sadly my alliteration skills failed to follow the high steps of Paul McCartney). I tend to make up for it on other days... Oh and damn, I've got a Mondo's Cooking Class on next Monday - which breaks my 2 week Meatfree Monday :(

 But do not be discouraged by my lack of posting food p0rn my limited readership - here's something to spice up your Thermomix kitchen:
 Where can I find more Thermomix Recipes?

If you think I've run out of ideas, don't worry - click on the link and take a step outwards and discover more ways to use your Thermomix!!!

The more advanced bloggers have more professional food p0rn!

Tuesday 10 April 2012

Quick update: life, love & manic-depressive mayhem

The Vegan Boy and I broke up near the end of March. Found out I have atopic syndrome or commonly known as hyperallergic. No this is different from being a hyperchondriac thank you! This means, I may have allergic reactions to food stuff unexpectedly. So I'm not really allergic to prawns or shellfish or pollen. I can just be allergic to anything! YAY! Great medical discoveries abound, I'm slowly developing a fear of being allergic to something while out eating. Oh, and then my day job became a lot busier - hence the post title. Yup, no excuse. Actually it makes not much of a difference to my TM adventures. I am a self-confessed stress baker - see the previous posts on bread and hot cross buns. Plus I have been cooking LOTS, just not keeping up with the blog posts. Photographing less of the stuff I cook, I tend to forget during teh cooking process and only have "end results".

Shall post up some of the stuff cooked in the last week - Easter being a holiday, I took a break too! From the Internet.
  •  I've done several cocktail slushies over the weekend out of town with some friends *(we were so busy drinking it and having fun that I don't have pitures of it except with people holding the glasses drinking!)
  • Made my own butter! (EDC recipe)
  • Made Hollandaise sauce using the said 'fresh' butter! (EDC recipe)
  • Soffritto in the TM (my way... sadly over estimated the amoutn of liquid which results from soffritto and ended up cooking on the stove anyway)
  • Pizza dough (I am proud to say I followed the EDC recipe to the letter!)
  • TM'd my own cheese blend for the pizza
  • Made a garlic & chives cream cheese dip (minor variation to herb dip - I really don't like parsley)
  • re-made the mushroom soup, again with my variations (using the TM butter and additional cream)
I have my first demo coming up soon! Quite excited, trepidated and well, in general hoping everything runs well without major mishaps that's all.

Just because I'm no longer in a relationship with a vegan is no excuse not to explore alternate healthy food option where I can. In the plan for this month:
  • re-doing the chilli mussels sometime this month, it was fantastic except for the washing of the mussels - anyone know an easier way to de-beard and clean these things?
  • the char siu pork recipe to be tested
  • gluten free scones (I'm thinking will cheat and use pre bought gluten free flour and then do this recipe again with TM made gluten free flour)
  • pineapple sorbet
  • try a pasta recipe my "I'm not picky" father will eat.
  • Brazil Nut & Banana Brownies (vegan & gluten free)
  • tempted to try TM Milo (two links, I've yet to find the original post by Cathy), I think I'm missing the Rapadura. I didn't know the 'English' term for it until now.
I think that's all ambitious enough for the rest of the month - to be juggled with my day job and other social commitments. It's definitely hard to juggle the pre-existing life/free time with being a consultant. Some days I just want to 'vegge out' and do nothing and I find that I can't *sigh*. Ahhh commitment... I'm so c-phobic. Wish me luck!

What are you cooking this week?