Thermomix

So, I am totally repulsed by chocolate at the moment (as is usual for me in early pregnancy). It’s a strange feeling as I will see chocolate and have the urge to eat it, but as soon as I smell or taste it, remember how gross it is to me right now!  I’m making the most of it, as I know my chocoholic urges will hit me strong in a few months! 

 I am, however, loving anything creamy or buttery. Usually I couldn’t care less for cream, but now it is divine! Yesterday I made a vanilla slice in the Thermomix. Oh, it was SO good! Topped my usual vanilla slice over the stove recipe and was absolutely delicious. And 100 times easier to make in the Thermomix, as all you have to do it press a few buttons and walk away then you are left with a perfectly smooth, creamy custard filling. So, here it is. And if you don’t have a Thermomix, follow the usual method for making custard on the stove-top using the same ingredients. 

2 sheets frozen puff-pastry
120g sugar
400g milk
300g cream 
2 egg yolks
2tsp vanilla bean paste
40g cornflour
40g custard powder
60g butter

Preheat oven to 220 degrees celsius. Place puff pastry on baking trays and bake in oven for 10-12 minutes until just brown. Remove from oven and press down a spatula while still hot to flatten. Allow to cool.
Place sugar in TMX bowl, and grind on speed 9 for 5 seconds.
Add remaining ingredients and cook on 80 degrees for 15 minutes at speed 4.  Have a taste of the custard and if it tastes too floury, cook for another 5 minutes at 80 degrees.
Increase temperature to 100 degrees and cook for 7 minutes at speed 4.
Line a 25cm square tin with baking paper, so that it extends up all four sides of the tin. 
Trim pastry sheet to fit the bottom of the tin, and place in the tin with browned side facing up. 
Pour custard over pastry, spreading it out nice and smooth.
Trim remaining pastry sheet to fit top of the tin and place on top of custard with browned side facing down.
Refrigerate for 4-5 hours until completely cold (you can pop it in the freezer for the first 30-40 minutes to speed up the chilling process but don’t forget to take it out and place in the fridge.)
Spread top of slice with icing made from a little melted butter, icing sugar and hot water. Allow to set before removing slice from tin, cutting into slices and serving. 
Makes 16 large squares.        
 

I was listening to a cooking talk show on the radio one Saturday morning as I was driving to an appointment and heard about using canned tomatoes to make relish.  I looooove relish and always want to make it, but don’t want to commit myself to a large quantity at one time and always seem to miss the tomato season so when I’m finally ready to get around to making it the tomatoes are too expensive.

Lately I’ve been using my Thermomix to make jams, sweet sauces and homemade butter with success.  I love knowing exactly what is going into them and the taste is far superior to store-bought, mass produced products. So this got me thinking…using canned tomatoes + the Thermomix to make relish…I hunted around for recipes, but didn’t find anything that looked just right, so melded a few together and adjusted the taste once I’d finished cooking and have come up with a delicious Thermomix tomato relish recipe using canned tomatoes!  

Canned tomatoes are mega cheap…for 80c or 90c a can, you can make a few jars of relish for just a few dollars!  It is sooo tasty, we’ve been eating it on ham sandwiches, with crackers and cheese, chips, burgers and homemade sausage rolls.  I’m excited to have a quick, cheap and easy recipe to use now and it makes a great gift too.  This quantity of relish filled about 4 jars – they were all random sizes, but at a guess I’d say it makes just under 2 liters.  You could easily halve the recipe if you didn’t want to make as much.

2 x 400g cans tomatoes
2 large onions, cut into small cubes
1 apple, peeled, cut into small cubes
1 Tbs curry powder
1 Tbs salt
1 dessert spoon mustard
180g white vinegar
80g white sugar
60g brown sugar
1 Tbs cornflour 

Place all ingredients except cornflour into Thermomix bowl.  Cook on 100 degrees, speed 1 for 30 minutes. 
Make a paste with cornflour mixed in a little vinegar.  Add to relish and cook on 100 degrees, speed 1 for a further 1 minute.
Pour relish into sterilised jars and seal. (Relish will be runny, but will thicken on cooling).

(NOTE: Because I only make a small quantity of relish at one time, I’m not too pedantic about my jars.  To sterilise them, I half-fill them with water and place in the microwave for a couple of minutes, until the water comes to a rapid boil.)

This slice is my favourite.  It tastes amazing with a great crunchy texture, is simple to make and lasts for awhile (if you don’t eat it first!) and I guess you could justify this slice as being healthy with all that weetbix, right?!  I used this recipe from Taste, but didn’t make as much icing and sprinkled with 100s and 1000s instead of rainbow choc chips.  A great slice for the lunchbox as it is nice and firm and the icing sets completely so it travels well.

Oscar looooves cheese & bacon scrolls.  When ever I make a batch of these everyone complains because they are gone too fast – they really are super delicious (really, what bread fresh from the oven isn’t delicious?!). I made a batch this week so that they came out of the oven just as Oscar stepped off the school bus…talk about coolest Mum ever!

This is how I make them in the Thermomix – but I’ve been making them by hand or using the bread maker for longer than that.  I used to use the basic bread recipe in the Everyday Cookbook for all of my breads, but a friend shared this bread recipe with me and it’s all I will use now.  It does take a little longer, but the bread is much nicer and lasts way longer.