Thermomix Degustation – Grainger Style

The idea started last year when I commented to one of my friends that I haven’t used my Thermomix as much as I should.

Terry, my friends husband said that they would invite us over one free weekend to have a Thermomix dinner, however 12 months on and we still hadn’t organised something.

Thermomix. Receta MiniMagdalenas (Photo credit: chocolatisimo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I thought I might have another Thermomix dinner party with a few friends, after mentioning to a couple of friends, it has now turned into a Thermomix Degustation dinner, Grainger Style.

One of our friends sells the machines, so I asked Margy what she thought of the idea and she thought it was fantastic, so I mentioned my idea to a few more people, ladies who don’t have a thermie, and they too were excited.

The general consensus was great idea, so I decided on a date 12th April (Terry & Marina were on holiday until 11th and so were Diane & Coleman) and we have other friends going away on the 16th, so the 12th was the date.

I sat down and went through the Everyday cookbook (the new one), wrote down a whole list of recipes that I thought we could cook easily.  I was short a few, so rang Margy and asked her to give me some ideas.

Between the 2 of us we came up with a fantastic menu for our degustation.  By this time, I had loads of people asking if they could come, due to space, unfortunately we had to limit the numbers to 28.  Including Greg and myself after the invites and responses we have 25 attendees.

We decided that we would have our dinner party at the club (MOFSC), however, I won’t go into details, but the powers that be decided to put up too many  roadblocks, in my opinion unwarranted, (they obviously did not want us to be there), so now we are having it at our house.  Since starting this, we have had that many people ask if they can come to the next one, so hopefully if everything goes well tomorrow, there will be plenty more to come, but we will have to limit the number to 25 if we have a sit down meal.

Greg set up all the tables and chairs last weekend, cleaned the windows and is generally being a good sport about the whole thing, given that he does not think much of the thermie.

I have spent this last week sorting out menus, ingredient lists and quantities, emailing all invited and asking for donations of food, that we require small quantities so that we  don’t have to spend a lot of money to buy stuff especially if we only need 50g of something.

I cant believe how generous everyone has been, I think that everyone has donated something to the mix

We now have 6 machines coming, wow!! I am sure it will be a fantastic evening.

We wanted to create and cook a large variety of food to be able to utilise the machine as much as possible, hence the degustation.

I have sorted out a few of the pantry items,both out of my pantry and some of the invited guests have given me their donations early.

Table cloths, table settings, the table pretties (balloons & marshmallows) organised by Shelley and Marina, meat by Margy, groceries by Greg & Lee, thermies, and accessories by Marina, Shelley, Margy, Lee, Michelle and Julie, name place  settings by Maxine,lots of donations from all of the other ladies.

Thanks girls.

Our menu for our inaugural Thermomix degustation :-

Cocktails

Midori Splice

Strawberry Daiquiri

Peach Bellini

Tropical splice daiquiri

Home made lemonade

Appetisers

Sundried tomato dip

Herb & garlic dip

Capsicum & sundried tomato dip

Chicken liver pate

Foccacia – dukkah

Pizza Bianca

Entrees

Chicken Valute soup

Pumpkin feta zucchini field mushroom

Herbal chicken hors doeuvres

Arancini with saffron aioli

Mains

Chicken Valute meal

Lamb rack with port sauce on mashed potato

Beef stroganoff & mashed potato

Curry chicken & rice

Mushroom risotto

Desserts

Sweet chocolate & strawberry pizza

Lemon coconut pudding

Simple almond cheese – dairy free ricotta cheese with quince paste

Sticky date pudding / butterscotch sauce & custard

Fruity berry dream

Grumpy’s beef; vegetable soup

We had some vegetable soup last night at Mindarie Marina out on the jetty, it was ver cold, one of our friends had made some vegetable soup and she shared it with all who were sitting out there in the cold with their beanies and nana rugs. It was just the thing to warm us up.
Might not look fantastic but tastes great, fills the hole and is nice and warm

 

Thankyou for a Beautiful Mother’s day

I spent a lovely mother’s day today with my Mum, my daughter in law, her mother, her future sister in law and her mother and it was a lovely day.

Granma and I caught the train from Mandurah into the city and walked to the Duxton to have high tea, we were nearly an hour early but it was lovely to just sit in the foyer and talk.

Our reservation was for lunch time and it was just lovely. I had a separate tier of food as I don’t eat cheese, but the selections for everybody were just divine.

I had texts from both of my boys, except 1 of them sent me a text first wishing me a happy birthday and then remembering it was mother’s day, I was lucky and got another one, stating “Mother’s Day“.

I also got a beautiful bunch of pink roses from my lovely daughter in law.

Thankyou ladies for a lovely day.

Lee’s Chilli sauce made in the Thermomix

Ingredients
250g onions (I used brown onions)
60g ginger skin removed (I used 1 whole piece)
1 large bulb garlic
500g chilli (weighed after tops removed) (I used chillies out of our garden and bought the rest)

1kg tomatoes

80g raw sugar
1 tsp salt
75g apple cider vinegar

Large handful of basil
We Love chilli sauce and it is one thing that Grumpy doesn’t have an issue with me making in the Thermomix.

I collected a pile of chillies from Grumpy’s chilli plants and a large handful of basil from my herb garden and bought the rest of the ingredients to make my chilli sauce. We tend to use a spoonful of the chilli sauce in most meals that we make, and boy does it give the meal a kick

Chillies from Grumpy’s garden

My finished jars of chilli sauce

 

Preparation

Put basil, onions, ginger, garlic, chilli and tomatoes in TMX bowl.

Chop on speed 7 for 10 seconds.

Cook for 3 ½ minutes on 100°C
Add sugar, salt and vinegar.

Cook for 45 minutes on Varoma temperature, speed 1.

Put rice basket on top to prevent spitting everywhere

Halfway though cooking time, scrape down TMX lid and put liquid back in bowl

Sterilise your jars while the sauce is cooking

Pour into sterilised jars

Leftovers for tea on Monday

We had leftovers for tea last night after our BBQ with our friends.

I had chorizo, cherry tomatoes, onion and bacon, so I thought I would roast it all with my salad dressing over the top. The dressing is made of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sesame seeds. Grumpy cooked the sausages on the BBQ outside, and because I am such a princess, he cut mine in half and cooked both sides until the middle section gets crunchy. When he was finished we had the tomato mix, left over potato salad, sausage and a boiled egg.

 

Cryovac spaghetti Bolognaise for tea

Grumpy had to take the loan car back to the service place so I took the little girl to the park to do her business and then Braandi and I were going to have a swim in the canal so I needed to have a quick and easy meal, so I suggested spaghetti bog.
I took one of the meals that I had cooked in the thermomix a few weeks ago and cryovaced out of the freezer and put it on the sink and went and had a swim.
I used some fresh basil from my little herb garden and some of my chilli sauce.
I need to make some more as we are nearly out.

I’d’ve using fridge leftovers for Monday 21st January 2013

Leftovers. It’s nice to be able to clean out the fridge  and use leftovers
Grumpy bought some pork fillets and I decided to.make.wedges, tomato and onion with.honey.carrots.
I had made some pistachio dukkah for Grumpy’s birthday, so I used that along
with lemon pepper and BBQ seasoning along with olive oil as the coating for the wedges. We had potatoes in the fridge, so we used some of them.
I had 6 cherry tomatoes, half a red onion and 1 slice of ham, so I used a small amount of the dukkah and some olive oil and roasted them and he wedges in a very hot oven.
I julliened Some carrots, sprinkled some honey and sesame seeds.
All in all, it was a.ver nice meal and the only expense today over leftover fridge items was the meat at $9.35.
I even had enough for lunch tomorrow.

Today’s funny Saturday 15th December 2012

MORNING SEX –

She was standing in the kitchen, preparing our usual soft-boiled eggs and toast for breakfast, wearing only the ‘T’ shirt that she normally slept in.

As I walked in, almost awake, she turned to me and said softly, ‘You’ve got to make love to me this very moment!’

My eyes lit up and I thought, ‘I am either still dreaming or this is going to be my lucky day!’

Not wanting to lose the moment, I embraced her and then gave it my all; right there on the kitchen table.

Afterwards she said, ‘Thanks,’ and returned to the stove, her T-shirt still around her neck.

Happy, but a little puzzled, I asked, ‘What was that all about?’

She explained, ‘The egg timer‘s broken’

English: A colour-changing egg timer for boiling eggs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Response from planning department query

We have received the following response from the shire, and it has now raised further questions that are yet to be answered.

Hi, yes you’re right, the upper floor windows do provide adequate surveillance to the street, its just the highlight to the entry hall and how this presents to the major Road – could they consider windows like those to the dining/living instead?

Our response to this query is as follows:

Good morning

I have spoken with the owners about the issue you have raised.

The major road presents a few issues for the owners. They want to keep road noise to a minimum and also have greater security. Due to the foot traffic past their home they, like the neighbours opposite, intend to build a rendered brick fence along the major road elevation. This will increase security and privacy for the home and make any additional windows to this wall irrelevant.

Although the major openings from a habitable room overlooking the major road are on the second floor (Main Bed & Bed 2) I can’t see how this is non compliant with the R-codes and warrants a design change. The clients have insisted upon the window positioning as it currently stands as privacy and safety from such a busy road is important to them.

Please take the above information into account when you begin the major assessment of the application.

We have yet to receive a response.

 

 

First curry that I enjoyed.

Masterfoods Mild Chicken Tikka Masala

 

Today we cooked Masterfoods Mild Chicken Tikka Masala – using the packet spice mix/ recipe base and I thoroughly enjoyed it, so far as to say, I have added it to my cook again list.

I cooked the rice in the Thermomix, a little disappointing as I have cooked rice in it before and it has cooked beautifully, this time there were patches of rice still crunchy. I put it back on to cook for a further 2 mins, turned out ok, but not overly happy

I made the recipe as is on the pack but would tweak a little next time and add onion and red capsicum.

I cooked the chicken in the pan on the stove, however, had Grumpy not been hovering I would have cooked it in the Thermomix and put it in the Thermoserver.

We both really enjoyed it.

I have not wanted to make curries, in fact never made a curry that is not with beef mince and curry powder and when we have that type of curry, we have condiments on top, peanuts, sultanas and dessicated coconut.

 

Ingredients

2 tbspn vegetable oil – we use olive oil – EVOO

500g lean chicken thighs diced

40g Masterfoods Mild Chicken Tikka Masala Mix

½ brown onion sliced – would add next time

¼ cup red capsicum sliced – would add next time

140g tomato paste

400g tinned tomatoes

125ml thickened cream

1 ½ cups cooked rice – we use basmati

Preparation

Cook rice

Heat oil in pan and cook chicken until browned

Sprinkle the recipe base over the chicken and continue to cook for another 2 mins stirring until coated

Add tomato past and tinned tomatoes and stir to combine

Add cream and simmer on low heat for 10 mins or until sauce thickens

Serve with Rice