Washing Up Apples.

I am loving Autumn.  But, I am not happy with the amount of wax found on our supermarket bought apples this week.  I have a coconut wash which is removing it.

Basil.

Turn up Some Turnips.

12 year old daughter grew these at school.  She found a recipe for turnip chips which we tried, using curry powder, tumeric and paprika with olive oil and baked in an oven.  They were tasty.

12 year old daughter tells me that these are radishes and that there was one turnip in the bowl.  Can you spot it?  It is slightly purple and longer than the radishes.

Salt.

I do not know why, but since we were married, we have numbered our salt bottles.
We are about to start bottle number 14 in almost 17 and a bit years of marriage.

Christmas Pudding.

We made our puddings yesterday at my sister in law's annual church event.  Such a lovely afternoon.
The pudding boiled for five hours and is now ready.  Auntie J made the pudding balls above for afternoon tea and saved some for the now 16 year old son, who is having his birthday today.

Herman Has Arrived.

Thankyou Mrs N, my portion of Herman German cake starter arrived today.  Day one!

The Daily Meal.

The challenge of planning meals:
-quantity
-variety
-nutritional value
-timing

I have a thermomix, pressure cooker and a slow cooker.  Also the stove top and oven.
Aunty L gave me a great recipe book for slow cookers and can also use these recipes in the pressure cooker.

I do think though that the family who are receiving these meals; should also be thankful for the effort and appreciative of the challenges.  This weekend, they need to be more involved with the meal preparation.

Chicken Noodle Soup.

Chicken and Noodle Soup.

Brown 2 full chicken breasts in the pressure cooker
Cook, high pressure 6 min with cut carrot and liquid stock (I use thermomix homemade) filled to capacity.
This time I also added fresh, cut chives.
Reduce pressure, add rice noodles and frozen corn bits.
High pressure 3 min.

Enjoy.

Thankfully we have leftovers as another child (12 year old daughter) now has the chicken pox.

French Chicken Pie.

Dinner last night; chicken pie - inspired by 12 year old daughter's choice after flicking through "At My French Table."

Chicken Pie.

brown 4 chicken breasts
add fresh chives, garlic
450mL stock (I used homemade stock from the thermomix recipes)
cook till softened (I used our pressure cooker)
add 2/3 cup of cream (I used lactose free)
cook till thickening
add corn flour

set aside to cool.

Put in pie dish and cover with pastry, bake till golden.

Apple Pie.

Delicious apple pie from the Thermomix community recipes.  The last of the apples from the mountains.

Stewed Apples, Produce From the Mountains.

Our annual trip to the mountains with local mums.  Thankyou husbands!

I bought a large bag of apples and used an apple slinky machine (thankyou Aunty L.) to get them peeled quickly.  Then cinnamon and cloves (thankyou Mrs N) and into the pressure cooker for 12 minutes wiht some water.  After they were done, I mashed them and have put them into containers into the freezer.

Coriander.

Bought in a large bunch for tacos.  Then a dilemma, as I did not know how to use the leftovers.  Collective, local mothers and their brains suggested gourmet pizza... chicken/mushroom/guacomale and coriander.  Success.  The final splurge: ripe tomatoes, coriander and balsamic vinegar.  Delicious.

Thinking About Helpers in the Kitchen.

Thinking, thinking.....

I have had this slow cooker for a while and use the insert more frequently than the whole set up as it cooks steak/mince beautifully on the stove top.

Crockpot lasagne and one of our soup recipes work really well in this... I don't enjoy the texture of casseroles or curries or even bolognaise in it though.

I have enjoyed this pressure cooker as it gives me great flexibility in that I can put a casserole on quite late and dinner will still be ready on time.  It makes fantastic chicken/noodle soup.

I am thinking about this though.  It does so many things that would well for our family: makes milk from almonds (and then you can use the almond meal for baking), sorbets (whipped up as you eat your main part of the meal), gravies, custards, pastry..... all done while I watch (or do homework/laundry etc).  I don't think that cooking casseroles or using the steam feature will factor greatly in my use, but I do think that I will use it for soups (it blends the soup itself), making stock, pancake/pikelet batters without lumps (wow!) and bread dough.  I would like to also make our own tomato sauce as I think one of our children reacts to the store bought variety and I would like to make ginger beer, which our family loves.  

Still thinking though, very expensive and would it be surplus to my requirements?  Not to mention the above 'tools' in our kitchen?

Birthday Month.

That was June.

Lamb with Roasted Vegetables.

A brochure at Coles inspired me to make a delicious dinner; lamb with roasted capsicum, onion and tomato; all drizzled with oil/lemon and garlic.  Delicious.

Our Spanish Onion is Growing.

More fun in the kitchen, look what we are growing!  Not intentionally of course.  I think it looks quite nice actually.

Roast Vegetables.

Roast vegetables have become a favourite part of a roast meat meal for me.  They smell so good.  I sprinkle rice oil over them and scatter salt and herbs.  Delicious.

Stollen.

I saw stollen in the shops and have bought one for husband E to nibble on.  It is not as good as the ones my mother finds, so we will wait for them.  I have also bought this cake tin, the stollen is inside!  It has the sort of Christmas scene on it that I remember from cards/wrapping paper when I was a child.

Under Pressure.

Aunty L recommended a pressure cooker to me.  I have bought one.  We can have risotto in six minutes and casseroles in 30 minutes.  She told me how to do a roast chicken in the pressure cooker.  These pressure cookers have a wonderful browning capacity.  I browned the chicken after stuffing it with lemon and thyme and seasoning it.
Then I added a cup of stock, more thyme and lemon and raised the chicken on a trivet.  It cooked for 30minutes.
I browned it a little again at the end of the cooking time.  It was delicious, very moist.
I love the fact that a proper meal can be thought of and prepared in such a short amount of time.

Onions.

Mum and Dad had been to the markets and brought lots of fruit and vegetables to our house, including these onions.  They smelt good.