The start of a beautiful friendship...

I've never really had much time for a hobby...well so I thought...
And although I love to cook and try lots of new recipes you kinda have to cook to survive right so I only count that as half a hobby.

I love art, but you need to have room and the time to really put into it...I love crafts but most of them are a little useless. My mum tried to teach me to knit about 6 times and it just never got the hang of it...I assumed crochet to be just as hard, which saddened me as i loved the look of it....until one day when a friend told me to bring her a hook and some yarn and she'll teach me the basics. Was pretty confused by that first lesson but i went home and watched a tutorial (thanks Mikeyssmail ) about 50 times...watching...pausing...rewinding and watching some more, and i created my first granny square.

I was as proud as punch but wasn't sure why it was lopsided haha...oh dear..I did finish it at 1am...

The next one was much better

And I've been literally hooked from that day onward! 

About 6 months down the tract my first (proper) granny square became a blanket! I got sick of making squares so thought I'd make a huge square for the center and just use all the little ones around it.
I started it with real wool but struggle to get anything other that acrylic here...so it took a while.

Boy I'm glad that is over...my little nephew scored this one.

And the great thing about crochet is that it's portable. I spend a lot of time in airports and on planes. And it passes the time nicely. I don't even mind watching Friday Night Football with the hubby anymore...AND it is useful! I've made hats, blankets, toys, scarves, slippers and more! Mostly as presents....and who doesn't like a hand-made-with-love pressie!!

Have you even crocheted...? Or wish you could...?

Yes it's been a while...

Ok, so it's been a while since my last post...almost exactly 2 years to be precise. But it's been a crazy 2 years...moving from Sydney to Malaysia being the biggest change.

We're now in the city of Johor Bahru, right on the border of Singapore and Malaysia. We've been here nearly a year now, boy how time has flown. And I am so so glad that I bought my Thermomix with me! Saved my life and my health for sure!

YES the food in Malaysia is AMAZING but if you ate it everyday you'd be the size of a house in no time and eventually as sick as a dog...why don't they cut to the chase and just deep fry balls of MSG and drench them in sugar and be done with it...because that's how they roll here.

Needless to say the way we eat is very different from back home in Sydney, but that's been half the fun in many respects. As usual I make most of our food from scratch but with the different fresh foods available and the different need we have here I'm always learning and searching for new things.

For example making Saurkraut for our gut health as not much else is readily available here. 

Laco-Fermented Saurkraut with red cabbage and Oregano 

And I've got a jar of pineapple vinegar brewing in my wet kitchen...pineapples are only AUD80cents here so I thought I'd give it a go seeing vinegar isn't very popular here.

So if you forgive me, can we be friends again? I've got a few ideas flying around my mind so I think I'm going to be blogging a little here and there now...I need to write them down before they fly right out again!

Heavenly Homemade Ricotta

Honestly...who would have thought that making fresh ricotta would be so easy!

In the past I'd been happy to just leave it to the Italians...but this was too easy!

(Isn't just about everything in Thermie)

Recipe from here, Thanks Helene...

I used a nut milk bag to strain it (as I've just started making my own Rice and Almond milk) which I bought from a lovely lady from Living Synergy in WA, cheap as chips and so many uses!

But I discovered the more you drain it the firmer the cheese...AND it firms up more in the fridge so don't wring out every drop of it can become quite hard...like a crumbly cream cheese.

I'm also participating in Down to Earth's "On My Mind" picture...for me today it's...

Had a tummy bug kind of thing for the past week, finally time to see the Dr...

Prescribed...a day of fasting......nothing but sipping Hydralyte and some Probiotics...

hope it works.....

So.....that means....Ricotta for breakfast tomorrow then :)

Mexican Green Mole with Thermomix

Pronounced (moe-lay)

not as in Austin Powers "Molie-molie-mole" :-)

I've heard soooo many times that most of the Mexican food we get in Australia is NOTHING like what they eat in Mexico. So was fascinated to watch the SBS Mexican Food Safari episode. You can see it here on YouTube. I first saw it a few years ago when I was living in Perth packing up my house to move back home to Sydney, and I jumped online to see where I could get some of the wonderful ingredients they were speaking of. Could only find this place in Sydney so put it in my "will do it when I get to Sydney" list. If you're not in Sydney the site is worth a visit as they deliver :)

I still haven't actually been out to the supermarket yet, but I was in one of my local coffee shops and noticed that it's taken on a Mexican kind of feel of late and they had tins of Tomatillios on the shelves to buy so I was so excited to finally try this recipe!

Although Tomatillios look like green tomatoes they are apparently

are a member or the gooseberry family instead! 

Mexican Green Mole a la Thermomix

2 pork fillets cubed 2cm pieces
bay leaf
half onion

50g sesame seeds roasted in dry pan
50g roasted almonds
50g pumpkin seeds roasted in dry pan

Bunch of spring onion
large garlic clove
half tin Tomatillio (about 6 of them)
1 green capsicum de-seeded and quartered
1green chilli (or to taste)
bunch coriander
1tsp cumin seeds

Place pork onion and bay leaf into basket in Thermomix, fill with approx 1200g water. (as long as it's not too full) cook with MC on angle 20min/100degrees/speed 4. Set aside in Thermoserver.

Combine sesame seeds, almonds, pumpkin seeds and about 3 ladles of the pork stock into bowl of Thermomix blitz 20secs/speed 9
Cook for 3 mins/100degrees/soft speed set aside.

No need to clean Thermomix bowl.
Add spring onions, garlic, tomatillios, capsicum, chilli, coriander, cumin and 2 ladles of stock into bowl of Thermomix and blitz for 20secs/speed 7
Add seed paste and combine 10secs/speed 3. Add pork meat (without remaining stock...keep it for soup) and cook for 5mins/90degrees/Reverse soft speed.

Pop it into your thermoserver while to cook up some rice.

Crazily delicious! Maybe not the prettiest dish or most appealing to kids, but it's so fresh and nutty tasting! And I bet it will taste better tomorrow too!


Do you have dishes that doesn't looks as amazing as what they taste??

Sweet Ricotta, Custard and Chocolate Tart

As much as I profess the love of cooking, I'm really quite a lazy cook...anything that looks too hard or has too many steps it just filed into the too hard basket.

Making pastry made it's way to the too hard basket from a young age. Watching mum roll it out and carefully lay it over the pie tin and curse it as it cracks or crumbles, I just thought why bother!

So when I saw this recipe on one of my fav blogs which is an english translation of an Italian Thermomix recipe website, and saw how easy it was...I figured I'd give it a go, seeing Thermie does all the work for you :) And we were staying with some friends in Melbourne so wanted to make something nice :)

I'm not much of a sweet tooth, but I think I could have just about finished most of it off by myself! It was sweet but not toooooo sweet.

Sweet Ricotta, Custard and Chocolate Tart

Pastry
300 g Flour
130 g Butter
80 g Sugar
1 Egg and 1 Yolk

Filling
1/2 quantity of Thermomix custard from the EveryDay Cooking book
200 g Ricotta Cheese
50 g Dark Chocolate

To make pastry.
Add sugar, eggs, flour and butter into Thermomix. 1 Min/Speed Dough Mode.
Wrap in gladwrap and refridgerate for 15 Min.

How simple is THAT!

Put chocolate into Thermomix. Grind at Speed 9 until it is reduced into flakes. approx 5-10 secs. Set aside

Prepare half a quantity of Thermomix Custard. Wait until it is lukewarm.
Add ricotta cheese and chocolate and mix 10 Sec/Speed 5. 

Roll out 3/4 of the short pastry in a flan pan and pour in the custard with ricotta cheese and chocolate.
With the remaining pastry, form some strips, twist them and put it on the top. Or if you have one of those great lattice pastry cutters use that...
Bake 30 Min. 200°C.

So simple yet sooo delicious! I think I'm going to be coming back to this recipe many times, maybe changing the flavours :)

Any suggestions?

Italian bread bake - true comfort food

Sick in bed is not fun...I CRAVE hot chips when I'm sick with a cold.

The warm, salty little bit crunchy little bit moist and stodgy...MMmmm...

But the only problem is getting them too your bedside! www.menulog.com.au where I normally get home deliveries from tells me that most of the restaurants are shut at this time of the day.

Enter Thermomix.

Early in mine and Thermies love affair I discovered that it does a great tomato chili sauce (from the Chili muscles recipe) and I've since used on many-a dish.

1, 2, 3 or 4 tins of peeled tomatoes into Thermie (I used 3 for this dish) Speed 5 for 5seconds

a sprinkle of salt, dried chilli flakes and a sploosh of olive oil and set it to cook 20mins/Varoma temp/Soft speed

I wanted to incorporate some garlic as it's good for my cold, so I lightly fried 3 sliced garlic cloves (I would have happily used 10 but hubby wouldn't have been into it) in a little bit of oil just to take the strong raw garlicy-ness out. let it cool a little and added a dollop of butter and mixed it in...

I had this bread stick which wasn't used last weekend and has since gone ROCK hard. So I sliced it thickly and spooned on my garlic mixture (only on my pieces).

Once Thermie had done his thing (the tomato sauce was nice and thick), I pored about a third of the mixture on the bottom of a baking dish, added my bread, then the rest of the cooked tomato on top.

Topped it of with a generous sprinkle of Parmesan.

Into the oven until it was browned and bubbling.

All it needed then was a drizzle of Olive oil and some fresh basil to top it off.

But I was inspired by hubby's Nonna the way I've seen her many times add boiled eggs to a dish to add nutrition to it without adding the price of meat. (ok I wanted it quick too with just the ingredients i had on hand) so while it was in the oven I boiled some eggs in Thermie 14min/Varoma/speed 1

And lunch was served!

Do you have any fabulous money saving tips?

Throat Tingling Ginger tea

Nothing worse than the feeling of coming down with a cold :(
Sore throat...little bit too cold then too hot...

It's slowly crept up on me today so after gargling everything and anything that is meant to help I figure bed and a nice warm drink is in order....Enter Thermomix. The only tea I have is black tea and some green teas and jasmin....I just had a hakering for a strong throat tingling sweet gingery tea.

A slice of ginger and a cup of water into Thermie 5secs Speed 8.
Then 3min 100degrees Speed 1, pour it into you mug thru a strainer and add a spoonful of honey to make the medicine go down....and it was DELICIOUS! 10 times better than the ones you can buy! Such a strong flavour I even got another cup out of it!

I'm now thinking of other tea infusions I can make....any suggestions?