Yellow Prawn Curry over Rice Noodles

Time for a new blog post!!!  After our time in America, then having a baby girl (now 7 weeks old), I'm finally getting back into it!  And, of course back into doing in home demonstrations as a Consultant.

This is a recipe that came about because of a favourite dish at a Thai restaurant where we lived in California.  I'm not sure that it's even authentic in any way (I found a lot of Thai restaurants seemed to have slightly different versions of the Thai that we have in Australia typically), but I do think it is very tasty!!  Obviously, a yellow curry would usually use yellow chillies but I have not found them here.  So it's basically a green curry with other non-Thai-ish spices added!  And I think it's nice served with the rice noodles as a change from rice.  Here it is, I hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients:

1 packet of Rice Noodles (whichever size)
1 lemongrass stalk cut into pieces
3 cloves garlic
2 spring onions
3 Kaffir lime leaves
2 yellow or green chillies, deseeded (or not if you want very spicy)
400g Can Coconut Milk
10g Olive Oil
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Ground Coriander
1/4 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp rapadura or sugar
150g broccoli florets
150g mixed veg (e.g., zucchini, peas, capsicum)
400g prawns (I usually just have frozen ones in freezer, so have based cooking time on that)


Method:

Prepare boiling water for rice noodles, and add as many rice noodles as your family will eat.

1.  Chop lemongrass, garlic, spring onions, Kaffir lime leaves, and chillies 6 seconds, Speed 6.

2.  Add a dash of oil, sauté 3 mins, 100C, Speed Soft.

3.  Add 100g Coconut milk, cumin, coriander, turmeric and rapadura, Cook 2 mins, 100C, Speed 1.

4.  Add rest of coconut milk, blend 1 min, Speed 9.

5.  Add veg, broccoli and prawns, cook 7-8 mins, 100C, Reverse + Speed Soft.

6.  Add 2 tbsp fish sauce, cook 3 mins, 100C, Reverse + Speed Soft, making sure the prawns are fully cooked.

Serve over Rice Noodles!

Gluten Free Dairy Free Banana Date loaf

It's been a long time, yes.  Our trip to America, then settling back in in Australia, and now expecting Bub number 4 in a few weeks!!!  But I do have a few recipes I have been trialling and hopefully will post soon once I am happy, including dairy free salted macadamia ice cream, naturally sweetened.... yum and hooray!!!

In Thermomix Australia news, September purchases receive the Thermomix Kitchen Toolkit for free!!!  It's fantastic, I don't even have one but would love one!!!  I am still doing Thermomix consulting, so if you are interested in purchasing a Thermomix or know someone who is, then please contact me via email!  I would love to finalise any deliveries in September if I can before the bub arrives in October.

Anyway, lately I have moved to completely gluten free for one of my sons.  I have been thinking of healthy recipes that are still yummy and easy to eat that I can make and put in the freezer and eat when needed!  So this is based on my Spelt banana bread, but is gluten free.  I trialled it with coconut flour, but as I am very new to cooking with it, I just couldn't get the mix right, so tried what I came up with below, and I think its a winner!!  Again, it just makes a relatively small loaf (I rarely have enough bananas that get to very ripe stage to make a larger loaf!) so you can try to increase quantities for a bigger loaf.  Here we go!

Ingredients:

100g Brown Rice (organic if you can find it)

50g almonds (again, organic is great!)

3 Very Ripe bananas (I measured approx 300g)

1 egg

40g Macadamia oil (could use coconut as well)
45g raw honey

65g dates, cut in half (preservative free)

25g desiccated coconut (I actually used large shredded coconut and it was nice - preservative free)

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch Himalayan salt

1/2 teaspoon Bicarb Soda

1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder (or homemade in the Thermie)

Method:

1.  Put 100g Brown rice into Thermomix.  Grind for 1 min, Speed 9.

2.  Add 50g almonds, Grind 30 seconds, Speed 9.  Scrape down sides of bowl.

3.  Add egg, macadamia oil, honey and bananas, mix 15 seconds, speed 5.

4.  Add dates, shredded coconut, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt, mix 5 - 10 seconds Reverse, Speed 4.

5.  Pour into loaf tin, bake 45 - 50 mins approx 180 Degrees (my oven is new and so it may need a little less or little more time if your oven is cooler/hotter).

Enjoy!!!  This would be nice with nuts added too.

Can you really call it Apple Crumble?

I know lots of people who are on a low fat diet.  Some of those people are in my family.  And I keep feeling bad even using good fats because oil, fat and butter are in a lot of foods.  And high cholesterol runs in the family.

Anyway, so I was looking for a nice apple crumble recipe, MINUS the butter and refined flours.  Because I do enjoy a nice warm apple crumble on a winter's night.  And I don't want to feel guilty about it!

So I came up with this little combination and thought it was really yummy.  I mean, you have to remove yourself from the expectation of cakey or floury and buttery crumble.  But yummy cinnamon apples and sweet nutty crumble!

Apple filling:

Ingredients
Approx 450g apple slices - 3 large apples or 4 smaller apples, peeled and in slices.  I used Granny Smith
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Approx 100g water

Preheat oven to 160C
1. Place apples in Thermomix, sprinkle with cinnamon and add water.  Cook for 10 minutes, 90C Reverse + Speed 2.  Add another 2 minutes if they need to soften more.
2. Once the apples are cooked you have 2 options.  You can drain the excess liquid, or leave it in.  Then chop apples to desired consistency - around 4 seconds about Speed 3 will come to the following pic.  But it depends on how cooked they are, thickness of slices etc, and if you like more pureed then bump up the speed and add some extra time - watch through lid until you are happy.  Add to oven proof dish (this just makes about 6 servings)

Clean out bowl and start "crumble"

Ingredients:

30g almonds

80g walnuts (pecans could work if preferred)

20g desiccated coconut

40g oats (leave out for gluten free)

10g rapadura

50g raw honey

Method

1.  Chop almonds for 2 short seconds Speed 5

2.  Add walnuts.   Chop another 2 seconds Speed 5.  Check consistency and chop a second or 2 longer if a finer crumble is desired.

3.  Add coconut, rapadura, oats and drizzle honey evenly around the top of ingredients.  Combine for about 20 Seconds, Reverse + Speed 3.

4.  Add crumble to top of apples.

Cook in oven for about 15 - 20 minutes until gently browning.  Serve with Dairy Free Custard for dairy free or ice cream! Yummy!

Tips!
1.  This really is a "do it how you like it recipe" (if that wasn't obvious!)
2.  This is not very sweet to the sweet tooth, so add more sugar or honey if you like it sweet - I kept it down for health conscious :)
3.  You could probably add other stuff in, but also could leave out oats and add some more coconut for gluten free too.
4.  Would I sound weird if I said I would eat this with some milk for breakfast??!!

Going grain free, sugar free, dairy free, meat free..... Banana Blueberry Bread!

So I haven't been cooking the usual foods lately... I am doing a bit of a detox and am not allowed grains, meat, dairy, sugar, hydrogenated oils..... I don't find too much of it a challenge.. except no grains!  And no meat or chicken leaves me quite hungry all the time!  I am allowed SOME eggs, as I am not supposed to lose weight, and they help bulk up a meal a little.

Thermomix boiled eggs and steamed some potato wedges at the same time.
Do you still use a frypan? I then browned the potatoes in the oven
and sauteed chopped mushrooms, onion, zucchini, capsicum
for about 9 minutes, 100C Reverse + Speed Soft, adding some
semi-dried tomatoes near the end... was yummo! (even though it might
not look it by the pic!)

But a week in, I am starting to look for cheats way out!!  I came across a completely fruit and nut based treat here: http://www.recipecommunity.com.au/node/17448 and they are good to just have a little snack here and there.

CADA has also been good (Coconuts, Almonds, Dates and a Green Apple all turbo-ed a couple of times in the Thermomix), as well as lots of soup with the Thermomix Vege Stock!

But having a look through the Gluten Free Wheat Free Cookbook, I came across the Banana Blueberry bread.  Seeing as it was made on buckwheat flour (which is technically NOT a grain!) and mostly banana and blueberries with raw honey or pure maple syrup, and macadamia nut oil, I decided I could treat myself to this.

I found that it had a few too many blueberries in it - I would usually add less.  But the rest was good, and I ground the buckwheat myself seeing as there was some in the cupboard.

Torta Caprese

I just tried the Everyday Cookbook recipe for the Torta Caprese but made it dairy free... Yum!! Even hubby said it was good and he can usually tell if I have made something gluten and dairy free and is a little.... Hesitant!!

Here is the recipe:
250 grams almonds
250 grams dark chocolate broken in pieces(use a Lindt dark chocolate with no milk solids for total dairy free)
210 grams sugar (I lessened it from 250 as in original recipe)
100 grams coconut oil (use a good quality non refined oil - generally found at good health food shops)
1 tablespoon cacao powder (or cocoa)
1 tablespoon of baking powder (make your own Witt the Thermomix)
6 eggs

 Preheat oven to 180c

 Grate chocolate for 10 seconds Speed 8. Set aside

Chop almonds for 6 seconds speed 6 (add a bit longer if chunks of almonds are too big). Add to chocolate

Place eggs, sugar, baking powder, cacao and oil into bowl, mix 20 seconds Speed 7.

Add chocolate and almonds, mix 30 seconds Speed 6.

Pour mixture into 22-24 tin lined with baking paper on bottom (I just put the whole lot in because I wasn't worried about the edges - speed and less washing supersedes neat edges for me!!).

Bake in preheated oven for approximately 1 hour. (I made 4 muffin size cakes as well - they were in the oven for about 30-35 minutes. But don't do both at the same time if you don't want you cake to flop in the middle when you take the cupcakes out!

My cake was a bit fudgey in the middle which I loved but could have cooked a little longer or maybe a tiny bit less oil. Can serve with a dairy free custard (use normal everyday cookbook recipe with rice-almond milk or other dairy free milk) either vanilla or chocolate flavor, or some strawberries!

A Healthy Chocolate Alternative

This is a super easy recipe based on the Chocolate Alternative recipe in the Taste of Vegetarian Cookbook.  It is fantastic because it allows you to have a treat that has nothing bad in it.  And as usual, because you make it yourself, you can choose high quality ingredients - organic, preservative free etc.  And it's yummy!

I use almonds but you can use any combination of nuts.

200g almonds
250g pitted dried dates

65g desiccated coconut (mine is sulphur free - no preservatives)

20g Cacao powder or organic cocoa.

1/4 tsp Celtic sea salt or quality salt

20g raw honey (find in Health food shops or buy through co-op)

70g coconut oil (cold pressed, unrefined, again Health food shops or co-op)

Grind nuts for 8 seconds on speed 7. Set aside

Chop dates, coconut, cacao, salt and honey for 30 seconds Speed 7.

Add nuts, add coconut oil and mix for 20 seconds on speed 5, or until completely mixed. 

Press mixture into slice tin and set in refrigerator.  

Chop into squares for your chocolate fix!

This is also a dairy free chocolate option (as long as your cocoa doesn't have milk solids - check label).