Carrot and Parsnip Soup

Mr 3 woke up with the start of a cold and a cough this morning, so I asked him what he wanted to eat. He said he wanted soup. Nice and easy. He usually asks for potato and leek, so this is what I was expecting when I asked him what flavour he would like. To my surprise he pulled out a carrot and a parsnip. 

I'd never made a carrot and parsnip soup before, but I have done a carrot and ginger one a few times, so I figured I would do something similar. I wanted to add the fresh ginger and orange to help kick the cold before it takes hold.

I also made some garlic croutons to go with it for an added crunch to the soup and hopefully the garlic will also help his recovery.

Carrot and Parsnip Soup with Garlic Croutons

(serves 4)

Croutons

2-3 slices of your favourite gluten free bread

30g olive oil

30g butter

2-3 sprigs parsley

2 cloves garlic

Preheat oven to 150°C

Add garlic and parsley to TM bowl

Chop 5 sec/speed 5. MC on.

Add oil and butter

Heat 2 min/70°C/speed 1. MC on.

Pour oil mix into a bowl and slice the bread into small cubes.

Add the bread to oil mix and stir to coat thoroughly.

Spread out in a single layer over an oven tray. Bake for approx 20 minutes until golden and crispy. Toss occasionally for even cooking.

Clean and dry mixing bowl.

Carrot and Parsnip Soup

1 onion, peeled and quartered

2cm fresh ginger, peeled

30g olive oil

30g butter

300g carrot

200g parsnip

1-2 tbsp stock paste

zest of 1 orange

juice of 1 orange

300ml water

200ml coconut cream

1/2 tsp pepper

Put onion and ginger into TM bowl. Chop 5 sec/speed 5.

Add oil and butter. Saute 3 min/100°C/speed 1. MC on.

Add carrot, parsnip, stock paste, zest and water.

Cook 22min/100°C/speed 1. MC on.

Add cream and pepper. Place MC on. Squeeze orange over the lid so the juice drips in under the MC leaving the pulp and seeds. Blend 1min/speed 5 slowly increasing to speed 9.

Serve with croutons.

Works in progress

I want to share what we have on the go at the moment. We are currently trying to finalize the recipes and get them to a point where I am happy to share. Most are almost there but the method needs a bit of tweaking. Others, the method is there but the flavour or consistency isn't quite right.

Anyway, here is what we have for now.

Honey soy tofu on boiled rice

This is something we have bought for a long time as a "packet mix". It was our go to quick meal, just pop the meal ingredients in the pan, throw a bag of microwave rice in the microwave and in about 5 minutes, you have a meal. Oh my goodness, the sugar content of those packet sauces is more than we need. So we came up with our own. We have tried letting the tofu sit in the sauce and marinade for a while before cooking as well as just popping it in the fry pan. We found that not leaving it to marinade actually yielded better results with flavour and texture.

This was served on the boiled rice (EDC), but we prefer the automated rice.

Oat flour waffles

Waffles have long been a staple weekend breakfast for us. My father-in-law makes amazing pancakes which are half oat flour and half wheat flour. Many years ago we took this approach to our waffles, and then at one point we dropped the wheat flour. We made these in our blender for a long time, but the thermomix does a much better and faster job. I think I have this recipe pretty much perfect, I just need to type it up. 

Nutella

There are many versions of a healthier nutella out there. This is ours. I decided we were going to make it one day and was sure that I had all the ingredients that I would need. When I went to make it what I thought was a bag of hazelnuts was actually a bag of macadamias. We opted to use cashews instead because we buy those 3kg at a time and always have loads. A few versions later and our recipe is almost perfect. In all honesty it doesn't taste like nutella, but they share no common ingredients, so why would it? As a nutty, chocolate spread it stands on its own very well though. Mr 3 asks for this one all the time.

Vegetarian sausages

Okay - full disclosure - these came about by accident. I was meant to be making hummus but without realising, I popped a can of pinto beans in the thermomix and blended them with some garlic. After we had a good laugh, Mr 3 suggested the mix looked like sausages so we thought we would try. We added some herbs and some GF flour then wrapped them - albeit not very well - and steamed them in the varoma. These are the sausages that came out of the varoma. We chopped a couple and fried them with a passata with basil and oregano and served them on some GF pasta. Definitely something workable here, maybe with more herbs/spices and better wrapping. We will keep working on these and have something in the next few months.

And here's the finished meal we made.

And of course, we have our lemon curd icecream from my last post. 

Lemon curd icecream

This is made with coconut cream and sweetened with honey or maple syrup. We are trying to work out how we stop it from freezing solid so we can serve it straight from the freezer.

Is there anything else you want us to add to our list for now?

I scream for icecream!

I love icecream. 

Okay, well it's not really icecream as such. We love fruity dream from the EDC. 

This week Mr 3 decided we should make lemon icecream. My mind instantly wandered to Joshua's Lemon Curd icecream. I could eat an entire tub of that in one sitting. However, it isn't diary free or refined sugar free (we aren't super strict on not eating dairy or refined sugars, we just don't like to have them if there is a better alternative).

We embarked on our journey to make the worlds best lemon curd icecream. And we got most of the way there!

I don't want to share the recipe just yet, the flavour is right (it's better than right - it's amazing!), but the consistency needs some work. When you freeze our icecream it freezes solid and took a good hour on the bench in 30˚C weather to become soft enough to serve. 

We are looking into ways to stop it freezing, but so far it appears that you need to add sugar, alcohol or antifreeze for that to happen. None of which I am happy to add to my icecream. 

Mr 3 and I have come up with a list of icecream flavours we would like to make once we get our method down. 

We welcome any and all tips on getting a nice soft rolling icecream.

Cookies!

A few weeks ago my husband and I were talking about the amazing melt in your mouth chocolate chip cookies I used to make. In the 3 years that our son has been alive, I have never made them. Partly because they are filled with condensed milk, sugar, chocolate chips and all the glorious foods we left behind in our teenage years (mostly). I couldn't believe it. Given that they are the best cookies ever, I had to adapt them to fit our lifestyle. Tomorrow is my birthday, so Mr 3 and I decided to make my special cookies. 

The condensed milk I use is made using a scaled down version of the Quirky Cooking recipe. This just makes it easier for me because I can use 1 can of coconut cream from the cupboard. Ratios and method are from there. You can find the original recipe here. 

Recipe:

(makes approximately 50 cookies)

Condensed Milk:

1 400ml can coconut cream

80g maple syrup

Cookies:

220g butter (butter substitutes like Olivani work great too)

450g flour (gluten free flour works works great too)

2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180°C

Add coconut cream and maple syrup to thermomix bowl. Cook for 60 minutes at 100°C, speed 3.5.

When done, leave for a few minutes to cool in the bowl then blend on speed 3 for 5 seconds.

Add butter, flour and baking powder. Combine at speed 5 for 20 seconds.

Roll cookies into little balls then flatten on a making tray.

We like to split the mixture into 4 and flavour them with chocolate hazelnut spread (or chocolate coconut spread), sugar free jam, roll some in 100s and 1000s before flattening or adding cacao nibs and kneading through before rolling for 'chocolate chips'.

Bake at 180°C for 10-12 minutes.

The balls may be a little oily, but trust the cookies. They are soft and light and hard to have just one.

Almond butter and jam breakfast muffins

We love these muffins. Mr 2 and I throw them together in about a minute, jump in the shower and by the time we are done the muffins are ready.

Yesterday we spent the day at Rangitoto Island. We whipped up a batch of muffins in the morning and they kept us going for a long time. I was impressed with the amount of walking Mr 2 did. We walked from Rangitoto wharf via the coastal track to Mackenzie Bay, then up to the summit and back down to Rangitoto wharf via the lava caves. He probably did about half of it. Fortunately we had him in the Tula for the other half!

This is the first recipe I have created that I have shared with anyone other than family, so I'm a little nervous. I hope you like it!

Recipe:

(makes 6 muffins)

150g oats

1.5 teaspoon baking powder

pinch Himalayan salt

2 tablespoons honey

1 tbsp lemon juice

85g milk (we use rice milk)

30g sliced almonds

2 tbsp almond butter

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 egg

6 teaspoons fruit spread/jam (we like St Dalfour strawberry)

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Add oats to TM. Place measuring cup on. Blend 5 sec sp 9.

Add salt, honey, lemon juice, milk, sliced almonds, almond butter, coconut oil, and egg.

Combine 5 sec sp 5. 

Spoon half the mixture into 6 muffin cases. Add a teaspoon of fruit spread/jam to each one. Top with remaining mix.

Bake 15 min or until tops are lightly browned.

Enjoy!