Thermomix – Nightwolf's Den

In the Den Kitchen – series 2 #1

I’ve decided instead of naming each post from In the Den Kitchen from this post onwards I’ll be giving them a number – hence Series 2 #1.
I’ll also be going back through and making a page to list all my In the Den Kitchen posts.

Anywho.. on to today’s post

Christmas food!
You may have noticed the recent listing of a bunch of new recipes. Since we’re close to Christmas I thought I’d share a bunch of my favourite recipes to cook at Christmas time. Some are links and some are my own (or family) recipes.

Finger food & Pre-meal nibbles

Cheese & Capsicum roll
Cheese log – so simple… roll some Philly cheese into a log then roll in dukkah or YIAH dip mix
OMG cheese bites (see below)
any YIAH dip mix

Mains & sides

Love ham at Christmas and these sound yum – Coke glazed ham. Garlic honey mustard slow cooked ham
This turkey by Nigella takes awhile but is so worth it. Tasty and really juicy.
Warm potato salad

Desserts

Candy Cane ice cream (Thermomix)
Karina’s raspberry cream mousse thingy (yup that’s what we call it)
I really want to make this sometime – Mint Chocolate Cheesecake Bûche de Noël

Biscuits/Slices/Cakes/Sweets

(for more yummy YIAH recipes, check out my YIAH Facebook page)

Even more food

Onto week 2…..

KFC Style chicken (also known as popcorn chicken) & potato mashies. Love our KFC style chicken and the mashies are so delicious. A new way to use up any leftover mashed potato.

We actually skipped a day because my inlaws took us out for tea so that was why there was no insta pic on Thursday night.

Friday was Beef and Bacon Pasta bake. Another family favourite. Heaps of leftovers. Really easy to make. Only thing I do different from the recipe is to pre cook my pasta and then stir it into the meat mixture.

Saturday night was Teriyaki Pork Meatballs, Steamed Rice and Vegetables*. Seriously yummy. We hadn’t made this before but definitely will again. The meatballs were really nice and the sauce wasn’t overpowering.

This one is a favourite of mine. Makes heaps. Freezes well. Great for entertaining too. Creamy chicken vol-au-vents

Nearly done. Tonight we had potato topped meatloaf. Must be good, I had 2 helpings. Seriously it is good. And I’m not a huge fan of meatloaf.

Second last night and I swapped out another mince meal for Orange & Ginger Pork. Yummy and something quick and easy.

Wednesday was our wedding anniversary so I wasn’t cooking.

And bringing the first of my 14 day challenges to a close we had beef strog from the EDC. Another family favourite.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with the next challenge for myself. I hope you enjoy these recipes I’ve shared.

* this recipe is part of the 2015 ThermoFunkies Club. It’s well worth the $37

Food, Glorious Food

Here we are. Seven days into my 14 day challenge and I hope you are looking forward to checking out the recipes.

Bonus recipe – Honey soy meatballs. Wasn’t sure how this one would go but everyone loved it. It made enough for 2 adults, a 5yo and a 1yo plus leftovers (& a few sneaky ones snuck while mum was serving tea but shhh)

Day 1 – Honey chicken with rice. If you like Honey chicken from the takeaway you’ll love this one. Takes a bit of time but definitely worth the effort

Day 2 – Creamy bacon & basil bowtie pasta*. This one is a family favourite. Makes heaps.

Day 3 – Honey beef stir fry & noodles. Yummo. Love this one. Really nice with either steamed rice or noodles (we went with noodles)

Day 4 – Beef pies. New recipe for us. Had tried this recipe previously and it was ok, wanted to try something different. Added a couple of teaspoons of YIAH Veggie dip mix. Next time I’d add a little less. I decided to makes some wedges to go with it. You can grab the recipe (& what I’d change next time) here.

Day 5 – Moroccan style chicken roast with this stuffing and roast veggies. Wasn’t sure how this would go the first time I cooked it for one of the ThermoFun cook a longs but I was so pleasantly surprised. This is another family favourite I cook when we want something different from the usual roast chook. Always gives a moist roast, and if you put it in the oven for a bit, you get crispy skin.

Day 6 – Chicken mornay. Leftovers night! This is just a tuna mornay recipe made with leftover roast chicken. Seriously yum if you add a bit of grated cheese (& a little YIAH Herb & Garlic dip mix) Really nice the next day on toast with a little grated cheese on top.

Day 7 – Devil Sausages and mashed potato. Love this recipe. Love we end up with leftovers for lunch or another night. Bonus is we have enough leftover mash for tomorrow night’s meal.

*ThermomFun member recipe. If you have a thermo cooker I can highly recommend joining the ThermoFun site. A new recipe every week delivered to your inbox and access to a whole heap of helpful documents!

Two weeks of Thermomix goodness?

I’m really looking forward to this. For the next 14 days I’m cooking Thermomix main meals. What meals you ask? Well wait no more cause here’s the list…….

Honey Chicken with rice
Potato topped meatloaf & veggies
Moroccan style roast chicken and roast vegies
Teriyaki Pork Meatballs, Steamed Rice and Vegetables
Creamy bacon & basil bowtie pasta (Thermofun 2014 p56)
Creamy Chicken Vol au Vents
honey beef and steamed rice
potato mashies & popcorn chicken
beef strog (EDC)
beef & bacon pasta bake
chicken mornay
devil snags and mashed potato
beef rissoles
beef pies

Won’t be cooking them in this order but that’s what we’re having. Lots of chicken and beef, hubby will be happy.

I’ll be back in a week to give you the first 7 days of recipes, photos and opinions 🙂

Give me 2 weeks and I’ll give you 14 recipes

As you know, I LOVE cooking and baking and I’ve decided to challenge myself to do a few 2 week challenges and then you get the recipes PLUS I’ll be sharing our opinion on whether it’s a yay or nay.

So what are the challenges?

14 days using YIAH in our main meal
14 days of Thermomix main meals
14 days of baking with YIAH
14 days of baking with Thermomix (are you sensing a theme lol)
14 of recipes from Pinterest
????? who knows – I’m open to ideas

Starting on Tuesday I’ll be back posting what I’m cooking for the fortnight starting with using my Thermo for 14 main meals

In the Den Kitchen – YIAH Choc Chip biscuits

You can now find previous In the Den Kitchen posts here or on Pinterest. Clicking Recipes in the menu above will also take you to my In the Den Kitchen Pinterest board. I’m slowly reworking some older posts so they will show up there too.
Links to any Your Inspiration at Home (YIAH) products will take you to my YIAH page. You can shop in Australia, New Zealand, USA & Canada from my page. If you are interested in learning about YIAH jump over to my Facebook page.

Today’s recipe is a yummy snack or a great addition to your kid’s lunchbox 😉

You can make this with any of the YIAH chocolate powders – this time I used Choc Orange and the dark mint chocolate. Chocolate raspberry would be yum, as would Salted Maple or Chilli-Chocolate.

[yumprint-recipe id=’23’]

In the Den Kitchen – Chocolate Cake

Last week I mentioned I made chocolate cake. This is a recipe I’ve made for years and came from an Australian kids cookbook called Clarry’s Kitchen Capers (I think, it was in a blue plastic folder, designed for kids.) The recipe was called Mother’s Day Chocolate Cake. Anywho here is my Thermomix conversion

[yumprint-recipe id=’22’]To make it without a thermomix, chuck all the cake ingredients into a bowl, mix then pour into your cake tin 😉

In the Den Kitchen – First birthday edition

Miss A turned one (!!) last weekend so this week I thought I’d share some of the food I made for her party. We themed it around the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar so food choices were pretty easy (You can read more about the party over at From the Wolf’s Den)

Starting with the egg on the leaf I made Devilled Eggs using YIAH Bay of Bengal Curry dip mix

Then apples, pears, strawberries, grapes (instead of plums), oranges and watermelon on a fruit platter

And the Saturday foods….

chocolate cake and cupcakes (orange and banana) – I’ll be sharing the chocolate cake recipe next week. You can find the orange cake recipe here, I iced them using some YIAH Choc Orange chocolate powder and my banana cake recipe here

Ice cream cones. There’s a bit of a story here… we started off thinking we’d use ice cream lollies, then I found a recipe that was choc filled cones with a marshmallow on top but we couldn’t find mini ice cream cones, so, I trawled Pinterest and saw marshmallow cones. Perfect. Found a recipe for sherbet and a recipe for marshmallow. The sherbet tastes like Wizz Fizz and the marshmallow was soft and fluffy. I did learn a lesson from this adventure – make it on the day you want to serve it otherwise things go soft and the 100s and 1000s loose their colour.

Swiss cheese and salami, a glass full of lolly pops, mini savs for the sausage and mini cherry pies (which were made in paper gelato cups with a square of puff pastry filled with tinned cherry pie filling).

The green leaf was represented by a green salad. Cocoons were made by cutting puff pastry in half then cutting those haves into 2 triangles. Spoon a blob of nutella on the long end then roll up towards the point (like a croissant). Bake for 30 mins in a 180C oven. Butterflies were a last minute decision – fairy bread cut into butterfly shapes.

So there you have it. Food fit for a Very Hungry Caterpillar.

In the Den Kitchen – Mars Bar Slice

So what do you do when you want something a little (hell who am I kidding – a LOT) sweet. Maybe something like Mars Bar Slice (YUMMO!) BUT, oh no, no Mars Bars in the house 🙁 and the shops are closed/you can’t be bothered going out 🙁 🙁 Well don’t despair! You can make Mars Bar Surprise Slice!!

This wonderful recipe I found one night while reading a great little book by the name of The $21 challenge. My whole family loves it and when my daughter asked me to make it for school the next day, just as she was going to bed I thought I’d see how well it converted to Thermo. So here it is – Thermo Mars Bar Surprise Slice (if you want the original non Thermomix recipe go here – page 6)

[yumprint-recipe id=’21’]

In the Den Kitchen – Happy Easter

Slightly belated Easter greeting. Two things I love about Easter -it means it’s time for Hot Cross Buns (yay) and Cadbury Creme Eggs. But as much as I love these buns I’m not a fan of them appearing in the stores in late December/early January – I mean, really? And, I might get heaps of hate for this, but I’m not a fan of those which are full of fruit. Me, I prefer simple – sultanas and currents (or craisins) or choc chip.

The last couple of years I’ve been making my own. I’ve been using the recipe in the Thermomix Everyday Cookbook. I modify it every time I make it. This year I’ve added a little YIAH Pumpkin Pie baking spice. I thought I’d also share with you my choc chip modification of the original recipe. This is hubby’s favourite – he doesn’t like dried fruit (strange man LOL)

[yumprint-recipe id=’17’]

And the best bit – leave off the cross and they are yummy choc chip buns to eat any time of year!