Dinner tonight: Zucchini Slice

Tonight's dinner in our house was Zucchini Slice. An oldie but a goodie. This recipe was given to me by my Thermomix consultant. I think she originally posted it on her Facebook page and over the years it has become a family favourite. The TM makes this such a quick and easy meal and it is quite healthy and economical - especially when you are given home-grown zucchinis like I was this week! I think there would be many variations to this recipe, my tweak is adding a can of kidney beans. You could easily change the bacon to chorizo or smoked salmon, or add different types of cheese (Nina suggests halumi, I reckon this would be fantastic). You can also use normal plain flour, however the brown rice flour works so well and it is a great healthy option.

Ingredients:

100g brown rice or 100g plain flour

100g cheese, roughly cubed ('normal' tasty cheese is fine)

350g zucchini, roughly chopped into large pieces

1 onion, peeled and quartered 

1 clove garlic

Fresh herbs (I usually grab a small handful of whatever's in the garden - parsley, sage, oregano)

About 150g bacon, I usualy use shortcut 

5 large or 6 small eggs
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

50g olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method:

If using brown rice, place in TM bowl and grind on speed 9 for 1 minute. Set aside in seperate bowl. 

Place cheese in TM bowl, grate 3-5 seconds on speed 6. Set aside (can add to rice flour). 

Place zucchini in TM bowl, grate for 3 seconds on speed 5. Pulse on turbo once or twice to ensure zucchini is grated evenly. Set aside (add to other ingredients).
Place onion, garlic, bacon and herbs in TM bowl and chop for 4 seconds on speed 6. Sauté for 3 minutes at 100 degrees on speed 1.
Add all other ingredients and mix for about 10 seconds on reverse speed 3. This will chop your kidney beans up a bit, but personally I like this. Don't overmix or they will turn to mush. If you prefer your beans left whole add them after this step and then just slowly stir them in.

Pour mixture into a greased lamington tin or similar dish. Bake for 40 minutes at 180 degrees (until golden brown).

Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a green salad. I particularly love this with some fresh chilli sprinkled on top!

Dinner tonight: Slow-Cooker Salsa Chicken with Tortillas

Right so here is what I'm cooking for dinner tonight - home-made tortillas with Salsa Chicken. I make a variation of this recipe from the fantastic blog Additive Free Bites. The original recipe is actually called 'Creamy Salsa Chicken' and it is served with brown rice (it looks fantastic btw, I have just tweaked it). I don't add the sour cream at the end but instead add 2 cans of kidney beans and use it as a tortilla filling. I serve it in the slow-cooker bowl with shredded lettuce, grated cheese, avocado and sour cream. Yummo - and hardly any dishes. I make the tortillas using this recipe from Quirky Cooking. Make sure you click on the link for a fantastic how-to on how to make them. I don't always have spelt flour so I just use normal plain flour - they work fine, however you just need to make sure you have the right consistency. Spelt flour and normal flour require different amounts of water (just slightly) so if you want to use plain flour just pay attention to Jo's instructions regarding what the dough should look/feel like and adjust accordingly. I do love the fact that this meal is completely home-made from scratch. The Salsa Chicken recipe makes a huge batch so I always have left-overs, it freezes really well and I will often give the left-overs to the kids on top of some pasta or served with some baked pita bread.  

Ingredients:

600-700g chicken breast fillets, cut into 5-6cm 'chunks' 

1 onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 large diced tomatoes or 400g can of diced tomatoes

1 small-medium red capsicum, diced

1 medium red chilli, diced

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tsp raw sugar

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground paprika

1 tsp smoked paprika

2 cans kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup water 

1 tsp salt, a good grind of pepper

To serve:

Sliced avocado

Shredded iceberg lettuce

Grated cheese

Sour Cream

Method:

1.  Place onion, garlic and chilli into TMX bowl. Blitz for 1-2 seconds on speed 5 (you could chop the capsicum in the TMX along with these ingredients if you wanted, but I prefer to chop the capsicum by hand so it doesn't turn to mush). Add contents to slow-cooker bowl 

2.  Place all other ingredients into slow-cooker pot. Cook on 'high' for 3hrs

3.  After 3hrs, remove chicken chunks and use two forks to shred the chicken. Return shredded chicken to slow-cooker bowl and stir through. Taste to see if more salt is required. Return bowl to slow-cooker, keep on 'warm' setting while making the tortillas

Tortillas:

Check out Quirky Cooking's post on how to make the tortillas as she explains how to make them so perfectly. Like I said above, I make them with plain flour but if you want to do the same just pay extra attention to the consistency of your dough and adjust if necessary. Link is here.

Spoon the Salsa Chicken onto the tortillas and top with sliced avocado, shredded lettuce, grated cheese and sour cream. Roll up and enjoy the mess you make! 

Lunchbox filler: Oat and Raisin Cookies

OK so here is a great lunchbox filler. I'm not a huge biscuit-maker because they usually contain so much butter. But the amount of butter in these is quite reasonable and they are full of healthy oats. The recipe is from a fantastic blog, Thermomixin.com. Here here is the link to the original recipe. I actually reduce the butter and sugar slightly and increase the oats - this makes them a bit crumblier than what they probably should be but still totally yummy. I also use currents just because they're smaller and I always have them in the cupboard. Here's my slightly tweaked version!

Ingredients:

100g butter, softened
110g brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
65g plain flour
30g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
120g rolled oats, I'm usually generous with those and usually put in around 140g
120g currents

Method:

1.  Preheat your oven to 175 degrees and line two trays with baking paper
2.  Put butter, sugar, egg and vanilla into TMX bowl and cream for 1min/speed 3
3.  Add flour, baking soda, cinammon and salt and knead for 40secs/interval speed
4.  Add oats and currents, mix for 40secs/reverse/speed 1. Check to see everything has mixed together properly, it may need another mix on the same settings or even just a mix by hand with the spatula
5.  Spoon mixture onto baking trays in blobs about the side of a walnut or golf-ball. Leave enough room between each blob for spreading
6.  Cook for 12 mins or until they turn golden brown.

I will add a photo once I play around with my photo settings…stand by!

I'm back in 2016! Check out my plans for this blog...

Hello hello, well my blogging plans a few years back didn't really come to anything, did they?? Oh well! I now have two kids, a 6yo and a 3yo and my husband and I also have number 3 on the way. My plan for 2016 is to be a bit more organised with cooking, meal planning and lunch boxes. Over the years I've collected so many great recipes on my phone which I've never even tried! I really want to try to work through them, so I thought getting back onto this blog would be a great way to keep a record of the good ones I find. Also, I have a habit of 'tweaking' recipes and when I come to make the dish again I can't remember my 'tweak'! So I will be sharing other people's recipes (credits will be included) with my comments and/or variations. So I hope you find this blog helpful - at the very least hopefully it will help me to remember what I've cooked!