Home-made crunchy muesli (for yoghurt topping or for breakfast cereal!)

Years ago when I lived in the UK I had a mad obsession for almond and strawberry muesli.  It reached it's peak when I was living in Jersey in the Channel Islands where I was working long days and fed myself this glorious muesli with fresh jersey milk (more like cream actually) for breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner.  It was a bit mad.. but hey, I'm sure I'm not the first person who loved cereal for dinner and I won't be the last.

My girls love muesli too, but I can't get them to eat raw muesli.  Not.at.all.  Their favourite way to eat muesli is on top of yoghurt, and they're fine with natural yoghurt, just as long as the yoghurt isn't raw.  So I pick my battles and made this muesli and it lasted a whole... 3 days.  I suspect hubby may have had some too... It's not rocket science and it's completely adaptable.

Ingredients

1 cup raw almonds

1 cup oats

1/3 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

1/4 cup flax seeds

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup honey 

80g butter

2 cups rice bubbles

100g packet dried blueberries (or other fruit that you like)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees c

Roughly chop up your almonds or blitz them in a blender, depends how whole you like them..

Pour them on a lined baking tray and add your pepitas and oats.

Lastly add the flax seed (you can buy this from most health food shops/delicatessens) and give it a good mix

Toast in the oven for about 15 minutes - until you can smell your almonds roasting.

Empty into a bowl, add blueberries and ricebubbles, give it a good mix.

In a saucepan, add butter and honey, and then when your butter is melted, mix well and add to your bowl.

Mix well.

Spread back on your lined baking sheet and pop into the oven for another 25 minutes until golden brown

It smells aaaaaahhhh-mazing.  let it cool and then break up to eat later, or eat it now... no judgements from me...

Thermomix Lemon Scones

Well me and my thermomix are getting acquainted you could say.  I've made some soups, some risotto, custard, I even made a massaman curry in it last week - with rice.   I do like it, it's very convenient and I intend to use it to make butter, mascarpone and I love the way it makes almond and rice milk and is very intolerance friendly - I do have friends with kids with intolerances so it will take the guesswork out for me.  I do love that it weighs, and I can walk away and let it do it's work.   I don't like that it can overdo things sometimes if you don't keep your eye on it.   I still am loyal to my KitchenAid and I don't see me throwing away my icecream maker - but I do enjoy learning about the thermomix and as I do I'm happy to take you on my journey!

So today I'm making buttermilk scones, but of course I can't help myself and I have to tweak the recipe because I've got an obsession a thing for lemons at the moment.   These turned out a little flatter than I thought they would so I would suggest that you roll it out a bit thicker than I did.  They are still light and fluffy inside - no sign of rock-cakes here!

Ingredients:

Zest of 1 lemon

440g self raising flour

50g caster sugar

pinch salt

60g butter, chopped

380g buttermilk

Method:

Preheat oven to 220 degrees c

Place lemon zest, caster sugar, salt and butter in the thermomix:

Mix for 10 seconds on speed 8.  Voila, breadcrumb-like mixture! (beats rubbing it in by fingertips!)

Add buttermilk.  Mix for 8 seconds on speed 5.  Then 15 seconds at interval position.

It should looks something like this - a dough ball that's 'just' coming together.

Push out onto a floured surface and try and sprinkle flour on top.  Don't knead the mixture, just pat it into 2 inches thick space before cutting out your shapes and putting onto a greased tray.

When I think of all the cookie cutters I have.. this is what I cut out my scones with?... ahem.

Brush with leftover buttermilk or milk from the fridge.

Bake for 15 minutes until light golden brown.

I think raspberry or cherry and lemon is gorgeous pairing.  No need for butter, just jam and cream (40 seconds on speed 5 with butterfly in! I love that you can whip cream in 40 seconds!)

Don't you just want some?

Now if you don't have a thermomix, never fear, here's some scone recipes for you:

Cheese bacon and spring onion scones
Easy ginger and cinnamon scones
Lemon buttermilk and date scones
Pumpkin scones

Quick snack solution - DIY microwave popcorn - in under 3 minutes!

No special bags.
No extra ingredients.
You just need a paper lunch bag and...
1/2 cup popcorn kernels!

Oh, and a microwave!

When I think about the times I have caved in and bought microwave popcorn from the supermarket because I was in a hurry or just wanted to avoid the oil/washing up I'm a bit annoyed with myself now.  I needn't have bothered!   I can see this being the easy way for morning teas on mornings I find myself short of stash lunchbox legends or we are going to watch a family movie.  I just can't get over how simple it is.

And you don't oil!

Of course you could melt some butter and mix it through afterwards and shake a little salt through it, or cinnamon or whatever you love but for my kids, they didn't even ask!


Step 1
Pour 1/2 cup popcorn kernels into a paper lunch bag (the kernels cost about $1 for about 2.5 cups - I just used homebrand paper bags)

 Fold the edges over, my tip is the second time I made this I made the creases shorter, and doubled it over three times...

Pop in the microwave - depending on the wattage of your microwave up to 3 minutes.  Mine is 1100W and it took 2 mins 20seconds to make it PPPEEERFECT.  The lower the wattage, the longer you need to leave it in.

Watching it won't make it pop faster, but it amuses small people.  Olivia grabbed a chair to watch...

Voila!

How easy is THAT!!??

 Hungry hoardes dig in!

Recipe sourced from http://www.squawkfox.com

Baked doughnuts (not half as naughty!)

Have I got your attention?  Yes? When I saw the recipe for these from Krissy - there was no choice - I was making them and that was that.   I changed out the nutmeg for cinnamon and glazed mine instead of half-half glaze/sugar, but you can get as fancy as you like - these might even be a great activity for a birthday party - and eat afterwards right?  You could even freeze the doughnuts before you ice them...!

The taste isn't exactly like a real doughnut although they are light and tasty - do remember they are bread... if you want the real thing - try this recipe here.

Ingredients:

For the Dough

3/4 cups Warm Milk

1 tsp yeast powder

1 egg

1 tb butter, softened

1/3 cup caster sugar

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 tsp salt

For the Glaze

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 cups sifted icing mixture

colouring if you wish

100's and 1,000's if you like too!

Method:

Add your yeast to 1/4 cup of your warm milk, and set aside for about 15 minutes, until it foams up a little:

Add the rest of your milk, egg, and butter and sugar, then gradually stir in the flour eventually kneading it into a smooth dough.   Place in a greased bowl covered with cling wrap for about 2 hours or until it has doubled in size:

Preheat oven to 190 degrees c

Pour out your dough onto a clean floured surface

Roll out until quite thin, about 3mm thickness

Cut out your doughnut shapes - I used an ikea cup and a tupperware melon baller!  Improvise as you like (or you can buy a doughnut cutter, yes, you can!)

In the leftover pieces of dough, cut out extra holes - but don't re-knead the dough - it will be too tough when baked.

Place on a greased tray (I made 18 dough-nuts and about 30 holes!) and allow to rise for another hour

Aren't they beautiful!?

Bake for 7 minutes then allow to cool.

Make your glaze by adding the vanilla and colouring to the icing mixture and whisking in the milk until you get a thick-ish but spreadable consistency.

Dip your doughnuts in and then get an eager assistant to 'sprinkle them'

Now if you like a light glaze, dunk them when they are a little warm (on the left) but leave them until they are cold and dunk, and the icing will be more pronounced (I personally loved eating them warm...)

They look like the real thing right?  My kids didn't even care!  Now if you are going down the artificial colouring free route - can I suggest hopper .. great resource on artificial colourings/flavours and also where you can buy the alternatives (which don't look any different!)

On your list?

Sunday baking project - totally cheating portuguese tarts

Hello everyone!

Ahh it does feel good to write again, cook again, even edit photos again.  Anything that resembles some part of my 'normality' is a good thing right now.  I actually even was relieved to be at work on Thursday although I admit, my heart was back at the hospital with Nan.

Nan is improving, I can see hope but there is a long road ahead of us. It's going to take a lot of work and and a lot of love and support to get her to recovery.  We are all committed to this.  It's so hard to see someone who you consider your rock to be so helpless and vulnerable.

I was actually half way through making these when I got the news last Sunday.  So the good news is that you can pre-prepare these - make the custard first and then assemble and bake when you're ready to serve.

I worked out it cost me $7 for 18 Portuguese tarts - a lot different from the $2.50 - $3.50 each you pay at the shops right?  You do need to eat these within a couple of days though - so make some for friends and family at the same time - I shared mine around the hospital!


Adapted from Olive Magazine
Ingredients:
1 cup raw caster sugar
1 slice lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup light milk
1 tb plain flour
1 tb cornflour
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg yolks + 1 egg
4 sheets frozen puff pastry


Method:
Preheat oven to 220 degrees c.

In a small saucepan add sugar, lemon and cinnamon to 1/2 cup water.  Bring to the boil and then take off the heat, remove the cinnamon stick and lemon slice and set aside.

Mix the flours with a splash of your milk to make a paste.  Gradually add the rest of your milk until combined.  Place this in a medium sized saucepan over a low heat.

Whisk until it thickens... it takes only a minute or so.

Gradually pour in your sugar syrup and whisk it gently in, still over a low heat.

 Then add your eggs and continue to whisk over low heat until it slightly stiffens/gets thicker.  It will be the consistency of honey.  Set aside.

 Thaw out your sheets of puff pastry and then upturn one on top of the other with the plastic backing facing up.   Remove so you have a double layer of puff.

Cut them out with a glass or cutter, and place into greased muffin tray.

 Pour in your custard mixture until almost full.

 Bake for 15 or so minutes until slightly browned.

 They are gorgeous warm or cool with some icing sugar sprinkled over the top.

Try them!  Just the thing to do this weekend - you'll love them!