Sweet Story

Sweetness Without White Sugar............

 Palm Nectar Sugar from Indonesia, bought from an Indonesian villager who home made

this sweet hearts, I have them air flown in to Penang and cost me an arm and leg! that will ensure to put my sweet tooth into control!

 Medjool Dates from Middle East, they are naturally sweet, unlike chinese red date which has a little sourish taste, medjool is also sticker and softer than red dates.

 Stevia is now the king of sweetener! the sweetness index is like 300 times more than normal cane sugar, and it has zero glycemic index and perfect for diabetic people and zero calories.

If all these still aren't sweet enough for you, you can have my

Brown "Sugar"(my dog)

Beef Pasta Bolognese

I impressed myself with what I can do in one hour! Well, not quite 30min meal or something, otherwise it will be me not Rachel Ray, ha!
I dropped my daughter to music class, went to grocery to pick up ingredient, went home, wash, chop, boil, drain, cook with my Thermomix (of couurse).....then, DINNER is ready! One hour is up, went picked up my daughter home for dinner! Beef pasta balognese for the kids, fresh salad and soup for myself. NO Canned pasta source, not even tomato puree ok!

Balognese sauce Ingredient:
Ground Beef   500g
Roma Tomato   8 (seeded)
Sun dried tomato 8pc (soaked)
Red pepper 1/4 (optional)
Fresh button mushroom 8-10, sliced
Onion  1
Italian herbs  1/2 tsp
Parmesan Cheese some
olive oil  10g

1. Chop onion (5sec, speed10), add olive oil, saute (100c/30sec/speed2)
2. Add tomato, red pepper, sun dried tomato, herbs, cook (V/20min/speed2), or cook till your desired thickness.
3. Blend 6sec/speed10
4. Add beef and mushroom, cook (V/10min/speed2)

serve over your pasta of choice with parmesan cheese. You can also use this recipe for lasagne red sauce.

Chocolate Ice Cream

Indredient:
Fresh Coconut Milk 1/2 cup
Almond Milk 1 cup (homemade)
Egg Yolk 1
Palm Sugar 40g (or Medjool dates, or stevia)
Cocoa chocolate (85% cocoa solids, I used Lindt) 50g
Organic Raw Cocoa powder 1 tsp
Vanilla bean
Salt pinch

Method:
1. Put all ingredient into TM bowl
2. Cook 90c for 5min at speed2
3. Pour into stainless steal container and freeze
4. Blend in Thermomix for 15sec before serving, or put back into freezer immediately for later enjoyment!

To make almond milk:
soak 1/2cup organic raw almond for 4hours.
 Add 1cup of water with almond in TM bowl,  blend at speed9 for 20sec, strain with cloth.

Multi Grain Vegetable Risotto

Ingredients:
mix-grain rice 1c (soak overnite, drained)
Water 2c or vege stock
Vegetable: zucchini, asparagus, mushroom, brocolli
Seafood (optional: prawn, squid etc)
Parmesan Cheese
Salt, pepper - pinch

Method:
1. Pour grain and stock with some salt into TM bowl
2. Cook at 100C for 18min at speed 1 reverse
3. Add in all other ingredients except cheese, cook further 2min and add cheese last.
4. Remove from bowl and serve!

Baby Spinach Avocado Salad with Thai Dressing

Having a thermomix do not mean I have to cook my food all the time right?  Most enzyme will be lost when food are heated beyond 40C.
After having a 80% raw diet for the past 3 years, I do crave for some hot staff, but after eating too much hot staff, especially after owning a Bimby, I now crave for some fresh crunchy salad! Well, I quess I am having the best of both world, depending on the mood of the day!

Ingredient:
Baby spinach
Cherry tomato
Button Mushroom
Lettuce
Avocado
Cucumber
Anything!

Thai Dressing:
Olive Oil  2tbsp
Palm sugar 2tsp
Fish Sauce a splash
Lime juice 1tbsp
Garlic 1 glove
Salt pinch

Mango Ice Cream

This is the first thing I made from the newly opened thermomix!  How easy is that just to cut and freeze up some fruits and fresh ice-cream any time, anyflavors! All natural and sugar free!

The thermomix calls for some sugar and condensed milk, I assure you can do without them and it still taste creamy and sweet, just make sure you choose the very ripe mango!

Sole Ingredient!

2-3 Ripe mango (I prefered 'lily' mango)

Method:

1. Peel and cut into 1x1in cube, freeze well.

2. Put into Tm bowl, dial up to speed10 for 10-20second.

Watch out it turn from flaky ice to creamy in split second, serve immediately or store in fridge.

Red Bean Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:

200g red bean
60g palm sugar or 10 medjool dates
1/4 c raw organic cocoa powder
2small eggs
15g olive oil
1tsp baking powder (optional)
Pinch salt


1. Soak red bean overnight
2. Cook red bean with some water until it become pasty. Set aside to cool.
3.Blend all ingredient until smooth n creamy
4. Bake at 170 for 25-30min, until it slightly crack on the top.

Gluten Free, Flour-less carrot cake

The white staffs are bad, white flour, white sugar, white rice, white bread.... Not just bad for diabetic people, but if we all eat like a diabetic people we will not have diseases in the first place.
White staff are mere starch and calories with minimal vitamins and nutrients. I quit baking for a while after deciding to be healthy, but i miss the fun of baking, how to bake without flour, sugar and butter?
Thanks to various recipe online and I found some amazing flour-less recipe that open up a new baking world to me.
This recipe uses 100% quinoa grain. Quinoa is high in essential amino acid and great source of protein compared to normal cereal and its gluten free. Iti is called the mother-of-all-grain by the Incas people.
To make 'flour' out of it, I simply pulverize it with Thermomix. The thermy did such a good job that I can even sift the gounded quinoa!
The carrot cake turn out to be so spongy moist and soft, you can't tell it has NO FLOUR! It remain soft and moist the next day!

-Quinoa flour 1c (pulverize from quinoa grain)
-Brown Sugar 1/3c(reduced)
-Carrot 1-1/2c
-Olive oil 1/2c
-Baking soda 1tsp
-Baking powder 1tsp
-Cinnamon powder 1tsp,
-Nutmeg powder 1/4tsp
-SeaSalt pinch
-Egg 2
-Pineapple jam(homemade)1tbsp
-Raisin 1/2c, some walnut, pineapple chucks.

1.Sift all dry ingredient in a seperate bowl
2.Mix sugar, oil together well, add in egg one at a time.
3.Fold in dry ingredient
4.Add in carrot, raisin n walnuts
5.Bake at 170 for 15-18min

Wholemeal Bread with Nuts and Raisin

I have made this bread 3 times since I had my thermomix, it has rekindled my love to bread making again. I used to have a bread maker but it took up too much countertop space in the kitchen and the low bread consumption rate do not quite justified the effort, since the thermomix come with kneading function, why not? so all my homemade jams and nutella has something to spread on!
There are plenty of recipe that make soft fluffy bread, but I like healthier, rustic, heavy loft, they are best toasted!

Ingredients:
Wholemeal flour 1c
Bread flour 1 c
Warm water 1/2 c (120g)
Olive oil 2tbsp (20g)
Yeast 1-1/2 tsp (10g)
Honey 2tbsp (20g)
Salt 1/4tsp
Nut n raisin (120g)
(add 1small egg to have a softer texture) optional


Methods:
1. Put all ingredient into the TM bowl
2. Mix at speed4 for 30sec
3. Knead for 4min and leave in TM bowl to rise 40-50min or till double
4. Take out to shape and leave it to rise again in the oven with a glass of hot water at the bottom
5. bake at 170 for 20min

Eat fresh or store in fridge up to a month, toast it whenever you feel like having a slice!

Anzac Cookies

I love to make this cookies even before I have the thermomix simply because this cookies do not need a mixer nor require to soften the butter, I like to be able to go bake the cookies at the spur of the moment without having to take the butter out of the fridge and wait for it to soften at room temperature, yawning!
My son learn about this cookies on our family trip to Australia/NZ some years ago, the hotel has a big jar of Anzac cookies(I thought was house made) on its counter and Nicholas taken some and eventually finished the whole jar by the second day, he forced me to ask for a refill and I thought I might as well ask for a recipe, the hotel manager was so kind that he gave us the entire bag of unopen store bought anzac cookies (instead of the recipe), my son make sure none of us open the pack until we reached home. I googled up the recipe and never stopped making them since! Now it is even easier with my thermy as I can melt the butter all in the same bowl!

Rolled oats 1cup
Desiccated coconut 1 cup
Flour 1 cup
Brown Sugar 1 cup (reduced version: 3/4c)
Maple syrup or honey 2tbsp
Baking soda 1tsp
Butter or olive oil 1/2cup, 125g, half block.
Salt 1/4 tsp
Boiling water 2tbsp
Cinnamon, nutmeg powder 1tsp each


Method:
1.Melt butter and honey in saucepan; or TM bowl 90c/2min/2
2.Dissolved baking soda in boiling water, add into butter mixture (it will bubble up)
3.Mix together sugar/flour/oat/coconut/spice , at speed4, pour into butter mixture until all combine
4.Bake 10-12min at 160c, longer if you prefer crunchier.

Pineapple Jam, No sugar added

Sole ingredient!

Ripe pineapple 1 (Bali pineapple for sweetness or local pineapple for sourish sauce)

TMX Method:

• Peeled, chunky cubed
• Blend 20s/6 for very fine texture
• 100c/30min/speed1, open cap to reduce water content, put in Veroma steamer to avoid hot sauce splatter out.
• STEAM to STERILIZE BOTTLE for bottling.
• Reduce time if prefer more watery jam, add 10min if prefer thicker jam.

Use for:
Ice-cream topping, yogurt parfait, dessert dressing, pineapple tarts,

Homemade Nutella

What you see is what you will eat, take a look at the ingredient list of the Nutella bottle you will notice that there is only 13% of hazelnut and 8.7% of cocoa, and the main ingredient as listed FIRST is sugar and follow by vegetable oil (in other word 'trans-fat'), both make up a total of about 60-70%!!

Don't be intimidated by the mystically yummy nutella and you can make it yourself and it is surprisingly EASY!

There are so many ways to substitute your ingredient according to your liking, I choose the healthies option known to me, you can't tell the different when the hazelnut is so nuttyly yummy with the high quality chocolate, it is better than Nutella!!

Ingredients:

Hazelnut, lightly roasted and skinned  80g, 3/4 cup

Dark chocolate bar (85% or 90% cocoa content)  50g, half bar (I used Lindt)

Brown sugar, honey, palm sugar or madjool dates  50g, 1/3c or less

Coconut milk/fresh milk/almond milk/oat milk  50g, 1/2 cup

Olive oil, butter 40g, 2-3tbsp, depending your desirable consistency

pinch of salt

raw unsweetened cocoa powder 1tsp (optional, for richer chocolate taste)

TMX Methods:

1. Pulverize sugar 10sec at speed10

2. Add in hazelnut and grind until pasty, stop to scrap down and continue

3. Add chocolate bar, grind 10sec

4. add all other ingredient, heat 60c/3min/speed3

5. drizzle in oil at speed3 until smooth and creamy.

 Brown sugar become powder in a second