Thanks for those great suggestions. The dinner party is next weekend (one week's time) so it will give me a chance to practice.

I would please like some suggestions for good dinner party recipes from the Indian TM cookbook and any suggestions for good chocolate dessert recipes also for a dinner party.

Thanks.

Make porridge according to the EDC but place 1/2 a tablespoon of cocoa in it and add about a cup of dried fruit such as chopped apricot or sultanas.

Leave in the fridge overnight and it sets for you to eat the next day for breakfast.

There is no need to add sugar because of all the dried fruit and you don't need to put milk on it.

You can also experiment with adding other things such as nuts and muesli.

It is handy if you have to get up early for work and want your breakfast already made.

PEARL BARLEY VERSION

I also tried this recently with Pearl Barley and coconut sugar and it worked really well. I made a large batch but I found it to be good served hot (I had mine with almond milk and some sultanas added to it) or cold.

1.5 cups pearl barley
 6 cups water
 1/2 cup coconut sugar (has GI of just 35 and can use it 1 to 1 with brown sugar)
As many sultanas or other dried fruit as you like

It takes about an hour or perhaps even a bit more to make this quantity.

Pearl barley has a very low GI so this version would be great for diabetics.

Can someone please tell me what EVO is?

I thought the lemon custard at the home demo was great and always wanted to try it myself but wasn't sure what to put with it.

I went on Yahoo Answers and the most popular answer was to crush ginger snaps and serve them with it (Lady Finger biscuits, cubed pound cake and ginger bread were other popular answers).

I cooked some ginger snaps tonight and made the lemon custard as per p155 Basic TM cookbook for custard/creme patissere

I used 70g of Erithrytol (which is 50% less sweet than sugar) instead of the 60g to 100g of sugar recommended. So in theory it should be as seet as if I had used about 50g of sugar.

I found it was too runny and not lemony enough. The recipe says you can use 4 eggs and an extra 10g corn flour for a thicker custard if you like so I did that and also added the rind of another lemon. After adding the lemon juice from both lemons as well it was lemony enough but still not quite as thick as I'd like, despite another few minutes of heating at 90 degrees on speed 4.

Please tell me if the TM consultants use the p 155 recipe or something else since it worked so well at the demo.

Also does anyone have any ideas of what to put with the lemon custard apart from crushed ginger snaps?

I'd like something suitable for a dinner party dessert and crushed ginger snaps with lemon custard doesn't look good enough.

Actually, any TM recipe suitable for a dinner party dessert would be of interest. For example, I was thinking of making TM stick date pudding. Would that be suitable?

For my dinner party I was going to make some crackers with the TM and my dehydrator to go with dips (made from TM Basic book), pumpkin and lentil soup (recipe from taste.com.au) and Tangine of Morrocan chicken with harissa spiced sweet potato (Nico's Food for Friends book) all of which I have tried and believe are suitable for a dinner party.

Another althernative of course would be to just have fruit salad for the dessert.

I am also lactose intolerant.

Is it possible to make conventional bread successfully without using oil?

If I use the basic bread recipe without oil does it work OK or would it work better with the addition of something else in place of oil such as apple sauce?

Do bread recipes that work in a bread maker work in the Thermomix without modification? If not, how do they need to be modified?

I've had my Thermomix a few weeks and successfully made soups, dips, bread rolls, rice pudding etc. I've really enjoyed using it.

BREAD

Recently tried to make the basic bread recipe using Kamut flour which is low GI and supposedly good for baking. Left out the oil to be healthier. Kneaded with Thermomix on interval setting (the one before number 1?). I used a dehydrator to rise the bread for 30 min. Not sure if it actually rose that much. The bread didn't rise in the oven. I felt the recipe seemed to have a lot of flour relative to water, compared to when I used to make it in a breadmaker.

Does the Thermomix basic bread recipe normally work? Should I do the same again with more water? Should it work if I use a different bread recipe that I know worked in the bread maker?

TOMATO PASTE

Not sure how to de-seed a tomato. How would I do this?

What brand/type of glass jar would be best?

Would I be better off sterilising the tompato paste in the jar in my pressure cooking than boiling the jar in water in a saucepan on the stove?

Can you normally re-use the lid of the jar after you've consumed the tomato paste?

I bought a sterilising jar and after reading the instructions realize it says you need to buy a new lid everytime you use it and I don't think the store sells the lids.