What are you been cooking today

[CarolineW]

Forgot to say that I also made mulled wine for the party - I'm off to post a review of it now.

[Thermomixer]

I'm still pathetically low on energy and ability to stand, but otherwise very healthy.  So there isn't all that much cooking going on.  .........
......  Last night it fed the crowd that came for my Birthday bonfire party, with almost every person asking for the recipe.  Which is why I bothered to say how to make it here    .......

Sounds like you need some advice from Paul.  Hope the Bimbette is behaving itself.

Do you still have Guy Fawkes night - or is that just a bonfire for your birthday - because it's such a big event?

[Thermomixer]

Nothing much in Bimby today - but lots of seafood and fish after a weekend at cooking classes in Sydney.

Always a bit weird - so oyster tonight done Kilpatrick style to keep on the good side of MrsT.  Cleaned some scallops and froze them before scrubbing and drying the shells for later.  The scallops will be crumbed with gremolata breadcrumbs and deep-fried.

Prepared some kingfish for a carpaccio dish and then skinned and portioned some salmon - froze the portions for meals over the next few weeks before cleaning the skin and placed it in the dehydrator !!  Yep, weird.  It is going ot become crisp and dried and thn be used like prawn crackers.

Simple salad with nashi, cucumber, pumpkin cubes, tomato cubes, pickled squid tentacles and Middle EAstern spices.  Tasted nice but not TMX.

Will return to normality soon,

[GNMI]

1.  "Salty Butter" on request from an Irish friend - worked perfectly
2.  Mayonnaise - fantastic
3.  Capsicum and sundried tomato dip - YUM (too much vinegar though, had to add a bit of sugar and also added some philly cheese)

Tomorrow - My son's 3rd bday party

Broccoli salad, beetroot salad, onion gravy, vege patties and ice cream...

[andiesenji]

Yes, Thermomixer, I did prepare a batch of marzipan in the Bimby while the pork mincemeat was roasting in the oven.
(Did you see my post on eG?)

The result was excellent!!  My usual marzipan batch is several times the size of the Bimby recipe but it takes me all day and is extremely labor intensive.   It gives me enough to use in all my holiday baking, chocolates and marzipan "ornaments"  but the effort also tires me so much that I have to have a day or so to rest. 
This was so easy and so rapid that from now on I am simply going to make one or two of these small batches as needed. 
Except for the time spent blanching the almonds earlier in the day and putting them into the Excalibur to dry, the entire process, measuring and all, took me less than 30 minutes.  Wow!

Today I have gathered the ingredients and am going to make the stollen from
http://www.ukthermomix.com/recshow.php?rec_id=68

So far this morning, in addition to pulling out and measuring all the stollen ingredients, I've  ground (in several batches) two pounds of granulated sugar into icing sugar to send to my daughter.  She and two of my granddaughters have an allergy to corn and can't use the commercial powdered sugar because of the cornstarch it contains.

I'm also going to chisel some chunks off a loaf of jaggery and see how well the Bimby works to grind it into a usable state.
I have a friend who brought me four hunks of the stuff last year and I have used it sparingly because of having to pound it in a mortar before using it.  Lots of work for a questionable result. 

[CarolineW]

Sounds like you need some advice from Paul.  Hope the Bimbette is behaving itself.

Do you still have Guy Fawkes night - or is that just a bonfire for your birthday - because it's such a big event?

Bimbette is behaving herself quite well, thanks 

Guy Fawkes night is very much still a feature of the UK calendar.  But we decided to have our bonfire night on my Birthday instead.  We all enjoyed it so much that we're talking about it becoming a family & friend tradition.  We'll see.

[Thermomixer]

Yes, Thermomixer, I did prepare a batch of marzipan in the Bimby while the pork mincemeat was roasting in the oven.
(Did you see my post on eG?)

Yes, spy on other forums.     Good luck with the stollen and jaggery.  Jaggery should work OK - but sometime think the larger microplanes are quicker for small amounts.

[Thermomixer]

Guy Fawkes night is very much still a feature of the UK calendar.  But we decided to have our bonfire night on my Birthday instead.  We all enjoyed it so much that we're talking about it becoming a family & friend tradition.  We'll see.

Hope you don't take to trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament too !!

[cookie1]

A "simple" salad Thermomixer-it sounds lovely.

Excuse my dumbness but what is jaggery?

[Lovemythermo]

GNMI those vegie patties sound interesting.

Any chance you could post your recipe?

[Thermomixer]

Excuse my dumbness but what is jaggery?

Hard blocks of sugar a bit like the blocks of palm sugar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaggery

[cookie1]

Thank you. I forget that wikipedia exists. Too new fangled for this old gal!

[andiesenji]

The stollen turned out beautifully.  The risotto was fantastic.

This morning I baked some scones - strictly "winging it"  as I need to use up my homemade scone mix, which I prepare in large batches and keep in a tub in the freezer (along with all my grains, nuts and various whole-grain flours that are subject to rancidity.  The summer temps here can get well over 110° F., and even though this is the desert, there are bugs.  Pantry moths really love the high desert. 

Anyway, about the scones...   I broke up a couple of medium bananas, added two eggs (my egg man brought me 5 dozen a few days ago) and half a cup of heavy cream - half a teaspoon of mixed spices and a handful of blanched almonds left over from the marzipan.
I mixed this at speed 7 until I no longer heard the almonds bouncing around.  I dumped in about two cups of the scone mix, closed the lid and set it to mix on the spoon setting, peeking through the top opening added more mix until I could hear the motor slowing a bit.  It took one session of 55 secs and a second session of 35 seconds.

I portioned the dough onto a baking sheet with a 6-ounce disher (ice-cream scoop) and baked them off at 400° F. for 18 minutes.

It was much easier than mixing with a Danish dough whisk, my usual process, and the scones are beautiful, very tender.

[Tebasile]

We have leftover pumpkinsoup, leek-apple-risotto, kalesalad and pomegranate-banana-icecream layered with sprouted buckwheat granola

[Nay-nay]

Your scone mix sounds like a good idea andiesenji. What is your ratio for ingredients?? What are the ingredients - sugar and flour??