Smoothie Cubes

I’ve been making smoothies – yes, even during winter. It’s an easy way to get dairy, fruit and weet-bix into the little girl.

I originally started by blending weetbix, frozen bananas, and frozen strawberries with lots of milk and a dollop or two of yoghurt, enough to make a 600ml smoothie. The problem with this was that I’d sometimes end up with a strawberry that was still whole.

So, I changed the technique. No milk. I’d blend up the other ingredients so it was like I was grating / chopping it. Then I would add the milk. It was not entirely successful. I’d end up with chunks all over the bowl which I then had to scrape down.

So, I changed the method again. This time, just enough milk to make the weetbix soggy. 2 weetbix, 1 cavendish banana, 6 medium strawberries and about 250ml milk. I’d slowly mix until the weetbix was all soggy and then slowly increase the speed until it turned into something like melting ice cream. Then I’d add milk to make it the right consistency. This would make enough for about 1.5 smoothies. One for me, and half for the little girl.

Then, I figured out, I could leave out the final addition of milk. Why? Because I didn’t really want to have a smoothie every time I made one for the little girl. So, I’d make smoothie “concentrate” so I could spoon out enough to make a smoothie for her, and just add some more milk.

It occurred to me that even after a day or two in the fridge, the “concentrate” still retained its bubbles after I added milk to it. So, I tried freezing it.

The final recipe has been 3 weetbix, 3 frozen lady finger bananas, half a dozen frozen medium strawberries and about 250ml milk. I spread it out on a baking tray that has baking paper on it, freeze it, then slice it up and store in freezer bags.

We had smoothies this afternoon. The little girl had one that was about 250ml, and I had a 600ml one. And there was still plenty of bubbles in it. 😀

Red Bean Blended Ice

Mum and I are fans of Red Bean Blended Ice from EasyWay. So, we thought we’d try to make some at home. Simple. Ice and red bean dessert (as in the Cantonese red bean dessert soup – red beans, water, sugar and cook).

I brought out my ice, and based on what happened with the sorbet from my first demo (the ice didn’t crush up as well as the demonstrator had hoped) decided I’d crush the ice first. The basics guide says about 400g of ice at speed 7-10 for about 10 seconds. I didn’t weigh my ice, but I turned it up to speed 7. And went by sound. There was no more rattling after about 4 seconds, so I figured it was all crushed. I was surprised to see it wasn’t just crushed – it was… well, it looked like icing sugar, it was all white! We added the red beans and some extra water, and the result was fabulous.
Our own Red Bean Blended Ice at home. All that was missing was pearls.

Steamed Egg Custard

I needed to make something with the 8 egg yolks left over from making meringues. So I decided to make Cantonese Steamed Egg Custard. The sweet type with milk, not the savoury type with water/soy.

So, I added 4 more whole eggs, and put them in a 1.65 l pyrex dish.

I boiled 1 litre of milk with about 1 cup of sugar, and poured it into the egg. With 1 litre of water in the Thermomix, I set the temperature to Varoma, set the timer for 30 minutes and put the custard in its dish in the Varoma steamer and let it cook.

Mostly a success – I suspect the Varoma temperature is a bit too high – my custard went a bit bubbly around the outside, but it set.
I’ll try it again on just 100C next time.

Whipping Egg Whites

Mum wants to see how well the Thermomix beats egg whites. It doesn’t. Not in our opinion anyway.

The recipe book says to beat 4 – 10 egg whites at 50C for 3-5 minutes at speed 4.

I’m dubious about the heat. Mum reckons it’s good to help it whip up.

We put the 4 egg whites and a bit of cream of tartar in and beat. Mum starts to add caster sugar when she thinks it’s stiff enough to hold it.

We stop the Thermomix at about 4 minutes – it’s still very runny. White and opaque but still very runny. We transfer it to the Kenwood Mixmaster to stiffen it. We know that the Thermomix isn’t going to cut it.

I will try it again with just egg whites and no heat.

[update]
I found some interesting information about egg white whipping:

Whipping Egg Whites for Macaroons and Meringues – Helpful Tips and Techniques

and
http://www.akiskitchen.ca/techniques/eggs_how_to_whipup/whipping_egg_whites_1.html

Carrot and Rockmelon Juice

Mum wants to try something in the Thermomix.
What can we do?
Carrot and orange juice! Like it says in the recipe book. But she doesn’t want citrus even though I have mandarines. We’ve recently cut and frozen some rockmelon. We reckon that will work.

The recipe:

1 large carrot
1 tray ice cubes
2-3 navel oranges, peeled, quartered
200g-500g cold water

At speed 8, for 30 seconds, blend carrot, ice and oranges.
Add water then mix for 2 minutes at speed 8.

Our variation:

2 medium carrots
about an ice cube tray’s worth of frozen rockmelon
about 500g water

mix everything for about 1 minute on speed 8

It worked, and resulted in about 700ml of juice. It tasted of way too much carrot, not surprisingly. It would have been better if we’d followed the method correctly.

The Thermomix Arrives

The day of the delivery arrives! How exciting! Mum already had me soak 2 cups of soy beans in preparation.

The Thermomix lady arrives and we set up the machine. It’s so easy, just like the demonstrations.

We try to follow the recipe to make soy milk.

150g dried soy beans, soaked overnight and drained.
1100g water

Mix beans and 500g of the water at speed 8 for 1 minute
Add the remaining water and mix at speed 4 for 10 minutes at 90C

Strain, add sweetener as required, drink.

It was a success and even the Thermomix lady was impressed.

Risotto failure

We decided, now that we have the Thermomix, that we’ll make risotto. Mum loves risotto, but doesn’t like having to stand there and mix. Yeah, yeah, it’s meant to be the “love” that goes into it, but honestly, who has the time to do that? There’s so many other things to do!

So, we figured we’d add chicken to the recipe… I think that was part of the mistake that lead to failure.

Half a medium onion
50g olive oil
470-500g arborio rice
100g white wine
2tbsp TM vegetable stock concentrate
200g fresh mushrooms sliced
1100g water

Chop onion on speed 7 for 5 seconds
Add oil and cook for 2 minutes on 100C at speed 1
Insert Butterfly. Add rice and wine and cook for 2 minutes at 100C on reverse and soft speed
Add stock, mushrooms and water and cook for 16-17 minutes at 100C on reverse and soft speed

Cook without butterfly using reverse and speed 1-2

The onion didn’t get chopped up as evenly as we would have expected – we pushed the big bits down again and tried to chop it up again, but ended up pureeing some of the smaller bits. We moved on.

I decided we’d try it without the butterfly. That was ok for step 3 because I put it at speed 1-2. After I added all the chicken and mushroom, however, I’d forgotten I didn’t have the butterfly in and did it at soft speed. It wasn’t until about 10 minutes in that I remembered it should have been at speed 1-2.

Result? Uncooked rice, chicken and mushrooms at the top, and smooshed rice at the bottom.

How did we attempt to fix it? I scooped it out into the Thermoserve, then put the butterfly in, then put the uncooked bits back into the bottom of the Thermomix bowl, with the moosh at the top. I set it to cook for another 10 minutes. It turned into “grandma rice”.

Oh well. We’ll just have to try it again, and this time, actually follow the recipe!