February 21, 2012

Chilli Sauce

Suprisingly, this is my first batch of chilli sauce since I got my Thermomix (2 years ago!)  (I used to make my chilli sauce in very large batches to make the effort worthwhile).

The Thermomix made it all so simple and the colour is so much more vibrant than cooking it on the stove top.

My recipe is a "bit of this" and a "bit of that" and of course a lot depends on the amount of heat in your chilli (the rule of thumb being the smaller they are the hotter they are.  They also take the longest to prep for chilli sauce - because you need to cut the tops off them and that is always more fiddly!)

As you can see the ones that I mainly used were the medium sized ones but this still resulted in quite a spicy sauce even when combined with 1kg of tomatoes!

Ingredients
250g brown onions (approximately 2 medium)
60g ginger (approximately 5cm knob)
30g garlic (approximately 1 large bulb of garlic cloves)
330g chilli (after removing tops)
1kg tomatoes
70g raw sugar
1 tsp salt
60g apple cider vinegar

Method

1. Place onions, ginger, garlic, chilli and tomatoes in TM bowl. Chop on speed 7 for 10 seconds.
2. Add sugar, salt and vinegar. Cook for 45 minutes on Varoma temperature, speed 1. Place rice basket on top to prevent spitting.
3. Decant into sterilised jars.

Especially good with chicken dishes and in a stir fry!



January 15, 2012

Chocolate Zucchini Brownies with Pecan Crumble Topping

Brownie Mission #3

I had two zucchinis laying idle in my crisper, mainly due to the fact that I rarely cook with zucchini because my kids don't eat it ... but now they do! (albeit unbeknownst to them).

I had heard of chocolate zucchini cake, but I thought I would venture on another brownie mission (see #1 and #2) and found Grandma's Chocolate Zucchini Brownies on All Recipes.com. I am so glad I did! The brownie is soft and moist and a little bit fudgy and goes perfectly with the crunchy crumbly nutty chocolatey topping. And of course one slice probably counts for at least one serve of vegies!

Here's my Thermotalk version:

Ingredients
150g pecans
750g zucchini (approximately 2 large zucchinis)
200g + 2 tbsp raw sugar
125g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
300g plain flour
30g cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
1/2 tsp salt
100g chocolate chips

Method
1. Preheat oven to 170C. Line a 19cm x 28cm cake tin or a large square tin with baking paper.
2. Place pecans in TM bowl. Chop for 2 seconds on speed 5. Set aside.
3. Place zucchini in TM bowl. Chop for 10 seconds on speed 4-5. Put into rice basket and put rice basket on top of a bigger bowl to drain.
4. Place 200g sugar and butter into TM bowl. Cream for 1 minute on speed 3.
5. Add vanilla extract then add eggs one at a time with TM going at speed 3-4 until all combined (approximately 30 seconds).
6. Use spoon to push excess juice out of zucchini (freeze the juice for the next time you make a soup and use in place of water). Place zucchini in TM bowl.
7. Add flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate soda, salt. Mix for 30 seconds on speed 5 until combined. Use the spatula to assist if necessary.
8. Pour into prepared cake tin.
9. Mix 2tbsp sugar and the chocolate chips into the bowl with the chopped pecans.
10. Sprinkle on top of the cake.
11. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
12. Cool on cake rack, cut into squares and enjoy!