Oh the fourth day of Solstice my Thelma made for me...

Strawberry sauce.

So easy. And great when you have something like donuts or chocolate/fruit that needs something extra. It's so quick and instant though that it's easy to whip up to store! You could freeze it as it won't keep in the fridge for long, and always have strawberry sauce/flavour.

Strawberry sauce
100g strawberries
4T icing sugar (about 70-80g of raw sugar, blended down)
1 dash of vanilla
1 squeeze of lemon

Pull the tops off the strawberries and throw into the bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients. Blend down on speed 3 for 10 seconds then up to 6 for another 10. Taste and add more sugar if it's too tart.

On the second day of Solstice my Thelma made (muffins) for me!

Oh how I love muffins. Once upon a time I was muffin on the precursor to chat because I (a) adore muffins and (b) make really good ones. Here is my adaptation for the Thermomix. Keep in mind that this is a very "loose" recipe. In this case, I adapted what I was making to what was in my fridge and the flours I was using. The recipe in the EDC is pretty good so don't be afraid of using it if you can't follow this or don't have some of the ingredients.

Apple and sultana muffins
2 apples (I used Granny Smith), cored and quartered
50g sultanas
150g raw sugar
150g plain white flour
170g plain spelt flour
2tsp baking powder
175g milk
2T yoghurt (I used Greek)
2 eggs

Put the apple in the bowl. Add the sugar and process for 4-5 seconds on speed 6 until the apple is in slivers. Add everything else and process on reverse on speed 5 for 15 seconds. Do not over process as it makes the muffins chewy! Have a peak at it as it goes around - it should look like Bircher muesli / oatmeal at this stage. Add a bit more milk or yoghurt if it needs to be thinner, and a bit more flour if it's too runny. Spoon into muffin cases and bake at 190C for 12-15 minutes (check a skewer is clean on skewering them before taking them out). Cool on a rack or eat them hot!

Oh yum. So good. Good to freeze, will keep for a week in an airtight container, and easy to adapt. Swap the apple and sultana for another fruit. Add spice. Add chocolate chips. Enjoy!

And now for my second love - savoury muffins. There is nothing quite as good as these to take for lunch, for having something savoury at a party instead of bread, for splitting in half and stuffing bits of cheese into etc etc. Again, a very flexible recipe - I've done tomato and capsicum, ham and cheese, salmon and dill, and so on. These freeze really well and I make giant ones when I'm on placement so I can take one or two with me as well as a tin of tuna or something protein-y. Now that I have a Thermomix I can do it quickly and easily.

Spring onion and cheese muffins
100g cheese (I used tasty but anything hard would be fine)
2 spring onions, cut into 2" pieces (trim off the root end)
150g plain white flour170g plain spelt flour
2tsp baking powder
200g milk
4T yoghurt (I used Greek)
2 eggs
1tsp seeded mustard

Put the cheese in the bowl after cutting it into 1" cubes. Process for 3-5 seconds on speed 6 until it's in 1cm pieces. Add the spring onion and process for a few more seconds. Add the rest of the ingredients and process on reverse on speed 5 for 15 seconds. Do not over process as it makes the muffins chewy! Have a peak at it as it goes around - it should look like Bircher muesli / oatmeal at this stage but probably won't as you haven't got the sugar in there. Add a bit more milk if it needs to be thinner, and a bit more flour if it's too runny. Spoon into muffin cases and bake at 190C for 12-15 minutes (check a skewer is clean on skewering them before taking them out). Cool on a rack or eat them hot!

On the first day of Solstice, my Thelma made for me

On Forum Thermomix I posted:

I have 14 very juicy lemons...
So please, lend me your lemon recipes!!! for things that I can preserve. Or else that's a lot of lemon butter Wink Grin.

So I've used up a few things:
14 eggs
7 lemons
Lots of sugar
More butter than you need to know about

= 10 jars of lemon butter so far. Plus some extra for a smidge of a jar that is in the fridge for me. I really hope that this will help spread a bit of Solstice cheer around my lovely friends.

To sum up my approach to this season, here's a post I put elsewhere:

We hold our traditions strongly - celebrate the Solstice with food and candles and wishes for the new year, then Christmas day we volunteer in the morning as a family, and have an open house for waifs and orphans in the afternoon/evening with lots of food and drinks, and a Colin Firth marathon starting with Love, Actually. 

Probably the least "trad" way of celebrating but we've done it 5 years running now and love it. Low cost, low stress, genuine and sincere celebration of what Christmas means to us, and uniquely ours ;). This is my daughter's first and I can't wait to share it with her.

Part of it is also to cook and make many of the gifts we give at this time of the year. This year it'll be a lot of Thelma-assisted ones too.

Cake! Stunning cake! Lemon poppyseed in this case.

I made a cake this morning before an Australian Breastfeeding Association meeting. I made a lemon-poppyseed cake (thin-skinned lemons with lots of juice) which was delicious and still warm when I got to the meeting. I didn't make the icing in the Tmx but it was so.good. that I licked the bowl out.

Lemon-poppyseed cake
Rind of one lemon - dry it on paper towel so it doesn't just stick to the edges
250g raw sugar
1/2tsp of the best vanilla extract you can get your hands on
175g butter
4 bantam eggs and 1 humungous egg (or else 3 normal-sized eggs)
60g milk
Juice of the lemon
250g selfraising flour
30g poppyseeds
A pinch of cinnamon

Icing
75g white chocolate dots
1T sour cream
A drop or two of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 175C. Spray a cake tin - I used a circular one from Ikea with hearts on it! Place the rind and sugar in the Tmx and process for 5-10 seconds at speed 7. Add the butter and eggs and process for 15 seconds at speed 6 if the butter is straight out of the fridge. You should cut it into small pieces if this is the case so it processes easily. Add the juice by squeezing the lemon onto the top of the Tmx lid when the MC is in place - this catches the seeds! Sweep the seeds off before you open the lid though. Add the flour and cinnamon, and mix for 30 seconds at speed 4. Add the poppyseeds and mix for an extra few seconds to incorporate. Pour into cake tin and bake for 45 minutes. Check that it's cooked then cool before icing.

To make the icing - melt the buttons in the microwave (takes about a minute). Add the sour cream and the vanilla, stir well and drizzle over the cooled cake. I did it over still-warm cake and it was fine.

This was inspired by the EDC book but is not quite the same as I'd heard the crumb wasn't particularly fabulous with that recipe (it used plain flour and baking powder, and I also adjusted the process to reduce the speed as the recipe goes on).

Keeps for a few days if it lasts that long. Lem

I have lemons, lovely lemons...

And what does one do with lemons when one has them? I picked a heap of a friend's tree the other day and now I need to do things with them.

There are two parts to a lemon of course - the zesty goodness and the juice/flesh. So I think I'll do something with both. That means making limoncello and lemon cordial I think! Or maybe orange-lemon cordial?

TheHusband test drove the chicken and cashew recipe EDC tonight. Nothing exciting to be honest but some great techniques there for making rice and using the Varoma.