a stick of celery and 4 tomatoes...

what does one do with 4 tomatoes and a stick of celery?

this is what i did...and it was yum.

1 stick celery, cut into chunks
4 small/medium tomatoes
1 litre water
2 tablespoons vegetable stock concentrate
300 grams ditali pasta

place the celery and tomatoes into the tm bowl and blend for 5 seconds on speed 7. add the water and concentrate. cook for 8 minutes on speed 2 at 100 degrees.

add the pasta and cook on reverse, speed 1 1/2 at 100 degrees until the pasta is al dente, usually about 10 minutes - this depends on your pasta. the pasta thickens the liquid as it cooks, making it quite hearty.

there's a lot of hype about cooking with just a few ingredients these days, and so often those ingredients are preprepared, processed or both. the only thing preprepared about this dish was the stock concentrate, and that was homemade from scratch. it was delicious, and you should have been there to smell it.

tomato and red lentil soup

i have always waxed lyrical about how quick and easy making soup in the thermomix is to all and sundry...and finally came the day i had to whip something up at someone's place. i've started putting a bag of pantry items in the boot of my car now, where ever i go so i can just whip up something to eat on arrival. so i arrive at this person's place and all the fresh vegetable she has is 2 tomatoes...

my bag to the rescue. i had a can of chickpeas, so it could have been tomato and chickpea soup, but i also found the red lentils, so it was tomato and red lentil soup. endless possiblities.

the soup appears quite thin prior to blending, but thickens up beautifully once blended.


2 tomatoes
100 grams red lentils
1 litre stock (or water with stock concentrate to taste)

core the tomatoes and put them in the thermomix bowl with the lentils and blitz on speed 7 for 4 seconds.
add the stock or water and concentrate.
cook at 100 degrees celcius for 10 minutes on speed 2 with the MC on.
blend for one minute on speed 9.
cook a further minute on 100 degrees on speed 4.
check for seasoning and serve.

poached chicken revisited

miss c went to canberra earlier this year and off she went not knowing how to cook. i had no reservations about her going, after all, i knew she wouldn't starve - in this day and age, there are so many places to procure food - take away joints, supermarkets have preprepared meals etc...so i knew she wouldn't starve. however, whether she would be eating well would be up to her. enter the odd recipe here and there, and this is one of them. tomi drew my attention to the fact that i hadn't posted this ...and she came here just to try and find it (she must have found other things).

1 whole chicken breast
water
vegetable stock concentrate

get yourself a saucepan which your chicken breast will fit in comfortably. fill it half way with water and set it on the stove and bring the water to the boil. you should aim to have sufficient water in your saucepan to cover your chicken once you place it into the pot.

while you are waiting for the water to boil, give your piece of chicken a rinse. place a spoonful or two of stock concentrate into the water, and once the liquid boils, gently place (you don't want the liquid to splash) the chicken into the liquid and simmer gently for 5 minutes*. switch off the heat and leave the chicken in the liquid to finish cooking. once the liquid has cooled, your chicken should be cooked through and nice and moist. now you have some chicken to add to sandwiches, salads, pie fillings...and you also have a well flavoured stock with which you can make soup.

*if you have an electric stove which takes time for the element to cool, switch the power off after adding the chicken as there will be plenty of stored heat in the element - you don't want to overcook your chicken - overcooking chicken breast dries the meat out and makes it less palatable.

whisks' chicken and sweetcorn soup

since there was sweetcorn and chicken in the fridge i thought it might be nice to have some chicken and sweetcorn soup made from scratch. obvious choice, eh?

the potatoes thicken the soup nicely and whilst the soup looks and tastes nice and creamy, there isn't any cream. very comforting.

3 potatoes, peeled and quartered
3 cobs sweetcorn, shucked
vegetable stock concentrate to taste
1 litre water
1 double breat of chicken, cut in small cubes

place the potatoes and sweetcorn kernels in the thermomix bowl and blitz on speed 10 for 10 seconds. add the stock concentrate and water and cook the soup on speed 3 at 100 degrees for 17 minutes. add the chicken and continue cooking for another 2 minutes at 100 degrees on speed 3.

creamy salmon soup

whilst this isn't really soup weather, i wanted to try this soup out. it's delicious and almost a meal in itself. quick and easy, i made this in the thermomix, and as such, it would be really good for those times when i really didn't feel like cooking.

500 grams milk
200 grams cream
150 grams water (or part wine, part water)
20 grams tomato paste
1 large potato, cubed
1 tablespoon vegetable stock concentrate
200 grams fresh salmon, cut in 1 centimetre cubes
finely diced tomatoes and dill, to garnish

place the milk, cream, water, wine (if using), tomato paste, potato and stock concentrate in the thermomix bowl.
blend on speed 9 for 15 seconds.
cook for 10 minutes at 100 degrees celcius on speed 3.
add the salmon and combine for 30 seconds on reverse speed 1. there is sufficient retained heat to cook the salmon through and not over cook it.

internet chicken

this is one of the first dishes i cooked from the internet. it was a novelty for me. i wasn't a can of this and that cook....i cooked things from scratch....i made cake from distinguishable ingredients....this was a first for me. mind you, i have never been able to leave well enough alone with recipes and like to add my own touch, so this is now a bit different to the original which had chipped beef in it. no quantities - i just roll with what i have at the time. simple as.

chicken
bacon
mushrooms
1 carton sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup

lay the chicken in casserole dish and strew the sliced mushrooms and bacon over the chicken. combine the sour cream and soup together and pour over everything in the dish. bake at 180 degrees celcius for 45 minutes to an hour. serve with noodles or rice.

kumera and lentil soup

this is one of the easiest soups i know...almost as easy as opening up a can of cambell's soup; it's just fresher tasting, that's all.

1 kilogram kumera, cubed
3/4 cup red lentils, rinsed
stock to cover
salt and pepper to taste

pop everything into a pot, bring it to the boil and simmer until the kumera is tender. blend until smooth (or however you like it) and serve.

wasn't that the easiest? i'm not a big lentil person, but the addition of lentils with this really works well, so much so that if it is omitted, the soup just doesn't taste as good.

cauliflower soup

this has to be one of the easiest soups around, and one of the nicest ways to enjoy cauliflower. cheese croutons or cheese toast round this off as a light meal.

1 head of cauliflower, washed and trimmed of the green leaves
1 onion, chopped
4 rashers bacon, trimmed and chopped
1 rib celery, sliced
1 cup stock (or water, if stock is not on hand)
300mls cream
parsley, to garnish

place the cauliflower, onion, bacon, celery and stock in a pot just large enough to hold everything snugly. bring to the boil over a medium flame. reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the cauliflower is very tender. remove from heat and blend with a handheld blender until smooth. stir in the cream and return to the stove until heated through. sprinkle with a little parsley prior to serving.

sometimes, i add a little stock powder (less than 1/4 of a teaspoon) just to bring the flavour out, but that is purely optional.