I took the children fruit picking and foraging this week and we had a fantastic haul, certainly more than we could eat, so I made beautiful fresh Strawberry and Elderflower jam. In the Thermomix it’s such a simple recipe too – no thermometer required. I love this recipe!
Strawberry Elderflower Jam Recipe
Recipe Type: Jam, Condiments
Cuisine: Foraged
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 400ml
If you’re not using jam sugar you need to cut a grannysmith apple in quarters and add it to the mixtures. I use jamming sugar for this recipe. If you don’t use Elderflower, add an extra 10g strawberries
Ingredients
250g jam sugar
440g strawberries
10g Elderflower
2 tbs lemon juice (or 1/2 fresh lemon juice)
Instructions
In the Thermomix
Put the jam sugar in the bowl and turbo two or three times to make it finer.
Add the strawberries and elderflowers, if using, and mix Speed 4/10 Seconds
It was my daughter’s second birthday today, and following on from a month of absolutely no food-mojo, I didn’t prepare anything healthy for this party at all. There were fruit cups, but they were slathered in cream. Yum, but not healthy, really. Anyway, it’s a party, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. Especially when what I did make was as playful and tasty and fun as Stained Glass Rainbow Jelly.
I can’t take credit for this recipe – I originally found it at Food Librarian – and considering that I haven’t had any success at all with make from scratch gelatin recipes in the past, I was dubious, but it looked perfect for a Messy Play Party, so I had to try.
Here are a few tips you don’t have to learn for yourself:
With the coloured jelly, you can cut them into shapes if you’ve made them into thin enough layers. I made some flowers, and it worked well. I threw the ‘unused’ bits of the jelly into the mix anyway, since the shapes are all haphazard, it doesn’t matter.
When you layer them, however, don’t layer the shapes – i.e. the flowers – horizontally, as when you cut it, you cant see the shapes. You need to place the shapes in your dish vertically so you can see them when they are cut.
If you make these two days ahead, and store in a sealed container, they are still good. I was worried making them on Saturday that by Monday they would be rubbery, but they were delicious. It takes pressure off doing them the day before and being worried they won’t set in time.
A fun party food, easy to make, but with great impact. Everyone loves them!
Ingredients
4 packets jelly
1 can condensed milk
2 packets gelatin
Instructions
In four separate shallow containers, make the four jellies. IGNORE THE PACKAGE INSTRUCTIONS. Just mix each packet with one cup of boiling water. Once the jelly is dissolved, pop it in the fridge for at least four hours.
Once the jelly is set, gently remove it from the shallow containers, and cut into squares or shapes.
Next, pour 1/2 cup of cold water into a bowl.
Add the two packets of gelatin and leave it to ‘bloom’ (absorb the water and swell up).
Add 1.5 cups boiling water, mixing till the gelatin is dissolved.
Add the can of condensed milk, mix it all together.
Leave the condensed milk mix to cool a bit. If you pop the jelly in straight away, it my melt.
Once it’s cooled down (about 10 minutes) add the jelly squares and return it all to the freezer.
Leave for 4 – 6 hours, or over night. Loosen the sides with a butter knife, and tip out.
It’s Valentine’s Day next week, and while don’t particularly celebrate – not my choice, I love an occasion! – there’s no reason why I can’t treat myself with something tangy, sweet, smooth and delicious, while staying guilt free.
I tested these on a few friends who were surprised when I revealed the lime. It’s not overpowering, but all works together in a beautiful ensemble of flavours. I think so anyway.
These can be rolled into balls by rolling a small ball of white, then rolling a ball of chocolate mix, flattening it in the palm of your hand, and then working it around the white ball before refrigerating. If you use a mould, a silicone one works well as you can just pop the shapes right out. We use a silicone mould similar to this one.
You don’t need a Thermomix for this recipe, but any high powered blender will make it a quick and easy recipe to make. A regular blender or food processor will do the job too, but you may need to do it parts. I think a big part of this recipe is having it smooth.
For more flavours, perfect for Valentine’s day (like chilli and chocolate, rum and raisin, salted caramel, all sugar free and raw. There’s even a chocolate chip cookie dough one for those not feeling the love) have a look at Bliss Balls For Beginners.
Raw Lime Coconut Chocolate Bliss Balls For Valentines Day
Recipe Type: Snack, Gift
Cuisine: Raw
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 20
Ideally keep these in the fridge, they are lovely cold. It’s not a deal breaker though.
Ingredients
Top Layer
150g Cashews
40g Shredded Coconut
Second Layer
10g Cocoa
40g Coconut Oil
60g Shredded Coconut
Juice of 1 lime
6 Dates
Instructions
Add 150g cashews and 40g shredded coconut to a bowl.
Mix until smooth – speed10 /30 secs
Remove from bowl and spread on a tray or in shapes.
Add the cocoa, coconut oil, shredded coconut, lime juice, and dates to a clean bowl.
Mix until smooth – speed 10/30 secs
Remove from bowl and spread over the white layer.
Store in the fridge for long enough for the coconut oil to set, about half an hour, and serve. If gifting, keep these cool. They should be kept in the fridge if it’s really hot where you are.
I really love this Peppermint Salt Scrub for being both refreshing and having only a few ingredients, all of which you can find in your kitchen, and with names you can pronounce, like… salt… and oil. Now, if you have a sensitive skin you may want to test a patch of this Peppermint Salt Scrub first, as it can dry the skin out a little (although the oil should balance that out for normal skins). You should use it as a body scrub, but salt crystal are probably a bit harsh on the face.
A salt scrub is deliciously soothing, and will leave your skin titillating and radiant looking.
Sweet Almond oil has calming and anti-inflammatory has calming and anti-inflammatory properties, it moisturises, restores and softens skin.
Peppermint essential oil is used to relieve skin irritation and itchiness and also helps to reduce skin redness, where inflammation is present. It is used for dermatitis, acne, ringworm, scabies and also relieves itching, sunburn and inflammation of the skin, while at the same time having a cooling action. Peppermint oil should be used sparingly in pregnancy, when breastfeeding or on children under 7.
I was making this for Christmas, so wanted to make a candy cane effect you often see in DIY products on Pinterest, but I didn’t see the point in using organic salt, peppermint essential oil and an organic sweet almond oil, and then add a red food colouring… so I used dehydrated beetroot instead. This is non-essential. You can leave it white. Or you can make it all coloured, nice and pink for Valentine’s day would be good.
Peppermint Salt Scrub
Recipe Type: Beauty
Cuisine: Non-Food
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Total time:
Serves: 1 cup
A quick and easy DIY beauty product, a very simple gift, and a lovely way to pamper without the chemicals or great expense
Ingredients
1 cup organic rock salt (not fine salt and definitely not table salt)
1 cup sweet almond oil
6 drops peppermint essential oil
Optional dried beetroot powder to colour
Instructions
Add all the ingredients to a bowl.
Mix
(If you are doing layers, halve the mix, add the beetroot and mix again. Dish tablespoonsfull into the container, alternating white and pink/red)
Scoop into a clean glass container.
In the Thermomix:
Put everything in the bowl
Speed 2/Reverse/ 30 seconds
(If you are doing layers, halve the mix, add the beetroot and mix again. Dish tablespoonsfull into the container, alternating white and pink/red)
Who doesn’t love popcorn!? We love popcorn in our house. It’s one of those healthy snacks that feels like such a treat. Either for a family night in snuggling & watching movies, or for a lunch box or afternoon snack. Popcorn is always a winner. Although I have to admit I was getting bored with the same old salted popcorn, so what did I do? I added sugar of course! This recipe makes such a big batch that the sugar isn’t too ‘naughty’, unless you eat the whole batch.. hehehe.
This recipe would also make a great gift in a hamper for Christmas time. You can swap the salt for a sprinkle of cinnamon for that warm festive touch.
Sweet & Salty Popcorn
Recipe Type: Snack
Author: Charlotte
Serves: 8-10
Who doesn’t love popcorn!? We love popcorn in our house. It’s one of those healthy snacks that feels like such a treat. Either for a family night in snuggling & watching movies, or for a lunch box or afternoon snack. Popcorn is always a winner. Although I have to admit I was getting bored with the same old salted popcorn, so what did I do? I added sugar of course! This recipe makes such a big batch that the sugar isn’t too ‘naughty’, unless you eat the whole batch.. hehehe This recipe would also make a great gift in a hamper for Christmas time. You can swap the salt for a sprinkle of cinnamon for that warm festive touch
Ingredients
1/4 cup Vegetable oil, I use refined coconut oil
1/4 cup Sugar, I use Rapadura sugar
1/2 cup Organic popcorn kernels
Salt, I use pink Himalayan salt
Instructions
Heat oil with 3 test kernels in large, deep, heavy pot with the lid on.
Once the test kernels pop, your oil is hot enough. Add sugar, popcorn kernels & stir a bit, then cover.
Shake pot every few seconds, it must be done so the sugar & popcorn won’t burn.
Once popping has slowed, remove pot from heat and keep shaking until there’s no more popping.
Tip into a BIG bowl. My biggest bowl isn’t big enough so I use a wok!
Use a big spoon to mix it up and add a couple pinches of fine salt.
Break up any clumps, and let cool just enough to dig in!
TIP: Now Is a good time to put some into snack bags for lunch boxes..so it’s not all eaten at once!
I want to share a really basic recipe that I use in a lot and should add here to refer to. It was the very first recipe I made by Thermomix: Vegetable Stock Cubes / Bouillon.
At first I wasn’t sure if it was worth bothering, to be honest. Vegetable stock cubes are so cheap, and having them in a box is so convenient. But then I had a look at the ingredients and I realised that an attempt at cutting preservatives and additives out of our food falls flat if the very basic underpinning foundation ingredient contains those things.
Here are the ingredients of our usual vegetable stock cubes:
If I were to lay those ingredients out on a two plates, I know which one I’d go for.
While this recipe is an adaptation from the Australia Every Day Cookbook and is written for the Thermomix, there’s no reason why you couldn’t mix it in any high powered blender and make it part of your every day seasoning.
You cant freeze this stock, due to the high salt content, but it lasts really well in a jar in the fridge, and can be topped up with whatever you have on hand, really, but here’s a great starter recipe.
Home Made Stock Cubes/Bouillon {{Thermomix Recipe}}
Cuisine: Basic
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1 litre
Don’t taste this recipe and fret over the salt. It’s VERY salty, but it’s a concentrate. A tablespoon full goes into a litre of liquid, i.e soup, of which you have a cup at a time. It’s lower in salt per serve than an egg! If you lower the salt amount you will have to freeze the stock, but with the correct salt, it won’t freeze at all but can keep in the fridge. The great thing about this recipe is that it is very flexible. You can use whatever you have in the fridge. I know a few people who pop all their vegetable scraps into the freezer to keep particularly for making this stock concentrate.
Ingredients
2 celery stalks, with leaves
2 large carrots, cut into chunks
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 tomato, quartered
1 courgette, chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled
50g mushroom (optional)
a teaspoon each of basil, sage, and rosemary
20g parsley
30g olive oil
200g sea salt or pink salt (don’t use table salt, it’s very high in Sodium, which is what you want to avoid in a healthy diet)
Instructions
Chop all the vegetables and herbs for <b> 10 seconds on Speed 7 </b>
Add the oil and salt, and <b> cook at 90 for 20 minutes on speed 2 </b>
It turns into an unappealing looking green gloop, but adds amazing flavour to all your dishes.
Leave to cool and place in a jar in the fridge for up to six months.
If using less salt, freeze in spoonfulls or ice cube trays and use as needed,
Autumn bounty includes Damsons in the UK, and the trees are laden with them. People can’t get rid of them fast enough. The problem with damsons is that unlike, say, blackberries, you can’t eat them raw, so they often go unappreciated till they fall to the ground.
My daughter came home from a walk in the forest with her pockets bulging with damsons, so I decided to turn it into jam, something I’ve never done before.
Damson Jam / Damson Jelly Recipe
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 200ml
Use equal parts of fruit to jam sugar, boil and store. Easy peasy Damson Jam. You can of course buy your Damsons, but half the fun is in the foraging!
Ingredients
200g Damsons
250g (9oz) Sugar
1 orange, washed
Instructions
Wash damsons and drop them into your pot.
Squeeze the juice of the orange out over it.
Cook on medium heat for 20 minutes till the fruit is soft. (20 mins/100C/speed 2).
After 20 minutes, remove from the heat. It’s useful at this point to remove all the pips. If you keep the orange in at this point, you’ll have a slight marmalade undertone to the damson jam. I’m not a fan of marmalade, so I prefer to remove the orange before adding the jam sugar.
Boil for another 20 minutes at 100C/212F.
Remove from the heat and tip the pot slightly. If the jam looks like it is creating a wrinkle, remove from heat and pour into steriised jars to keep for later, or into a jam jar to start using straight away.
If it doesn’t seem to be wrinkly yet, cook for a further five minutes before dispensing into jars. Remember that damsons have a lot of pectin in them and will set as it cools.
It’s easy to reach for comfort foods at this time of year, as the seasons change and we start going a little more insular, but there’s no reason your blackberry crumble has to be unhealthy – if fact, if you have a raw blackberry crumble, it’s fresh, good for you, and what’s more, you can make these ahead and take them out as you fancy.
I found the walnuts I used in this quite bitter, so will try different walnuts next time, or perhaps hazelnuts or something else. It’s a lovely snack to have in the freezer for when you just want something nice. These were especially good, because my daughters and I went foraging, picking the berries ourselves earlier in the day.
Take these from the freezer about half an hour before you eat them, and enjoy!
Raw Blackberry Crumble Recipe
Author: Luschka
Ingredients
[u]Crumble
[/u]
1 cup walnuts/pecan nuts or cashew nuts
1/4 cup shredded coconut
2 pitted dats
1/4 tsp vanilla extract or essence
Pinch Himalayan or rock salt
[u]Filling[/u]
1 cup fresh blackberries
2 dates pitted dates
1 Tbsp honey, local preferable
Instructions
I use my Thermomix, but any food processor that can handle nuts will do.
To make the crumble, add the nuts, coconut, salt, dates and vanilla to the bowl and process – (10 seconds, speed 6). You want it to be a crumble, not a paste.
Take 3/4 of the mix and press into a pan, or silicone cupcake pans. Put the rest of the crumble aside.
To make the filling, add half the blackberries into the food processor, along with dates and honey. Process until well blended. Add the remaining blackberries and mix lightly so there are still whole blackberry chunks.
Pour the blackberry filling over the crust in the cake pan, or scoop into muffin cases and top with the remaining crumble.
Gently press the crumble, and freeze. When it’s a frozen, remove from muffin trays and place in airtight container.
To serve, remove from freezer about half an hour before.
Around this time of year, the apple trees are laden with juicy, lovely fruit, just waiting to be picked. A few years ago we lived in a house with a huge apple tree in the centre of the yard, and I learned to make apple-everything! I’ve missed this beautiful apple chutney since then, but where we live now the apple trees line a public walk way, free for anyone with a long enough arm to help themselves.
I’ve made a few batches of this apple chutney this year – with apples from a friend’s garden, actually – and it gets rave reviews every time. I core the apples too, but don’t peel them. If you do, however, sprinkle the skins with cinnamon and pop them in the dehydrator over night or a low oven for two hours for a lovely apple crispy snack.
Great with cheese and crackers, or mixed in with mince or other cooked meats, this is my favourite home made apple chutney.
Awesome Autumn Apple Chutney
Recipe Type: Chutney, Condiment
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 500ml
Ingredients
5 green apples, cored
3 large tomatoes, quartered
2 large onions
5g fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves
80g raisins
30g orange juice
20g lemon juice
225g soft brown sugar
200g apple cider vinegar
Instructions
Chop the ingredients finely. (Chop lightly in a food processor if you can)
Add the liquids and sugar into a pot and stir till the sugar has dissolved.
Add the rest of the ingredients.
Simmer on low heat for 2 hours.
Pour into warm sterilised jars and keep for up to a year.
In the thermomix
Add the apples, tomatoes and onions to the Thermomix and chop 10 seconds/speed 4
Remove to a large container.
Add the ginger and garlic to the Thermomix and chop, 5 seconds/speed 8
Add the raisins, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar and cook for 3 minutes/speed 3/ 90C
Add the apple mix back to the Thermomix with the apple cider vinegar
Cook at Varoma temperature for 40 mins/REVERSE speed 2 without MC.
If it’s still too runny, do the same for another 20 minutes. Just keep an eye on it.
When it’s finished and looks like chutney, pour into sterilised jars.
It’s been a beautiful summer, and I’ve focused largely on my children, and very little on anything else, including these pages. I’ve often taken a photo of things, thinking I’d publish them when I have a moment, and that moment has just never come, and here we are, just in time for autumn.
Nature is a beautiful thing though, and knowing full well that the barren months of winter are coming, Autumn blesses us with a bountiful harvest of apples, blackberries, rosehips, damsons and more. My children and I have spent time foraging in our local area, trying to take advantage of the free fruit as much as we can. Over the next few days, I’ll share some of the results of our foraged free food with you.
Today’s recipe is a bit of a cheat: Blackberry Jam. It’s a cheat because I used Jam Sugar with added pectin rather than making my own. We were lucky, I think and got the berries at just the right time, as they were sweet, full of juice and just delicious.
I use a jam strainerto catch all the seeds and skins, leaving me with a beautiful clear jam.
Blackberry Jam
Recipe Type: Condiments
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 250ml
The flavour of this jam depends a lot on the blackberries you use. We picked plump, juicy, ripe blackberries to make a sweet, delicious jam for toast, home made doughnuts and more.
Ingredients
250g (9oz)fresh blackberries
250g (9oz) jam sugar
2tbs lemon juice (if from a bottle)/ juice from 1/2 lemon if using fresh lemon
Instructions
(If you’re using a stove to make jam, you’ll need a sugar thermometer to check when your mixture is at 100C/212F. If you’re using a breadmachine with a jam function, follow manufacturer instructions. For a Thermomix, cook at 100 degrees at speed 2. )
Place all ingredients in bowl and cook for 40 minutes at 100C or 212F.
To check whether your jam has set, tilt the bowl slightly, being careful not to spill boiled sugar! Check to see whether a slight gel forms on top. If not, return to heat for five minute intervals. Your external temperature will affect how long your jam has to boil.
It shouldn’t take over 50 minutes, but if it does, turn the heat up as high as possible (watching it doesn’t burn) for 3 minutes.
Pour jam into sterilised jars and leave overnight to cool.
I took the children fruit picking and foraging this week and we had a fantastic haul, certainly more than we could eat, so I made beautiful fresh Strawberry and Elderflower jam. In the Thermomix it’s such a simple recipe too – no thermometer required. I love this recipe!
You don’t need a Thermomix for this recipe, but any high powered blender will make it a quick and easy recipe to make. A regular blender or food processor will do the job too, but you may need to do it parts. I think a big part of this recipe is having it smooth.
