Zucchini bread ... in the Thermomix

I was given a HUGE zucchini by my boss recently and decided that I would make some zucchini bread and zucchini soup out of it. There was so much zucchini that it really was a several recipe thing to get through it all. The zucchini bread, I could take in to work and let the boys have some as well.

I have never made zucchini bread before, so I decided to look up the interwebs for a recipe that was easy to follow and "Deanna proof" meaning "easy for dumb people who can't bake to make". :-)

I found this recipe and thought it looked straightforward enough to follow. And to make it even simpler for myself, I had my friend convert it to a Thermomix recipe for me.

Here is what the RECIPE that I used looked like:

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 235 ml vegetable oil
• 400g white sugar (if you like it sweet)
• 225g grated zucchini
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
• 375g plain flour
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/3rd cup chopped walnuts

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 165 degrees . Grease two 20x10cm loaf tins with butter.
• Chop up walnuts in Thermomix, spped 6, 3 - 5 seconds, remove
• Chop up zucchini in Thermomix, speed 5, 2 seconds, remove
• In Thermomix, beat eggs until light and frothy, speed 6, 3 - 5 seconds
• Mix in oil and sugar. Stir in zucchini and vanilla. Reverse speed 6, 3 - 5 seconds
• Combine flour, cinnamon, soda, baking powder, salt and nuts. Reverse speed 6, 3 - 5 seconds
• Make sure everything is mixed properly, if not go again, reverse speed 6, 3 - 5 seconds
• Divide batter into prepared tins.
• Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until done.

My measurement of the walnuts were a little less accurate and I used 1/2 cup of walnuts instead of 1/3 cup of walnuts. Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe exactly. (I have learned that with baking, exactness is a virtue!)

I also cooked mine in a muffin tray so that they were individual zucchini bread muffins. I find those easier to store and eat. I cooked them in the oven at 160 degrees C for 40 minutes instead of the recommended 60 - 70 minutes for the loaf.

And the verdict?? OMG!!! The zucchini bread was delicious. I'm definitely making this again, even more often than the banana bread muffins that I make, which we love. The Boy even said that this was better than the banana bread muffins.

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Spanish chorizo and chickpea soup

It's getting into the cooler weather for us now and so I'm thinking that we will do a lot more soups for meals.

The Boy likes thick, hearty soups with lots of stuff in it or thick, creamy soups. I made one recently which was a huge hit, the wild rice and mushroom soup, which is just delicious beyond words.

Tonight, The Boy decided that he would cook and he picked a soup recipe out of the A Gluten Free Soup Opera by Sibel Hodge. He picked out the Spanish chorizo and chickpea soup. I didn't really help much at all besides helping him prep the stock and turning on the oven (he still hasn't figured that one out yet! :-) ). I'm so proud of The Boy for doing all of this himself.

So here's the RECIPE for the soup:

Ingredients:

• 100 gr of gluten free chorizo – chopped
• 1 x 400 gr can of chickpeas – drained and rinsed
• 3 large spring onions – sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic – crushed and chopped
• 1 ½ pints (approx. 3 ¾ cups) of gluten free chicken stock/vegetable stock/water
• 1 large carrot – grated
• 3 – 4 mushrooms – diced
• 1 green cubranelle pepper (or regular bell pepper) – diced
• 2 cups of rocket (arugula) – chopped
• 3 tablespoons of red lentils
• 2 large tomatoes – peeled and diced
• ¼ – ½ teaspoon of chilli flakes (optional)
• 2 tablespoons of paprika
• 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (optional)
• 2 tablespoons of black olives – deseeded and chopped (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil for frying

Garnish:

• Hard boiled egg – chopped

Instructions:

• Fry the onions, peppers, and mushrooms until soft
• Add the other ingredients and bring to the boil, then simmer for 35 – 45 minutes
• Top with the chopped egg and serve

Serves 4 – 6

The recipe asks for gluten free ingredients, but we did not use any. We just used regular old ingredients since neither of us need to be gluten free.

The Boy used all the ingredients, even the optional ones, except with the red lentils, he just used regular (I think, yellow) lentils, since the store did not have any red lentils in a can.

The only thing that we didn't do was the hard boiled egg for garnish. The Boy didn't get round to boiling the egg and since it was for garnish, we decided that we could live without it.

For the simmering for 35 - 45 minutes part, rather than have it simmer on the stove, which can be a bit dicey if not watched carefully, I turned the oven to 120dC and brought the soup to a full boil. Once it was boiling, I had The Boy put the whole pot of soup (make sure your pot is oven-proof!!) into the oven and let it simmer that way for the time. This is an excellent way of simmering or slow cooking anything. Very controlled, no mess, no fuss.

The soup turned out to be very, very tasty. It is a brothy soup with lots and lots of bits and pieces in it, so it makes for quite a filling and hearty soup. Because of the chili and the smoked paprika, the flavor it very full and slightly spicy. If you don't like your soup to be very spicy, ease off on the chili.

For us, this made exactly 4 serves. 2 for dinner and 2 to be saved for later in the week.

Definitely something that we will make again.

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