Thermomix Menu Plans - 16th January

Hi everyone! What's been cooking at your place lately? We've been enjoying all the fresh fruit and veges and the hot weather (well, most of the time) and having lots of delicious salads, sorbets, and smoothies. It's so much easier to eat more raw in this weather! Now to keep it up when the weather gets cooler...

I'm working on having at least half raw food (mostly salads, fruit, green smoothies, and fresh juices) in our families' diet - it's something that takes planning ahead and persistance. The menu plan helps, as well as the fresh, local veges from our vege box co-op. Sometimes the kids don't like the salad, (or something IN the salad which they want to pick out), but our new rule is 'half your plate must be raw', and if they come back for seconds of the cooked food, they also have to take the same amount of raw. So we're working on it. I'm a firm believer that if kids are hungry enough, they'll eat what they're given. And if they're not, they can wait til the next meal. :) One thing I love about eating this way is there's less cooking to do - a lot of the main meals can be stretched to two meals because the raw stuff bulks it out. Great tip for big families - eat more salads!  I haven't put a lot of detail in my menu plan about what's in all the salads, as it depends what I get in my box. Here's one I came up with last week to use up the raw corn, capsicums, avocadoes, coriander, limes and tomatoes in my vege box: Tex-Mex Raw Corn Salad.

Mangosteen

It's easy to eat lots of fresh fruit here in Far North Queensland - there's such a great variety of delicious and interesting fruits, you could never get bored! This is a mangosteen - if you haven't tried them, you need to!! Amazingly delicious - it's just a pity they're so small. I could eat them all day. They're a bit like a lychee, but more tart, with little segments you break off, some with seeds and some without. We've been getting these in our vege box lately and loving them.

This Saturday (9am to 12pm) I will be helping out with an Open Day for the Atherton Wellbeing Clinic. If any of you locals would like to come along and have a look, there will be talks about detoxing, healthy aging, women's health, good posture and its' importance, dealing with stress, plus a live blood analysis demo and a question & answer session. I'll be demonstrating how to make some gluten free, dairy free, naturally sweetened, additive free foods using the Thermomix. Oh, and there'll be free goody bags! Let me know if you're interested in coming. This is the naturopathy clinic where I received the help I needed when I was sick and exhausted a few years ago - I highly recommend them!

So what's on the menu at your place this week? We enjoyed the cauliflower rice (Mock Rice) last week, with a Thai chicken satay kind of sauce - all except one child who thought he was going to die... Ah well, there's always one. He'll get used to it. ;)  I didn't get everything on the menu cooked as we had unexpected things come up, so some of last week's recipes are on this week's menu again.

Here's our menu plan for the week - please come and join in the menu planning and post a link to your blog, site or public Facebook page so we can all get some new ideas! To link up, see Thermomix Menu Plans for instructions, and don't forget to leave a comment so I know you've linked. If you just want some ideas for starting menu planning, see How to Menu Plan. Have a great week!

Monday:

(lunch) Salad sandwiches with spelt bread (tmx)

(dinner) Beef Rendang (EDC) with steamed sticky rice (cooking together in Thermomix - curry in the bowl, sticky rice steaming on top)

Tuesday:

(lunch) Tuna pasta (one bowl - tmx) and raw vege sticks

(dinner) Fish (steamed in tmx), smashed potatoes (boiled, 'smashed', then drizzled with olive oil and baked), dairy free sour cream, leafy green salad with 'cheesey' sesame dressing (dressing made in tmx - recipe coming)

Wednesday:

(lunch) Thermomix risotto, beetroot salad, sorbet, dip, etc - (training a new consultant!)

(dinner) Lentil bolognese (tmx) on brown rice (tmx) with beetroot salad and leafy green salad

Lentil Bolognese

Thursday:

(lunch) out

(dinner) Quinoa chicken salad (tmx) haven't actually figured out a recipe for this one, but I'm sure I'll come up with something!

Friday:

(lunch) out

(dinner) Spaghetti (spelt) and meatballs (all in one meal using varoma to cook meatballs while pasta & sauce cook in bowl) with mixed salads

Saturday:

(lunch) Cooking at the Atherton Wellbeing Clinic's open day - come along and have a look!

(dinner) Leftovers and green smoothies

Sunday:

(lunch) Thai beef salad

(dinner) Bread, salad, fruit - Sunday afternoon I usually make bread... how about a Fish Bread just for fun? I made this for my friend's little boy who was turning 1...

Come on and add your menu to the list!