Veggie Pasties with Puff Pastry

I can’t stop eating them!  This afternoon I had a brain wave of what to cook for dinner tonight – something we haven’t had for quite some time – veggie pasties.  Question was, do I use frozen puff pastry or make it myself which I’ve never attempted before.  Well it became the latter and now I’m never looking back.  These pasties were delicious and now I’m sitting here eating them cold and they’re just as amazing (trying to ignore the fact of how much butter there is in them!)

Veggie Pasties with Puff Pastry

So this is actually a Rough Puff Pastry as it’s a cheats version of combining the butter with the flour, made simply with the Thermomix rather than rubbing by hand, as opposed to a true puff pastry which has each layer of dough brushed with butter during the folding process.  According to Julia Child in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the number of layers can vary from 73 to 730 depending on outcome required.  A formula used to calculate this is (f +1)ⁿ where  f is the number of folds, and n the number of times the dough has been folded.  For example, twice folding 4 times (2 +1)⁴ = 81 layers or as I did twice folding 6 times (2 +1)⁶ = 729.

Flaky layers of buttery pastry...

Science aside the ingredients of your pastie but be left up to your imagination (or fridge and season availability).  And remember the key is to keep your pastry ingredients cold to retain the puff.   So don’t put it in the too hard basket give it a try and enjoy!

Rough Puff Pastry

250g plain flour

Pinch of salt
200g cold butter cubed
1 tbls lemon juice
100g iced water kept in fridge (1 MC)

• Place flour and salt in Thermomix bowl and pulse twice to sieve
• Add butter, lemon juice and cold water and set to Closed Lid Position and knead for 10-20 seconds.  If required add a little more water until it just comes together and knead for an extra 10 seconds
• Turn out into a cold lightly floured bench or thermomat and gently bring together into a large rectangle by hand.  Dough may still look marbled by butter
• Lightly roll with rolling pin to about 1cm thick then fold short ends to center
• Lightly roll out again and fold repeating a total of 4 -6 times until dough is smooth and butter has become more blended.
• Wrap in cling wrap or thermomat and refrigerate for around an hour while you prepare your filling ingredients

folding the pastry to the center before rolling out again...

Pastie Filling

50g tasty or gyuere cheese cubed

1 onion
1 clove garlic
Olive oil
2 small or 1 large potato cubed
Approx 150g cauliflower roughly chopped
1 carrot roughly chopped
1 silverbeet leaf
150g cooked green or brown lentils
1 MC frozen peas
1 MC corn kernels
1 tsp TM veggie stock
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp mixed dried herbs

• Place  cheese in Thermomix bowl and chop for 3 seconds on speed 5 then remove and set aside
• Place onion and garlic in bowl the chop for 3 seconds on speed 5 and scrape down
• Add a splash of olive oil and cook for 3 minutes on 100° speed 3
• Add potato, carrot, cauliflower and silver beet and set to Closed Lid Position and press Turbo 2-3 times until finely chopped but being careful not to overchop
• Add lentils, peas, corn, curry powder and herbs and cook for 8 minutes on 100° speed 1 Reverse
• Add cheese and mix for 3 seconds on speed 3 Reverse
• Allow to cool while continuing with pastry
• Preheat oven to 220°
• Remove dough from fridge and cut 5cm pieces to lightly roll out with rolling pin to around 0.5cm
• Trace a 10cm bowl into a circle and set aside to fill

cutting out circles for the pasties...

• Repeat with remaining dough and finally combing left over pieces also
• Place filling on 1 side of each circle, fold over pastry and pinch edges together

  

  filling before folding the pasties...

• Brush with beaten egg and place on a baking tray
• Bake for 25-30 minutes or until puffed and golden

 

bliss

check out this awesome photo my 4 year old daughter took of a piece if jigsaw puzzle then accidently uploaded to my blog.  Simply bliss...

Super Healthy Protein Muffins

I have so many recipes on my list to write about but this one just jumped the queue.  A tasty treat that ticks all the right boxes.  It’s healthy (high in protein, fibre and even omega 3’s), low allergy (nut free, dairy free, egg free), child friendly (low in sugar, bright in colour) and like most muffins is really quick to make especially in a Thermomix.  And what’s most important is the kids keep coming back for more!

Super Healthy Protein Muffins

It started as a quest for healthy carrot cake muffins to make for a last minute morning tea gathering to find no carrots in the fridge.  But I found a beetroot and a zucchini calling out to me.  I was also on a tofu craving (which I strangely often get) so with a little Google searching I found the idea of using silken tofu as a replacement for the liquid component of healthy muffins.  So it really is a hidden goodness muffin with protein from the tofu, fibre from the veggies (you could use carrots instead but who can resist the colour from the beetroot), and omega 3s from the chia seeds.

Nothing better than licking the batter...

Call the savoury, call them sweet, just try them or your own version and you can call them whatever you like.

Super Healthy Protein Muffins

Zest and juice from one orange

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

50g rapadura sugar

1 beetroot peeled and roughly chopped

1 zucchini roughly chopped

300g silken tofu

1 tbls chia seeds

60g grapeseed or other light flavoured oil

150g wholemeal flour

150g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

• Preheat oven to 180° and grease 12 large hole muffin tray or 24 small (or use silicon cupcake liners)
• Place orange peel into Thermomix bowl and zest on speed 9 for 10 seconds or until finely chopped
• Add cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, beetroot and zucchini and chop for 4 seconds on speed 5
• Add tofu, chia seeds, orange juice and oil and mix for 10 seconds on speed 4
• Add flours and mix until just combined – around 5 seconds on speed 4
• Pour into muffin trays and bake for 25 minutes or until muffins spring back when pressed

Enjoy!

Little Finn after a long walk and a piggy back home...

Lemonies (Lemon Brownies!)

It’s the end of an era ...  and the end of my bountiful supply of lemons!

The last of the lemons...

My parents have left their family home.  After over 35 years as a home to three children, countless friends and welcome visitors, a backyard wedding and now three grandchildren, it’s been a home well loved.  While this has been a family home for so long and there was an incredible amount to move, my parents have been by far the most organised movers I’ve ever known (and the Salvos have been well donated to!)

 

Bit sized, tart, lemon brownies or lemonies!

Yesterday I took my kids for one last goodbye to the empty home and if walls could speak there’d be thousands of stories told by these walls.  Ahh the memories...

 

Our other goodbye was to the lemon tree.  The most bountiful lemon tree I have ever known.  It produces large, juicy fruit almost all year round and in fact, I think I’ve bought a lemon just once in my life and I use a lot of lemons!  So for the Willow Tree farewell party my parents recently had, desert was all about lemons.  Mum made a classic no bake lemon slice, my sister made gorgeous miniature lemon meringue pies and I made my new discovery ... lemon brownies, or lemonies as we’ve started to call them.  And you know what?  I think I like them more than chocolate brownies, and that’s saying something!

So if you know someone with a lemon tree, grab a few and give it try.

Lemonies

Rind of 2 lemons
250g raw sugar

250g butter, cubed

4 eggs

230g plain flour

90g coconut, desiccated

60g of lemon juice (around 1 large lemon)

 

Icing:

½ cup icing sugar
1 tbls lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest

• Line a 20x30cm slice tray with baking paper and preheat the oven to 180°

• Place the lemon rind in the TM bowl and mill for 10 seconds on speed 9.  Remove 1 tsp of zest for icing later

• Add the sugar to TM bowl with zest and further mill for 4 seconds on speed 9

• Add the butter and heat for 3 minutes on 60 degrees on speed 2 to melt

• Add the eggs and mix together on speed 3 for about 20 seconds

• Add the flour, coconut and lemon juice and mix together for 8 seconds on speed 6

• Spread the mixture evenly into the tray and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is just set to keep the lemonies a bit fudgey

• Place onto a cooling rack to cool while making icing

• Icing: mix ½ cup icing sugar, 1 tbls lemon juice and 1 tsp lemon zest  until smooth then poor over cooled lemonies

• Serve in small pieces