What's Cooking This Week

Butternut Pumpkin Macaroni & Cheese

It's been raining in Brisbane all weekend, but still manages to be humid & muggy.  With or without the humidity, rain is still rain and for me, it always spells Soup Weather. 

I love soup.  If soup were a cult religion, I'd be on board and have emptied out my bank account in a second flat.  To me, soup is the ultimate in nourishment - it's good for you, it warms you and just holding the mug of steaming hot soup makes you feel better when you're sick or sad.  It's comfort food at it's best.

So, I'm welcoming autumn back with a couple of different soups this week.  Soup also means bread (ahhhhh, bread) and I'm trying a couple of different loaves this week to accompany our soup.

I hope wherever you are, you can make a soup and join in the soup fest happening here this week!

Monday:  I'm doing a re-run of the Chicken & Broken Pasta soup I made last week.  I'm making the Allgauer Seelen (small breads from Allgau) from the Travelling With Thermomix cookbook.

Tuesday: Tuesday is our crazy afternoon, so I always try to have something that I can get ready during the day and then just finish off quickly once we get home.  It also needs to be something that's easy for the boys to eat, because they're usually struggling to make it through dinner after school and swimming.  This week we're having Butternut Pumpkin Macaroni & Cheese.

Wednesday:  One of my favourite recipes is on the menu for Wednesday - Beef Stew with Buttermilk Dumplings from the Budget Busters recipe book.  This was one of the first things I cooked in my Thermomix and I love it - it always reminds me of the kind of food my Mum would cook for dinner during winter.

Thursday:  The boys will have leftovers of the beef stew and Mr MLT & I are having Fish Cakes with a Toasted Lemon Quinoa salad.  The boyswill get the leftover fish cakes in their lunchboxes the next day, which helps me feel that their "fish servings" for the week have been ticked off.

Friday:  We're having a Navy Bean & Chicken Soup that I've been working on.  The last time we had it I used ham and it was way to salty, so I'm adjusting it with the chicken and playing with the quantities a bit.  I'm making the Cheat's Sourdough from For Food's Sake to accompany it, as the essential bread mopping tool.

Aussie Meat Pie

Saturday and Sunday:  On Saturday we'll be having leftovers, before we head off to a groovy 8th birthday disco party. 

On Sunday we're having the Aussie Meat Pie from Meat on the Menu and Frangipani Pie for afters.  The Frangipani Pie means a lot to me and, as incredibly daggy and retro as it is, I'll share the recipe with you next week. 

Happy Mixing, enjoy your week!

Brooke.