Mac and Cheese with a twist

Busy, busy week in our household. Besides the usual run up to Christmas events and stuff, I took a few extra shifts at my old job to help out so our meals have taken a slight back-seat! Which is working out pretty well for us because little Mr B is having some terrible teething troubles and food has taken a big back-seat anyway. But between all that we have had some winners every so often and this one was a firm favourite with Mr B 🙂

It’s the usual Macaroni and cheese but I’ve stuffed it full of veggies and tried hard to get rid of as much dairy as I could.
So here is the recipe and see how you go:

(We used a standard sized baking dish but you might need to use less/more ingredients depending on the size dish you end up using)
2c macaroni
1c peas
1c sweetcorn
1c carrots
1/2 head of broccoli
Put it all in the dish and give it a stir

For the sauce:
90g butter (I was going to use coconut oil cause I wanted to make it completely dairy free but forgot)
90g spelt flour (I say this is gluten free but someone mentioned to me that spelt still has a type of gluten in it so will have to do some research into that)
1l almond milk
1tsp nutmeg

Melt the butter over a low heat and stir in the flour till it forms a paste. Slowly stir in the milk and nutmeg until it thickens up and pour it into the baking dish over the above mix. Give it a quick stir to mix it all up thoroughly.
We didn’t add any cheese to this but topped it with a sprinkle of mixed herbs.

Bake in a preheated oven of 180deg for about 30min.

Enjoy xx

Broccoli and Asparagus Impossible Pie

This is another one of those go to meals in our home, especially when I don’t have time to make something or I want to use up extra veggies. You can basically substitute any of the veggie ingredients and it should still come out great (hence the name, it’s impossible to get it wrong).
I must admit we have been trying to keep Mr B from having too much dairy, in fact I never use it in his homemade meals but I wanted to change up the original recipe and leave out the wheat flour, so I thought I would leave out one ingredient at a time. Next time I make it I will try a dairy free version instead. Oh and I should mention we have a Bellini, which is the cheaper version of the Thermomix, so if you don’t have either of those you can try make this in a food processor or just grate the vegetables and mix it all up in an ordinary bowl.

Recipe:
1/2 c flour (I used spelt)
1/2 c butter (really soft or melted)
4 eggs
1 c milk
1 c cream
1/2 c grated cheese
1 tsp Mixed herbs
Any veg you like, we used: 1/2 capsicum, 1 tomato, 1 carrot, half head broccoli, bunch of asparagus

In the Bellini (food processor, thermie or grated) blend the capsicum, carrot and the tomato on sp 5 for 5 sec.
Meanwhile chop up the broccoli and asparagus into nice chunks and add to the bowl, mix on sp 2 for 5 sec
Scrape down the sides and add the rest of the ingredients and mix on 1 for 1 min.
Pour it into a greased pie dish, sprinkle with a handful of cheese if you want and bake at 180 deg for 40 minutes.

If you have any questions about cooking with the Bellini, please feel free to ask us and we will try our best to help you out 🙂
Enjoy xx