No occasion at my place is complete without bread! 

Chookies Plain White Rolls (No Fuss) recipe is an easy versatile recipe which I love.  It the first bread recipe I had success with when I first bought my TMX years ago.   A few dismal bread failures using recipes from the original EDC almost put me off bread making, but Chookies “no fuss” recipe gave me hope I could be a bread maker.

I love how this recipe is so adaptable and you can use any sort of flour, seeds etc that you like to make different sorts of bread from the base recipe.

http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=4253.0

Here's a photo of when I made a bread "wreath" for Xmas.  Not perfect, but everyone enjoyed love the taste.

Hello everyone,
It's been awhile since I posted.
I've been very busy with Mum, it's got it to the point were she can't do much for herself and we are starting to consider whether she should move to a nursing home.
I do try and read the forum so I can catch up with all your news.
Have a great day everyone 😃

Hello everyone!  It's been ages since I logged on here.  I've been really busy with work and also doing things for Mum (who needs a lot more help these days).
Work is getting a bit better and this week I'm on annual leave 

Have been having a great week.  Visited Judy at the new nursing home on Monday.  It's a lovely facility and Geoff and Judy's Mum are in a great place.  I've been busy cooking up a storm and restocking the freezers with lots of items (fresh pasta, ricotta gnocchi, lasagne, bread, cake, passata, chicken and vegie stock).  I think I need to stop now as the freezers are bursting!

Had an interruption to my cooking yesterday and had to abandon a quiche I was making half way through.  I received a phone call from the company that monitor my Mum's safety alarm.  She had activated her alarm as she'd had a fall.  Lucky I only live 10 minutes away and could get there quickly.  An ambulance came but she didn't need to go to hospital.  She is stiff and sore from the fall, but other than that ok.  Having a 24/7 monitored alarm is a great thing to have if you're elderly and live alone.

Hi everyone, I haven't been around much lately although I do try and read the forum daily.
Work is busy this time of year and I've been spending a lot of time helping my Mum - she has stopped driving (because of her age and her having Parkinson's) so I've been driving her to appointments, the bank and to get her shopping along with helping her with whatever else she needs help with. I don't mind but it is time consuming.

I still try and cook everyday. Tonight we had Tenina's curried lentil soup with naan bread.
Stay warm everyone.

Last night Judy and I attended the pastry class at Cowandilla.  It was a great class and we both enjoyed it. 

Thank you again Monika and HO for the tickets.

Maria is so lovely and very knowledgeable.  She made 4 different types of pastry at the beginning of the class and then she used the pastries to make vegetarian sausage rolls, beef & Guinness pie, vanilla slice & lemon tart.  All pastries and recipes seemed like something that could be easily made at home.

Lots and lots of tips given by Maria during the night, including showing us how to use the TMX baking beads.  Judy gave me some of these a couple of years ago and I haven't used them once.  I'll definitely be using these soon.

Another great tip is to whenever you've worked your pastry you must let it rest for awhile before its baked, to relax the gluten.  She also said to rest most things made with flour before you bake them.  Things like cake, cupcakes, scones, pancakes etc.  Make them then let them rest for 15 to 20 minutes before you bake them (to let the gluten relax).  Do this and she promises you'll get better results - your pastry won't shrink, your cupcakes won't dome in the middle and your scones will be light and fluffy.

The tasting plate at the end of the night included decent sized portions of everything (my favourite was the lemon tart).
If you do have the opportunity to attend one of Maria's classes, please do as I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Here are some photos...

I saw on FB that Nik from Skinnymixers will be attending Friday nights class at Wynn Vale.
If you grab this free ticket you might be able to meet her 

This morning I baked two loaves of bread, mainly as I wanted to restock the freezer with sliced bread to use for toast.

Tonight I made bacon & cauliflower soup and a rye flat bread stuffed with chilli pesto, ham and artichokes.