Zucchini slice

I am utterly exhausted after the last few weeks. My Dad had an emergency surgery days before Christmas, we had family from all over come in for Christmas, which is always a lot of work, we made Christmas hampers for friends, we've had issues at the farm, yesterday I had the funeral of my beloved Great Uncle and I'm spent.

I already have 14 demos booked for January and I am very aware that before I know it, school will be back. I want to have lots of readily accessible meals on hand for when I'm working during the day, and for the kids lunches. Today I decided to whip up a family favourite as well to pop in the freezer for the busy days. 

I farm eggs amongst other things.  From time to time my seconds, (eggs I can't sell) are more plentiful than others and I have an abundance at the moment. I decided to whip up a zucchini slice. I wanted it wheat free and full of veggies, with some beautiful Christmas ham and lots of eggs.  The kids don't eat meat so I whipped them up a roasted pumpkin and parsnip version. 

The Thermomix made the job easy grating cheese, milling oats into flour and chopping herbs, mincing ham and whipping eggs in seconds.  I chose to grate the zucchini and carrots so they looked pretty. I kept the ingredients simple, ham, cheese, onion (and parsnip which I hate, so I chopped them small with the onions) carrot, zucchini, herbs and eggs. 

Ingredients:- 

200g oats 

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder 200g ham (or bacon)
150g cheese

1 onion
1 parsnip
2 large zucchinis
1 carrot
1 large handful herbs (whatever is in your garden)
12 eggs

Method:-

Put oats into Thermomix (or high powered food processor) bowl with baking powder, and mill on speed 9 for 20 seconds. Pour oat flour into large bowl.Place cheese cut into 2cm chunks into bowl and process at speed 9 for 10 seconds, until finely grated, add to bowl with oat flour. Place ham into bowl, process for 5 seconds at speed 9 (or until minced to your liking) then add to oats and cheese. Add parsnip and onion into bowl and chop speed 7 for 4 seconds add this to the bowl with oat flour, onions etc.  You can grate zucchini and carrot in the Thermomix if you so desire, but I chose to grate them by hand and add to the mixing bowl.
Take your herbs and chop at speed 7 for 3 seconds, then add 12 eggs to the Thermomix bowl and process at speed 8 for 10 seconds. There is no need to rinse the bowl between each addition, as the eggs will take anything left over in the bowl and they'll be poured out with the eggs. Add eggs to other ingredients, and mix until well combined.
Put mixture into large baking dish or rectangular pyrex dish and cook for 20 mins at 180° or until cooked through.

 

Variation (vegetarian)
Place onion, pumpkin and parsnip into baking dish and roast.
Mill flour with baking powder, grate cheese, grate zucchini and mix with 12 beaten eggs and herbs. Take roasted vegetables from oven, and add wet mixture to tray of vegetables and return to oven until cooked through. 

Now that the cooking is over, and a taste test has been conducted, I am going to have a lay down on the couch and watch one of the DVD's my sister gave me for Christmas!

I wish all my readers a wonderful new year, filled with love, family, good health and real food.

M xx

Saving money on pet food

Today just a super quick post about saving  money on pet food. Our pets just like us do much better with health when fed a nutrient dense diet, filled with a wide variety of foods to give them lots of different nutrients.

Today while grocery shopping I purchased around $20 worth of organ meat (livers, hearts), chicken giblets, and pet mince. Collectively, around 10kg. I also gathered the veggies from the fridge that were past their best and some lentils and rice and some eggs that I couldn't sell. 

I used the Thermomix steaming basket to cook up brown rice, white rice, green lentils and red lentils.  I cut up the chicken hearts and liver, and minced the giblets and the lamb hearts and diced the veggies.  I even threw the egg shells into the Thermomix to crush the eggshells.  

I packaged the pet food into used food containers to go in the freezer. I got around about a months supply of food for the dog and the cat (as we also use dry food)

We used to buy our pet food from a the local dog store where our dog does puppy classes, at a cost of $15 per week (which was only for the dog). The cost to produce a month supply in the Thermomix was around $25. A monthly saving for us of around $40 - and we know exactly what is going into the dog (and cat's) belly!

We love our furry friends as much as we love our kids, so of course they should Just Eat Real Food too!!