Green Pepper or Red Tomato?

I sometimes feel my meal time is a lot like an episode of 'Ready, Steady, Cook'.
Opening my fridge and cupboards, especially at the end of the week, I am usually faced with half used tins of lentils, the odd carrot and a few leaves of spinach. I put on my imagination hat and try to think of something quickly before I decide to settle for a bowl of Weetabix.

I knew this would be the case one evening last week, so, in preparation, I steamed some quinoa before hunger set in, so I would have at least a base to my meal. If you have never steamed quinoa in the Thermomix before, I really recommend it. Really, really, really. Before I tried steaming it, I was never able to get the proportion of water to grains right and always had a soggy quinoa mush. Janie Turner suggested I steamed it when I told her my predicament and it was the best suggestion ever.
As a side note, if you ever do have a query about cooking something in the TM, don't hesitate to call your demonstrator or the very lovely people at TMHQ, they are so happy to help and I'm pretty sure Janie knows absolutely everything that can be cooked in the TM and how to do so!

Anyway, back to my dinner. Steaming quinoa: works much the same as rice: I think I used about 300g with enough water in to cover the blades but not touch the top of the steaming basket (I probably should have weighed it!). I also crumbled a stock cube in with the grains to give them some flavour. Set the TM for 20 minutes, 100º, speed 2. If it is not cooked after that, then put it on for a few more minutes, but check the water level as well.
I had some new potatoes that needed eating up, so I put them into roast.
Then, having to use up my half full tin of lentils, chopped an onion and cooked it for 10 minutes, speed 2, 100º with 1 tin of tomatoes and the left over lentils. Then I added the quinoa, the roast potatoes, a couple of Quorn sausages and mixed them all together!
A concoction a random things that needed eating up, but it actually worked. And I had enough to have for lunch the next day!

Last week, my housemates decided they were going to make their own pizzas, so I said I would make a gluten free dough for Grace. Now, I'm not very 'in the know' when it comes to gluten free things and I didn't have the time to buy all the different things some recipes suggested I needed. Instead, I just followed the pizza recipe in the Fast and Easy Cookbook and used gluten free flour instead. I had no idea how it was going to turn out.
Luckily, Grace wasn't hungry on Monday evening when she got home from babysitting. I say this because if you have ever tried to make dough rise in a student house, you'll know the predicament I was in. I managed to perch a bowl with the dough in on the radiator, and a few hours later, after separating the slightly bigger dough baking trays and perching them on the radiator too, I had two rectangular-ish pizza bases that were ready for the oven. They cooked fairly quickly, about 8-10 minutes, with no topping on, and when we topped and re-cooked them on Tuesday evening, they were surprisingly delicious!
Just goes to show that a little experimentation can get you far!