It’s a wet cold Sunday morning, perfect weather for a hot breakfast, we tried the thermomix poached eggs.
Poached eggs
There was a little lead time ensuring the water was boiling first before adding the eggs. Then the eggs were in dropped into the fast boiling water. We fully expected the whites to disintegrate everywhere in the basket but instead we were surprised and impressed by their cooked rounded shape unlike the flatter poached eggs husband normally serves up from stovetop pan. The only downside is the basket apparently only allows for two eggs at a time but with the ‘prepare and walk away’ factor, I’m not complaining. Takes 3 minutes to poach the eggs and gives me time set up the plates while the thermomix does the work. Our young food critics gave them the seal of approval, and Miss 8 even asked for another one.
So handy to have these for lunch boxes and snacks. Proving still takes more than an hour, will experiment with the yeast activation to see if this speeds up the rising.
Verdict after 12 days:
The thermomix has been used on average 5 times a day for simple tasks like chopping garlic and onion, creaming butter and sugar for baking, and chopping veges for salads, blending dressings and smoothies. Love how one piece of equipment does so much work so quickly, is so easy to clean, doesn’t require any set up and also how we don’t have to worry getting out any other appliances. I haven’t used my pressure cooker ,slow cooker, cake mixer, food processor or bread maker. Must admit though I would still keep a bread maker.
Used another guided recipe for quiche, lovely summer picnic food. Pastry made in thermomix in seconds, minutes for the base, then oven for 30 minutes. Super fast prep!
Busy weekend ahead with kids concerts, so making meals in advance. This is so easy with the thermomix. Used vegetable soup guided recipe to make leek and potato soup. Great to be using the homemade vegetable stock. Soup is velvety smooth.
Next time will try sautéing the onions and garlic first in TM before adding all the other ingredients to cook but otherwise easy and the one pot, leave it to cook is fantastic when you’re busy.
Followed two more guided recipes for bread rolls and pesto. Proving the rolls took longer than specified time because indoor temperature wasn’t warm enough, once the dough had doubled in size, then popped into fridge to save for the morning. So kids had fresh butter rolls hot out of the oven for breakfast and plenty for lunch boxes. Pesto was super fact, seconds to blend and very tasty.
I can see having a herb garden is going to be useful.
Dinner prepared in minutes, so easy. Multi level cooking using the varoma to steam the meatballs while the bowl cooked the sauce. And no need for me to be in the kitchen while the TM cooks is magic.
Meatballs in a tomato sauce
The meatballs are healthier for not being browned and cooked in oil. A great easy alternative to pan fried meatballs when time is at a premium.
Pork and vegetable rice noodle soup
The broth for this soup was made from the tasty chicken stock paste made in the weekend, another additive free nutritious lunch.
Meatballs TM mashed potato dinner
Thermomix mashed potato is superb, the texture is creamy smooth and tastes fantastic and using the guided recipe and butterfly whisk guarantees perfect mash every time.
Vanilla Cupcakes with lemon icing
Made our favourite vanilla cupcakes, using Thermomix, just blitz all ingredients 30 seconds and ready to bake.
Used another recipe community recipe for everyday white bread, personally I prefer grain bread but my daughters like white. Again easy to add the ingredients, didn’t use the bread improver as I have no idea what that is. While dough rising I made another tuna salad from recipe community.
Bread doughOrange tuna broccoli Asian salad
This tuna vegetable salad from the recipe community had an Asian flavour dressing using garlic, ginger, soy sauce, orange juice, and toasted sesame seeds, absolutely fabulous and ready in seconds.
Picture from community page, better presentation
If I was serving up for guests, I would leave a little chunkier and arrange the orange slices prettily like the picture but I just love the fact we are eating raw broccoli and more servings of vegetables in one meal, enough leftover for my lunch tomorrow too. Finding the self clean a breeze, blitz 5 secs speed5, then same in reverse, then same forward, a couple of turbo boosts for extra energy seems to work great for wet ingredients. Dough mixture left in TM bowl require a bit more of a soak but no harder than cleaning a food processor blade.
Next want to try some biscuits, I usually make biscuits once a week and have my own favourite recipes that I’ll convert but will try a guided recipe from the chip this time. Chocolate chip cookie mix ready in the time it takes to warm the oven.
Cookie mixChoc chip cookies
Bread is out of the oven. I won’t be putting Bakers Delight out of business yet. It’s slightly dense but will be fine toasted. The 5 star ratings and 224 comments on the community page have made me expect a light fluffy loaf. Maybe the bread improver is important. And I read one member kneaded 10 mins instead of 6 mins. I’m going to try it again with improver and longer kneading and rising in a warmer place. Watch this space.
The picture in the community page looks like this below. I will not give up until I get mine the same. Apparently the dough can be used to make fab bread rolls too, maybe my bread maker will be kept a little longer.
Pic of white bread loaf from the recipe community page
Now what’s for dinner, my youngest has always wanted me to make butter chicken so I’m going to try out the guided recipe for butter chicken. It’s so easy and convenient following the touchscreen recipe instructions.
Butter chicken
Also used the guided recipe for Chinese style vegetables. The TM blitzes garlic and ginger then sautés onion, chuck in chopped veges and soy sauce and seven minutes later, we have perfectly cooked vegetables that still have crunch factor and on top of this the machine turns itself off so I could fold clothes and leave the kitchen. I’m not a butter chicken expert but it’s a great family meal that everyone enjoys. Miss 8 says the “butter chicken the best food in the world”! It’s so satisfying when everyone likes the food you’re cooking. And I know the dish was made with only pure natural ingredients, milled and roasted seeds, real herbs, no additives or preservatives.
So excited to have more time to test the thermomix today. First breakfast, chose easy waffles from recipe community, plus fruit smoothie of course. Talk about easy peasy, the hardest part is measuring the ingredients into the bowl. Seconds later a smooth batter ready to pour into the waffle iron. Kids love the waffles and berry smoothie of course.
Next decided to make chicken stock, just added chicken, root veges, herbs, wine and salt into the TM, cooked and puréed in the TM. Made a huge amount of chicken stock paste 500g ( 1 Tb makes 500ml of chicken stock) , the accountant in me wants to calculate the cost savings already, not to mention the benefit of knowing that the stock made from is pure natural fresh ingredients, no msg or additives.
Chicken stock paste
For lunch the kids wanted to try pizza, so we made the dough which makes two large pizzas. Only two minutes kneading by the TM and the dough is one ready to prove, too easy. The hardest thing is adding in the ingredients! .
Pizza doughOne pizza
Next, lemonade using the guided recipe. Just seconds and two whole lemons including the skin, caster sugar and water. Kids and I love the lemonade, it’s better than the homemade lemon cordial we make. Husband makes the comment that this is better than any cafe bought lemonade he’s ever tasted. He’s already thinking about cost saving too and smiling! A whole jug from two lemons from our garden, no mess no squeezing, no pulp, just blitz a few seconds.
Freshest lemonade ever
Next we tried guided fruity dream recipe ( soft serve ice cream) raspberries, sugar and an egg white made a “Mr whippy” ice cream. The kids loved it. Although I will substitute sugar with a banana next time or halve the sugar. Was a tad sweet for my taste buds!
Raspberry soft serve ice cream
And just to give the TM a rest we made a soup using chicken stock made in TM the old fashion way on the stove in a pot. It’s funny but we feel energised, wonder if it’s the quality of the food ?
Turn the dial and the magic happens
Verdict after day four:
Love the ease of use, one bowl no other dishes or equipment needed, integrated scales, self clean, touchscreen guided recipes, turns itself off when cooking finished, recipes seem to be very well tested and can’t wait to work my way through more of the basic cookbook. Haven’t even used the multi level steam cooking yet. Potential is incredible. Love it so far! Who doesn’t need a kitchen helper like this. The breakfasts are better than cafe food!
Ps went to Milly’s Kitchen to buy loaf tins and it was satisfying to see a huge billboard in the front of the store showing all the Kitchenaid equipment all just for $3500, about three machines plus accessories. If I was starting again, I’d only buy the thermomix.
One of the reasons why I was convinced the TM was the way to go, is the well established recipe community. Any recipe you could possibly want to try can be searched on the community pages along with user star ratings and comments. I found this apple and blueberry pancake recipe. Literally seconds later after adding the ingredients in the TM, we have the pancake batter ready to cook. This along with linseed sunflower and chia berry smoothie gives us a healthy serve of fruit to start the day. I made myself a green smoothie from whole unpeeled apple, cucumber, spinach, mint and l.s.c seed mix.
Green smoothie ingredientGreen smoothie
Daughter made the best focaccia bread, the dough was done in the machine in two minutes, and after months of skepticism about the thermomix that mum had been talking about, she suddenly saw how incredible this piece of equipment could be.
Best ever focaccia bread
Also made the coleslaw from the recipe chip and was so easy, just chucked in cabbage apple onion and mayonnaise, blitz a few seconds and hey presto it’s done, no pic taken, forgotten in all the excitement.
Verdict after Day three:
Even with dough kneading in the bowl, we could still use the self cleaning option and so very little extra dishes to get done. Super fast and like having a extra pair of hands in the kitchen. It’s potential is enormous. I actually felt guilty buying a loaf of bread from the supermarket but only because I realised we didn’t own any bread loaf tins to bake the bread in. The potential to mill own grains and understand exactly what is in our food will change our diet for the better.
Only negative was the butterfly whisk was a little hard to insert properly when make the fruity dream soft serve ice cream. But that’s more user familiarity than design issue. You needed to insert and twist to lock under the blades.
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