Hi my name is Julie and I’m from SA.
Hadn’t seen much info about the TM, but I was aware of it. After seeing it on MC, it renewed my interest again enough so to contact HO to enquire about a demo. Within 2 days a local consultant had contacted me but seeing it was only me interested in seeing one she said she’d contact me when she could organise a demo in her own home. A week later, she rang and we set up a time and place. The demo didn’t exactly set me on fire, in fact I’d gone there expecting to order one that night, but came away unsure. In the demonstrators defence she’d only had her machine for 3 months and said upfront that she didn’t like cooking, so I think that really made the difference. Anyway after reading through this forum and thinking all you lovely people can’t be wrong, I became enthused again and 3 days later rang and ordered one. Paid my money that day (last Thursday) and on Monday arvo she rang to say it had arrived and would deliver on Tuesday afternoon. Was very impressed with the speedy delivery and couldn’t wait to get started.
By the time it was all washed and a set up in it’s place I didn’t have much time left to play with it, but as I was cooking fillet steaks, baked potato and salad that night I decided to do something simple that I’d seen on the UK site, which was frying some pancetta slices in a dry frypan, allowing to cool then breaking into pieces and then blitzing in the TM bowl to make crumbs. These I sprinkled on top of the baked potatoes that first had a little butter, grated cheese and a small dollop of sour cream, then the crumbs. Was a nice flavour boost and looked good too. What I didn’t use have been put in a sealed container in the fridge to use up in other ways. I was very impressed at how small it made the crumbs.(would be nice sprinkled on a pizza that had just been taken from the oven).
The following day I firstly made the veg stock concentrate but I used a different recipe than in the book which included an onion and 2 leeks. Made it but only added 2 tsp rock salt as I didn’t need to preserve it and I prefer to add any salt to the meal I’m cooking to have control of the saltiness. As soon as it had cooled, I measured out level tablespoonful and put into ice cube trays and froze them, then once frozen removed to a zip lock bag.
I then made pumpkin soup and sautéed the onion in the TM bowl and used the veg concentrate that I’d made. Very easy and the colour and texture was wonderful (deseeded and peeled the pumpkin) but I really didn’t like the way it tasted which was very oniony and not as nice as I usually make.
Was a little disheartened at first, wondering was it the machine or the ingredients, so yesterday I made some more only using my usual stock and also fried off the chopped onion in a frypan until tender then added some spices and stirred until aromatic, then added this to the chopped pumpkin in the bowl and proceeded from there. It turned out great and as nice as my usual soup I make on the stove top. Success!
Of course this led me to make up another batch of veg concentrate only this time I followed the recipe in the book, plus added a little sweet potato too and I again fried off the onion to remove the ‘raw’ taste. Was very happy with the taste of this and froze in the ice cube trays again. I think I will use 1 cube of this and maybe ½ of one of the other until all used up.
Last night I made Mediterranean Lamb done on the stove top and in the oven and could see that mashed potatoes would be the perfect accompaniment. I remembered reading a post from someone on here about doing them in the strainer basket but using water like normal and not milk as in the book, so following her lead I made the mash this way and after removing the water from the bowl, added the butterfly whisk and then threw in some cubes of butter and some milk to the still hot bowl, dropped in the cooked potatoes and combined for about 20 seconds. WOW they were the creamiest, smoothest, mash I’ve ever eaten. This will be the only way I’ll make mash now.
I’m slowly but surely getting used to this wonderful machine and am enjoying testing what it can do. I can see it will be a big help to me in the kitchen and learning the best way for it to cook the food that we like. Some things just have to be cooked on the stove top or oven, but there’s so much that the TM can do that I’m going to really enjoy this journey.
Thanks for reading what I didn’t mean to be such a long post. I hope I’ll be able to add to your wonderful forum in some way.
Julie. Oh and Hi Cookie1
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