Forum Thermomix
Welcoming Center, Management and General Chat => Introduce Yourself => Topic started by: arafalov on July 13, 2014, 01:59:57 pm
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Hello,
I am a newly single (male), absolutely useless in a kitchen and hoping to change that. I am moving to Montreal (Canada) and setting my new kitchen from scratch and am 110% sure that Thermomix will be my first big purchase for it. I am hoping to start by cooking easy newbie foods with it, then graduating to learning to cook complex foods. Since I am single, I am also interesting in the bulk cooking/cooking for the freezer approach.
Given that it's a new kitchen, I would also appreciate any advice on building a kitchen around Thermomix. As in, what other tools/gadgets would I need to maximize the benefits? I guess microwave, but is there benefit in getting combo/convection microwave or even fancy super-steamer microwave. Anything else?
Regards,
Alex.
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Hello Alex, welcome to the forum. Mmm, this is a tricky one - we've not had a question like this before. You definitely won't need as many kitchen gadgets, most of us have got rid of excess electric appliances in the past but since this forum began we have also bought many new items :D Things like pie makers, pizza makers, slow cookers, air fryers as they are all useful at some stage or another and with most of us being women, someone only has to say they've bought something and like it and we all want it :-))
Since the TMX came into my kitchen 6 years ago I have rarely used a saucepan and only occasionally used a frying pan. I do have a couple of Weber BBQ's though as I prefer to cook my meat outside than mess up the oven.
For the TMX, I find you need quite a few silicon spatulas and you will also need a casserole dish which will fit into the varoma dish for steaming the odd recipe. It's best to take your varoma dish along when you are ready to purchase the dish.
Others may add some thoughts to your question. Good luck with your new life.
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Welcome Alex.It's very exciting setting up a new kitchen.Its also very difficult to advise someone on what appliances to buy as we all cook differently.If you can attend any demonstrations run by manufactures of appliances and read reviews on any appliance.
Good luck with your move to Montreal.
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Welcome Alex. I would assume that you will have a oven. A small electric hand beater is handy. The type of microwave will depend on how much cooking you will be doing. A vacuum sealing machine is handy for freezing soups etc. leave space on your bench for the TMX to sit. A couple of good brushes and several spatulas. Cupboard space to store TMX servers and Varoma. Have fun and let us know how you go.
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A very warm welcome, Alex! It's excciting to be establishing a new kitchen! Take it slowly and add to it as you need to. I still have a good set of digital scales next to my TMX - they always come in handy. I don't use microwave, but wouldn't mind a turbo or convection type oven. My present gas stove must be 25++ years old ??? - when I get around to replacing it, it will be a gas cooktop (I find them much easier to control heat quickly) and an electric oven.
Good luck with it all!! Look forward to hear how you're getting on . . . :D
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Great question Alex! I am sure you'll get some ideas in here.
A drawer (or drawers...I have 2 deep and 2 not so deep ones :o) to store your plastics (ie Tupperware or similar) in for your "to be cooked" food.
A decent sized freezer for your cooked food. The little ones on top of the fridge just ain't gonna do the job!
A big pantry so you can have a good stock of items, so that when you have a big cook up, you have all the basics in there ready to go and you aren't popping down the shop for those forgotten items.
An oven and cooktop. I have a double oven (both the same size) and I use them both a lot.
I have my Thermomix (both of them) in an appliance cupboard with all the bits and pieces that goes with it. I have them both on a thin plastic mat so I can slide them in and out of the cupboard.
Hope this helps :)
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Hi Alex and welcome to the forum. An entire new life is opening up for you. The thermomix must definitely be kept on the bench. Definitely some good rubber spatulas. I wouldn't buy them until you have the thermomix. Then you can find exactly the shape you want. There is a wonderful thermomix blogger called Helene in Canada who sells the best type of atlas for the thermomix.
http://www.superkitchenmachine.com/
Her blog is fantastic. For other bits and pieces I would wait until you find you have the need for them and then buy. That way you won't end up with useless stuff.
A little hand beater will be useful and also small bowls or plastic containers for when a recipe says "grate cheese and set aside".
You will find everyone on this forum extremely helpful, so please feel comfortable about asking anything at all. We offer a 24/7 service.
Good luck with your new life.
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Hi Alex, great idea to buy a TM as you'll never regret it. As for what to buy, It really depends on what you like cooking. A lot of recipe books have a list of essential utensils at the front. Not sure about steam ovens as I don't have one, and steaming can be done in TM or if you have a Romertopf. As said above, silicon spatulas and hand mixer. Maybe a pizza stone. I do have a Kitchenaid but I do use my TM much much more. I have a pasta attachment for my KA which is much less back breaking than the pasta machine. I also love my pressure cooker and Le Creuset. I have some stainless steel bowls in lots of different sizes. I couldn't be without my big box of baking paper either.
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HI Alex and welcome to the forum. As you can see you will get a lot of advice here. Enjoy.
Gert
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I've seen a kitchen designed around the thermomix. Might be on the my dad's got a thermomix blog.
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Thank you everybody. I can definitely see the 24x7 aspect of the community already. Hoping to contribute to it, once I get off the ground.
Thanks for the suggestions and the links. I can see quite a number of resources are in Australia as well as Canada, which is just great as I am Australian and travel back home periodically. So, I guess my next trip I will be carrying back some cookbooks rather than just Rum&Raisin Chocolate (can I make that in TM?).
Thanks for the link and mentions to various equipment. As I said in the beginning I am very much a non-cook so far, so it's a new world. And I haven't even heard about Romertopf before.
And LoL on the Dad who built his kitchen around the Thermomix (I found the FB link). As opposed to him, I did not actually mean it that literately. I meant gadgets/tooks, rather than architects and remodeling.
Again, thank you all for very warm welcome.
Regards,
Alex.
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Hi Alex and welcome. Looks like you've been given some great advice above. Good luck with your kitchen.
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Lots of TM recipes out there Alex. This (http://www.superkitchenmachine.com/2009/3268/thermomix-cake-kuchen-recipe.html) might be a nice one for you to try.
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Hi Alex and welcome. :D
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Alex we have rum and raisin ice cream and rum and raisin banana cake. It would be easy to soak your raisins in rum, melt the chocolate in the thermomix and combine the two. ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Welcome to the forum Alex. Great advice and great recipes here.
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Welcome Alex it's fun setting up a kitchen & very satisfying when you know you have cooked what you are eating.
My appliances other than the TM are a microwave (only used to defrost & reheat only), air fryer, slow cooker (great in winter), sandwich/griller, ice cream machine & coffee machine (only thing other than TM used daily).
We also have a BBQ & webber and do a lot of meat cooking outside too.
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Hi and welcome Alex.
look forward to reading all your cooking adventures! :D
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Thank you to all for additional comments. I've done a bit more research and it seems like three gadgets may cover more than a full range of what I want:
1) Thermomix, obviously (hopefully a new September version)
2) Halogen oven to replace full-size oven and possibly even Microwave
3) Combination slow/pressure cooker with high-enough temperature to brown food
I looked at some recipes on various websites of these gadgets and you can often see recipe that say "Do part X magically with this gadget and part Y as usual". Then, the other gadget's website would say "Do part X as usual, but this gadget really helps with part Y". Bread seems a perfect example of something that starts in Thermomix and ends in Halogen oven, getting speed up from both.
I haven't found any recipes yet that look at multiple gadgets at the same time. Would be interesting to see others' experience at that.
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We have an air fryer section in Chit Chat Alex and often things are prepared in the Thermomix then cooked in the a/f.
Does anyone own an airfryer (http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=7300.0) Some recipes underlined will have TMX inclusion eg BZB's Peri Peri Chicken (http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=14882.0) & Nigella's chocolate chip muffins (http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=14046.0)
Airfryer temperature & times - List No. 1 (http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=14903.0)
Airfryer temperature & times - List No 2 (http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=15397.0)
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Time for an update ;D
I bought a TM3.1 (Canada...) and a pressure/slow-cooker combination.
With TM, I made veggie stock, hummus, risotto, mayo, soup, smoothies, bliss balls, Kartoshka (Russian sweets) and, just recently, chocolate.
Hummus was completely from scratch (dried chickpeas, unroasted sesame seeds, etc), so it really felt good.
Bliss Balls, Kartoshka and chocolates actually made it into the office and were pronounced a success. Which is the first time I dared for anybody but myself to try my cooking.
For next couple of dishes, I've been requested more Kartoshka :-) and then I want to make Baba Ganoush, bread and some sort of cookies. After that, I need to eat down my cupboard's current content of tins and jars and rebuild it around Thermomix-ready base ingredients.
So, I guess, it is a success. :-)
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Great going there arafalov, the Russian sweet recipe sounds nice, perhaps you'd like to share it with us. It might be a good one for our Christmas hampers.
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The Kartoshka recipe was this one: http://www.mydeliciousmeals.com/recipe/kartoshka-chocolate-truffles
I actually used TM to process and weigh the ingredients one by one and ended up with too many dishes to wash up. I have a feeling, there might be a way to streamline/convert that recipe into TM-specific and use only TM-bowl+temporary bowl for crumbs.
If somebody can rewrite that into a TM-specific form, I'll be very happy to beta-test that early next week.
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i would process the biscuits then add all of the ingredients and use the :: for a minute or so
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The butter needs to be melted though, right? So do that separately in a microwave and just pour everything in together? Two dishes.
I thought maybe do the crackers, take them out. Then, melt the butter in TM, mix it with the rest, then add crackers pieces back in and mix. Still two dishes, but no microwave.
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yes you could do that with no need of the M/W , but i would still pour the butter over the ingredients
not knowing the thickness play around with the speeds