Another grocery delivery today, and some more veg prep ready for the week. Slightly less, as I have plenty of food prepared in the freezer, so I am hoping I will have a bit less cooking to do this week.
Here is my usual colourful display of fruit and veg waiting to be washed and prepped.
Some other provisions I bought this week. In case you are wondering about that big bag of sugar – I do not add any sugar to my food! This is unprocessed granulated cane sugar which I use to make my kombucha. It is golden in colour. It is the recommended sugar to feed the SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts) which ferments the tea into the delicious drink kombucha. Once the fermentation is complete, all the sugar has been converted, and there is none left.
I use maple syrup in the rehydration/electrolyte drink that I make up daily. Having an ileostomy means that you have to be careful not to get dehydrated. The colon is responsible for absorbing the water from the food you have eaten, and also to maintain electrolyte balance. Other ingredients in this drink are lemon juice, salt (I use Himalayan pink rock salt – the pink colour is caused by trace amounts of other beneficial minerals), kombucha, coconut water (rich in potassium) and filtered water. I drink a litre of this every day.
A late arrival at the Meal Prep Ball!
Unfortunately they didn’t have any cauliflowers when I did my online order, so I asked my hubby to pick one up for me somewhere else while he was out today. I managed to prep it in time for this group photo of Meal Prep Stars.
Having quite a few ready prepared meals in the freezer now, this week I am intending to experiment a bit, and again attempt to make some almond milk yoghurt and one or two other things. I have got various recipes to try which use the pulp that remains when you make the almond milk – it is full of fibre and goodness and a shame to throw it out. I have already made some delicious hummus from it, and had a somewhat unsuccessful attempt at making some garlic and herb crackers – the recipe specified coconut oil, but I substituted this with almond butter as I am trying to avoid adding any oil to my food prep now. The dough was extremely crumbly! I am thinking about alternatives.
Unboxing my new food processor
A few days ago I ordered a food processor. I haven’t had one for many years, and quite frequently when I am cooking, I really feel the need for one. I have several machines and gadgets in my kitchen, including a VeggieBullet (from the same stable as the NutriBullet) which will shred or slice veggies in double quick time, and recently I bought the bullet blender attachment for it, which is very useful for grinding small quantities, e.g. flax seeds, and for making dips and guacamole etc. I also have a high speed blender (an essential piece of kit for the serious whole-foods plant-based aficionado!) and of course my wonderful Ninja Foodi multi-cooker which I mostly use for pressure cooking. Sometimes, though, one really needs a good old-fashioned food processor for controlled processing without reducing to pulp.
On and off over the past few years I have read reviews of various machines and thought, “Do I really want another machine cluttering up the counter…” and many of them didn’t have that good reviews, so I left it. Last week, however, I had another look, and discovered the new Morphy Richards PrepStar food processor and I was really impressed with how compact it was, while at the same time having a bigger bowl capacity than many. It was also very cleverly designed to hold all its accessories inside, which I thought was a brilliant idea, so I decided to go ahead and order one.
It arrived this afternoon from Amazon, after I’d been told it wouldn’t come till tomorrow, which was very pleasing.
Opening the outer box.
I got it out and had a look at its box, which has a lot of pictures of what it will do.
Lifting the lid revealed the usual egg box type packaging, and the instruction book. The motor unit was nested in this packaging.
Lifting it out, the machine itself was revealed.
Here it is, out of the box.
I took the lid off and revealed the contents of the bowl.
Here are the accessories, nesting in their special rack that fits inside the processor bowl when not in use.
In addition to the instruction manual (which also contains a few recipes), there were two little plastic cards with pictures of what the accessories will do.
The reverse side of the cards.
I wasn’t sure what the point of the cards was really.
Here are all the accessories laid out. I’m not sure, but I think the ripply-looking disc is missing – I shall have to check again. Not that it matters, because I don’t think I shall be using most of the accessories, as I have other machines which will do the same job. I have my wonderful Kenwood Chef stand mixer for mixing and whipping, and it also has a grater attachment amongst other things, so I shall probably go on using that. Later: I found the ripply thing! It was attached to the base of the storage unit! Very compact and neat.
Here is an overview of all the parts that were in the box. You can see how big the bowl is. The motor unit slots into the large circular hole in the top of the lid and engages with the spindle in the base of the bowl. I have yet to suss out how it all works, and according to some of the reviews, the instructions are fairly brief. Some people complained that it wasn’t easy to engage the motor, but one reviewer gave some instructions. Certainly when I tried to reassemble it all into the storage rack, I had a job to do it, because everything has to be just so, and there is only one right way to do it. A bit of a fiddle, but according to the reviews, once you’ve got the knack, it’s not a problem.
I love how compact this machine is! No need for it to take up space on the counter. It fits in my cupboard just fine, along with my other bits and pieces that are in constant use. (I love my pull-out units… They snake right out in a very sinuous and satisfying way!)
Watch this space for further reports on this machine, and how I get on with it. For now, the pieces are all laid out on the counter again, waiting to be washed so they are ready for use.
