A love affair with the Thermomix

I am a typical working mother of 3 who always had great intentions of providing my family with healthy food. It just so happens that I am a Dietitian as well so perhaps I feel even more compelled to put a nutritious meal on the table at the end of every day.

Putting these wonderful ideals into practice is quite another story when you suddenly realise there are not enough hours in the day. When you get home at 5.30 or 6 o’clock in the evening, feeling tired and hungry, the last thing you need is a tired hungry family waiting to be fed and cared for.

The way I see it there are 4 options here.

Option 1. Muster up all the strength you have, quickly defrost some meat, pull out all your fresh vegetables and herbs, get the kids involved with chopping and stirring and prepare a delicious stir-fry from scratch. Beware – you need lots of energy, you need very helpful kids, you need to do lots of supervision and have eyes in the back of your head, you also need plenty of patience to break up the fights, and don’t forget there will be lots of mess to clean up during this ordeal and afterwards.

Option 2. Take the easy road and open a jar of pasta sauce, open a packet of frozen vegetables and boil up some pasta and you have an instant meal without too much effort. Beware – this is not particularly healthy as there is no fresh food here but at least it puts some food into those hungry tummies. Night after night of eating fast food like this is not exactly a guaranteed way of getting your kids to develop good eating habits or a love of vegetables.

Option 3. Buy a take-away pizza or fried chicken and chips on the way home. Guaranteed to be a hit with the kids but not conducive to a healthy lifestyle if it happens all the time.

Option 4. Use your Thermomix. I guarantee you can make a delicious risotto within 25 minutes, and the best part is you can walk away because it cooks (and stirs) ITSELF. I am not joking. And not only risotto, it can make a quick curry or minestrone soup or casserole equally well, and it is so easy and so fresh and above all, so tasty the whole family will love it. The Thermomix even cleans itself and you have very little mess to clean up.

It was only fairly recently that I discovered the Thermomix. You can discover it too here. The Thermomix is a beautifully-designed kitchen appliance that not only whips, chops, grates, kneads, blends, juices and purees food, it also cooks the food for you. It even weighs the food for you! This means that you can prepare any meal from the bare basic ingredients – I mean basic such as flour, eggs, sugar, salt, oil, vegetables – and produce a delicious healthy home-cooked meal from scratch in just minutes.

A Thermomix does have an expensive price tag of around $2000 but I feel that if you can scrape together the money to buy one, you won’t be sorry. I am already saving money on food because I no longer buy any packets or processed food and I can buy so many things in bulk now. No pasta sauces, no stock cubes, no curry sauces or pastes, no minced garlic or ginger, no bottled lemon juice, no packet or canned soups and the list goes on. This means less preservatives and less additives in the food we eat and lots more fresh food, and that has to be a good thing.

I have even started to make my own dairy blend butters, jams, icecreams, sorbets, home-made lemonade (made from lemons), pastries, pasta, pizza and breads – all from scratch and all within minutes (or in some cases, within seconds).

Check out www.thermomix.com.au if you want to find out more. For a healthier diet, you can’t really go wrong with one of these babies!