Does this qualify for Bargain Basement? Salter omelette maker. Bought a couple of days ago - £19.99 elsewhere but £12.99 on Amazon.
It works really well and is simplicity itself. Whilst seated, I can whisk up eggs in a Pyrex bowl as the gadget is heating up, then pour in the mixture and leave it for 6 mins whilst OH makes a cup of tea and some toast. I feel I can at last contribute a bit to breakfast meal times chez Binky.
I wonder how big a kitchen you'd have to have to have every single bit of kitchen electrickery to hand! My choice currently would be an air fryer rather than an omelette maker, but I have to say that both my frying and omelette making are covered by a £4.99 Lidl frying pan
I've just bought a rice cooker - and am very pleased with it. Just set it going and leave it - it even keeps the rice warm after cooking. It's small - 17 x 17 x 20 cm so doesn't take a lot of room and doesn't fill the kitchen with steam.
Great that you now feel you're contributing towards breakfast. It's easy to feel a bit useless (for want of a better term) when life throws us lemons and I completely understand how being able to do something makes a big difference to how we feel.
EM, we have an egg boiler! We bought it after staying in self catering accommodation a few years ago which had one. I love it, so easy. I also have a Veletiser because it's easy to make hot chocolate (I got a cheap one from the rain forest people, no way would I pay full price).
We’ve not got a big kitchen and I tend to shy away from many gadgets, but if something gets used all the time it is obviously worth its place. For me, the bread maker and IP are used several times a week, the Prospero mixer and its processor are used less often but still worth cupboard space.
I would be interested in seeing what is available if and when the IP packs up; the sous vide & air fryer possibilities might be fun, but I don’t use the yogurt making or rice cooking functions currently.
I should try the rice cooker function on the IP, I’ve used it for brown rice but not for steamed white rice, reports say it’s not brilliant but should see for myself.
It’s about what you cook, but also about what you need to help you. I’d like an air fryer but nowhere to put it and I’m not sure someone with low vision and moderately poor grip strength should be wrestling with the lid that converts an IP to an air fryer, it looks tricky from what I’ve seen.
But it’s what suits you - an omelette maker is a no-brainer if you need to make your omelette away from the hob, but I quite enjoy making them the traditional way and it suits me.
Which rice cooker did you get Pampy? that’s very compact
a rice cooker is one of the things i've never coveted, maybe because we don't eat rice that often.
when we do i use the two to one method (well, a little less than two), bring to the boil and put it in the wonderbag. it carries on cooking with no further power input and stays in perfect state, and hot, until it's needed.
if the wonderbag could count as a gadget it would be the most used. we keep the kettle in there to keep any remaining water etc hot for the next time it's needed, and use it as a slow cooker - our dinner, last night, cooked in it - started off on the hob in the afternoon (when the sun was shining) and was cooked (and hot) by the time we ate in the evening. it only took a couple of minutes to do the couscous to go with it.
one of our most used gadgets is the velvetiser (i wouldn't pay full price either - it was on a half price offer). it gets used a couple of times a day for frothy milk for coffee (we don't bother with the coffee machine's wand anymore) and once for an oat chai spiced drink in the evening. much less for hot chocolate.
Reading this has made me think about our kitchen gadgets. We have a sandwich maker, soup/milk maker, Remoska, omelette maker, Velvetiser, Foreman grill, waffle maker, and an ice cream maker.
All are used regularly, some daily, and fit happily on shelves or a dedicated cupboard. We had a ruthless chuck-out a couple of years ago and created space so the kitchen is organised and fairly orderly. Some of the items in the chuck-out were spiraliser, yogurt maker, silicon muffin cups, poaching pan, soup tureen, traditional chip pan, and a wok.
We could all probably manage with much less - don't the Chinese manage their cookery with one massive knife and a wok?
Re the Velvetiser, I'm interested to know that people make frothy coffee in theirs. How do you do this? Is just for heating the milk or do you put the coffee in too? OH has to labour along with heating milk in the microwave and whisking it before mixing it with the coffee from the bean-to-cup coffee maker. A right faff. So far we've only used the Velvetiser for delicious hot chocolate a couple of times a week.
I have a velvetiser (rarely used, primarily because I worry about the calories - which is silly. I could have it instead of a dessert.) I can see you could make slightly frothy coffee with it. I bought a separate milk frother which turned out so be more or less the same thing.
I wouldn't have thought there'd be room for an espresso in there as well as milk... On the other hand it makes a biggish cup of hot chocolate. But I would do the milk separately.
It doesn't make a very hot drink though, does it... I sometimes run it twice to get a hotter one.
Now the question is, can I have hot chocolate on my low fiber diet... I don't see why not.
Last edited by herbidacious on Wed Jan 31, 2024 11:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
i do the coffee with the gaggia and the milk for a cappuccino in the velvetiser.
my brother has an identical milk frother with the (original) duralit branding.
i always warm the cup and coffee portafill first and run the velvetier a second time to heat the milk a bit more.
and as i said, i also use it to reheat coffee that i've let go cold.
!