is kept purely for selfish reasons. I want a house. And a garden with fruit trees. And a vegetable patch with a bordering herb garden.
But if I want a house for my family and myself, I need to save money for a down-payment for a mortgage and I also need to start budgeting for the future. For me, budgeting means starting in the kitchen.
I’m planning to use this blog to write down my attempts to save money while cooking. One of my main helpers in the kitchen – and this is going to sound a little schizophrenic – is my Thermomix (TMX), a German kitchen appliance that costs around 980 Euros produced by the company Vorwerk. Yes, 980 Euros can buy you a LOT of food. Let’s face it, a Thermomix is a luxury, i. e. it’s something you really don’t need, after all people have been preparing delicious food for centuries without electricity and without expensive technology. I use my Thermomix at least once a day and it really is enjoyable to prepare and cook food with it. But the real fun is to use the TMX to invent dishes using leftovers from the day before, something I have never really enjoyed. Or you can transform a few pieces of fruit into a jam in the TMX while you unload the dishwasher or fold the washing.
The Thermomix is not one of those gadgets you buy (like a sandwich maker) which you use fervently for a couple of weeks and then one day find it gathering dust at the back of some dark cupboard. If you keep it on your work surface, you will use it daily. Unless of course you generally hate cooking. (No, I don’t sell these machines in case you’re wondering).
I’ll also include some slow cooker recipes that I have tried out, because these appliances can help to prepare food “in the background” while you do something else. I know a lot of people swear by pressure cookers but I prefer the crockpot. You will not find any recipes starting with the words “Take one tin of cream of mushroom soup, mix with one pound of meat and….”
My aim during the next few months is to also use my freezer more. I tried once a month cooking (OAMC) at the beginning of the year and bought a couple of books on the subject. I also scoured the internet but the recipes all seemed the same. The authors also appeared to eat a lot of meat. And I mean A LOT. OAMC is supposed to – as a lot of people understand it- save you money and meal preparation time. But I feel that OAMC should not focus on getting a warm, meat-based meal on the table that – in many recipes that I’ve seen so far – is totally “dead” in terms of nutrition and flavour. Having said that, however, the book “Fix, freeze, feast” by Kati Neville and Lindsay Tkacsik offers freezer options that do not revolve around endless variations of slopping Joes, chili con carne and meatballs.
My recipes will sometimes contain meat, but there will be vegan and vegetarian recipes as well. Since I want my Thermomix to pay its way, I’ll be using it as much as possible, but most of the recipes can be made without the TMX, using a food processor, for example.
