News From The Kitchen of SSG Manor 2.0.


It was going so well.  I managed to dodge pregnancy brain, was on maternity leave when I got newborn mummy brain and since then have been running on all cylinders most days of the week.  Until I tried to a T2 online order whilst supervising bath time.  My order arrived promptly and I unpacked it while supervising dinner time and thought nothing more of it.  Until I looked in the cupboard yesterday and realised that I didn’t have two back up bags of peppermint tea bags but rather two bags of peppermint loose leaf tea.  After I’d opened one of the bags already making an attempt to get a refund futile.
Solution?  An emergency dash to T2 today.  
I’m pretty bad at using those ball or pyramid diffusers that you fill with leaves, immerse in your mug of hot water and then try desperately to clean out and empty when you’re done.  The nifty Merriest Infuser ($16 AUD) sits in your mug and then it’s lid turns over to become a dish to stand the barrel in when you’re done with it.

Then I thought about what I’d do if even filling and cleaning an over mug infuser was too difficult.  T2 have and answer for that too – T2 in the Bag ($8 AUD for 25) – mesh bags you use to make  your own tea bags from the loose tea of you choice.

It’s basically like making a tea leaf dumpling.  I used a teaspoon of loose leaf tea per bag.  The bag is like a pillow case with a fold over edge that ‘seals’ the bag.

Superior home maker skills there, SSG.

And here you are a few minutes later with 25 fold your own tea bags.  Fingers crossed they stay closed when I brew them.  Reliable sources tell me that similar bags can also be found at Daiso.
In other homemaker news, a brief review of my new Aldi electric spiralizer.

Initial thoughts:

  • study ‘bowl’ section that doubles as a storage compartment for the bits and pieces of the processing wand
  • easy to clean and assemble
  • black plastic bits a bit flimsy though, the vegetable gripping disc and the blade plates esepcially.

Three plates are included – one for noodles, one that grates and another that makes long wide spirals.  The machine is suitable for vegetables and fruit only with the instruction manual describing what works in some detail.

It is suggested that vegetables are cut into lengths about 8-9 cm – the length of the cutting chamber in other words.

To operate, attach your length of vegetable onto the blade, then secure the top of it in the grip of the wand and press that upside down T button.  The machine does all the work from here.

Pros:

  • fairly quiet and quick
  • easy on the joints and muscles when processing large amounts of noodles
  • produces masses of finer thickness noodles
  • storage bowl can accomodate a large volume of ‘noodle’.

Cons:

  • significant vegetable ‘wastage’, you’re left with what looks like a carrot icypole holder at the end 
  • the wand gets warm pretty quickly
  • sometimes I just hit random rough patches where I couldn’t process my carrot and had to unplug it from the wand and try from the other hand
  • the vegetable chamber unscrews pretty easily during operation requiring you to secure that section with one hand whilst operating the wand
  • could get dangerous as you try to remove blade from the lid, there’s really only that plastic bezel in the middle with which to hold the blade
  • I prefer a thicker noodle, especially when making zoodles
  • not sure how long parts will last.

Final thoughts:

  • $34.95 isn’t a bad price but it’s not especially cheap either, I remember seeing a Morphy Richards branded spiralizer for around $40 somewhere on the internet
  • in the even that this breaks down for whatever reason, I’m just going to bite the bullet and get one of those professional standard manual spiralizers that my local cooking supplies store is selling for around $120, the solid make and reliable blades would be well worth the dollars.


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