Should I Buy a Food Processor?

Longwalker

Rosa_Damascena said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Siebrie said:

Now this is a real selling point! Is it energy efficient? And does it largely contain the smell of the soup whilst cooking? (I would soup far more often if I could stand the smell of frying onions - I can't).

I don’t always want to bother frying onions, so I regularly chuck in ready-fried and dried onions.

I've now got it into my head that I want a soup maker! There are loads available second hand, which makes me wonder why people give up on them. Soup is one of the rare things I do cook. I bought ingredients for ratatouille over a week ago but can't psyche myself up to actually make it because of the cooking smell - repulsive!!

I finally got round to making that ratatouille yesterday, which involved frying off the veg first in sunflower oil - a simple task albeit a smelly one. The kitchen is big and I shut off the doors and opened all 5 windows (not the French door - local foxes know no boundaries) for a couple of hours afterwards. I then went out and left the extractor fan on, and burned unscented tealights when I came home. It got another 2 hours airing first thing in the morning. I walk back in in the evening and the place still smells of frying. Is this normal?

Clean the filter of your extractor

I cook curry -quite pungent ones, none of this namby  pamby jars of sauce, and until I take the extractor filter down to wash, my kitchen smells like the local curry house 

Longwalker

Rosa_Damascena said:

-taff said:

I'd expect it of sausages or onion bhajis, but not veg. Are you frying over a low heat? Are you browning the edges of anything?

To be honest though, the only thing I semi fry for a ratatouille is the onions ot begin with and that's only to take the edge off them being raw, not to cook them. The peppers, zucchine and aubegines [ if they're in there]  all go in at different times in the tomatoes, I don't pre fry them. 

This is the recipe I go by - gentle browning was all that was required. The dish had the added advantage of allowing me to strip down my basil plant which was on its last legs.

@gt568 - it was far worse in my previous home (much smaller). If I cooked anything - usually a stockpot of soup - the smell would disperse around the whole house and last for a week. I  would cook far more (and have a healthier diet) if I did cook at least once a week, I've got a dream kitchen and lots of kit, but I have to force myself to because I dread the smell so much! I was hoping to get over myself in 2024 but it is the hyperosmia that is the limiting factor.

When I worked in a hospital and had to be on many wards/theatres and even the mortuary, as you can imagine at times the smells were unbearable  - burned or rotting flesh about the worse smells in the world, I used to swipe a wee bit of Vicks under my nose, it made things bearable, Vicks overpowered everything 

Would that be a wee solution? Maybe not Vicks as that does burn if needing to use it all the time, but maybe a surgical mask thats sprayed with a perfume ? Just so you can get in and batch cook?

Rosa_Damascena

Longwalker said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Siebrie said:

Now this is a real selling point! Is it energy efficient? And does it largely contain the smell of the soup whilst cooking? (I would soup far more often if I could stand the smell of frying onions - I can't).

I don’t always want to bother frying onions, so I regularly chuck in ready-fried and dried onions.

I've now got it into my head that I want a soup maker! There are loads available second hand, which makes me wonder why people give up on them. Soup is one of the rare things I do cook. I bought ingredients for ratatouille over a week ago but can't psyche myself up to actually make it because of the cooking smell - repulsive!!

I finally got round to making that ratatouille yesterday, which involved frying off the veg first in sunflower oil - a simple task albeit a smelly one. The kitchen is big and I shut off the doors and opened all 5 windows (not the French door - local foxes know no boundaries) for a couple of hours afterwards. I then went out and left the extractor fan on, and burned unscented tealights when I came home. It got another 2 hours airing first thing in the morning. I walk back in in the evening and the place still smells of frying. Is this normal?

Clean the filter of your extractor

I cook curry -quite pungent ones, none of this namby  pamby jars of sauce, and until I take the extractor filter down to wash, my kitchen smells like the local curry house 

The extractor fan is powerful. In the 2 years since it was installed, it has been used less than 10 times (that is how little I cook) and much as I am happy to eat curry I don't usually make it myself. 

Eta: I'm pretty sure the smell thing is me. Am wfh and lit a tealight 2 hours ago - I can still smell the match now.

Rosa_Damascena

bouicca21 said:

I promised @Rosa_Damascena a smell test when I next used my soup maker.  Mine has a sauté function but, bearing in mind that Rosa doesn’t like the smell of fried onions, I didn’t use it, just chunked an onion and chucked it in with carrots, coriander, a couple of stock cubes, and water, then left it to do its thing.  When I went back into the kitchen, there was definitely a waft of soup.  No worse than the smell from the soup when it’s in the dish ready to be eaten. Whether that’s acceptable to Rosa is of course impossible to judge.

The judgement is out....and it works for me! Thank you @bouicca21 !!




^^I bought this little number second hand in the late spring and only recently tried it out. Its easy-peasy to use (I'm in the room whilst it cooks but don't actually have to do anything once its closed and running), and generates nowhere near the same steam or smell that my stockpot does. It doesn't make the 7L quantities I am used to but 1600ml is more than enough to keep me going for days, so I'm a convert!

Rosa_Damascena

I used my soup maker last night and the result was 1.6L of delicious spicy tomato soup for less than £1. I'm constantly amazed by how easy and efficient it is, and also how well it emulsifies the final product. I used a very small amount of oil but the end result was really "creamy" - a bonus for a vegan soup.