Wednesday 11 August - You still have lifelines left..........

If there's one thing guaranteed to make me fume it's when people assume, because I'm sitting in a wheelchair, that I must also be not very bright;  when they see my hearing aids, that I must have learning difficulties.  Sometimes the people who make these assumptions are so-called healthcare professionals.  You can tell who they are: they call everyone else "luv" but me "Darling" or "Sweetheart".   Would you believe it!


I'm what you might call fortunate in that a) I've been like this quite a while and b) live in England where, despite what you may have heard to the contrary, we have a fairly good National Health Service.   I mean,we ourselves villify the NHS but the alternative doesn't bear thinking about.  It's just that some of their staff could do with a training update.


I decided long since that I should try and make life easy for myself.  I asked myself what things were important to me and cooking came top.  On the negative side we don't have a dishwasher.  On the positive side I can wash up by hand.  I don't like it but I can!  These days I use all sorts of gadgets I wouldn't have bothered with in years gone by.

 

This food processor is something I wouldn't have looked twice at a few years ago.   With it I can chop, grate, slice, make fries as well as blend things together.  I can juice citrus fruits and grind coffee beans.   I can make quite decent pastry in it too but that does take a bit of practise.  I have excellent knives that take a lot less washing up........but it's difficult for me to use knives, so I have this food processor.

I also have a little whizzer, kind of a mini-chopper which I use for chopping a few squares of chocolate or a handful of nuts, even herbs.  Saves getting the big one out.  The stick blender, too, is useful for blending soups in the pan or rescuing lumpy sauces (sharp intake of breath "Surely not.....")

This is a Tefal Actifry.  Yes it is a bit big and an awkward shape (I think so anyway).  It was also expensive but - hey - in this game nothing comes cheap.  In this you can do a full kilo of chips (fries) using only 1 tablespoon (about 15ml I think) of whatever oil you like.  They come out beautifully crisp outside and fluffly inside.  In other words, it makes chips for fatties like me.  In fact you can put just about any veg you want in, mix them up.  It'll cook other things perfectly as well but.what am I,  an instruction book?

This does exactly what it says on the tin;  an electric carving knife.  You carve meat with it of course but, because it's fantastic for slicing bread too I can knock us a treat together with this...........

 My beloved Panasonic breadmaker, which I've had for years.  In fact it may well have been instrumental in selling our previous house 8 years ago.  You know.......the smell of fresh bread and coffee?  I don't use it every day;  we sometimes have shop bought bread.    I have never made just dough in it though because the 'beeps' alerting you that it's ready are so quiet I can't hear them even if I stand there and listen .   Same with the raisin option beeps.   The point is I couldn't use it at all without my electric knife.  I do have an electric slicing machine but as far as cleaning it is concerned it really is a step too far!  The big circular saw type blade will chop your hand off as soon as look at you.

 This electric can opener is fine but you do need to use 2 hands to it.  I think there may be something on the market now that is smaller and you only  need  one hand..  If so I'll get one - after all there's not much else you can do with  a can opener.

Last but not least, the Kenwood Chef food mixer, without which there would be never a cake to be found in this house!  Years ago, when we were first married, I was proud - and more than a little surprised - to find that I could turn out good cakes using just a mixing bowl, fork and tablespoon.  They were a real labour of love but they were the soundest basis  I know for learning how to do things and why you do them.  I've had this Chef more years than I can remember though and it's worth its weight in gold.....though I'm told it's old fashioned.  I don't care, it's lovely and worth every penny I paid for it.


So there you have it, just a few of the bits and pieces that seem to some like extravagances but are to me my lifelines.  There are loads of other things that keep the house clean and so on but I don't know of any gadget more reliable than Keith for putting the bins out!!