Corn Muffins, Chilli Bean and Vegetable Soup, and Kitchen Monster Revealed

Mummy and Chef Gerald have been going through a baking frenzy lately, no doubt fuelled by the presence of Kitchen Monster, who makes it so much easier to get everything ready in a flash. We?ve mentioned our Kitchen Monster several times in our previous few posts, however we have so far abstained from making any in-depth comments regarding it. We thought now would be a good time to reveal the beast ? or genius, depending on which way you look at it.

We will start by stating that the thoughts below are our own personal opinions and should not be regarded as an official endorsement of one product or brand. The opinions below are based on our personal choice and requirements and are intended solely for experience sharing purposes.

The reason why we haven?t said much about Kitchen Monster so far was because we wanted to be in a position to give an unbiased opinion on it. In other words, we had to wait for the ?new gadget fever? period to wear off, whose symptoms you may be familiar with:

-       you wake up in the morning, go to the kitchen and all of a sudden are confronted with the sight of a huge shiny presence that?s taken up half the bench space next to the stove.

-       then you feel overwhelmed by some kind of weird new toy exhilaration and you want to give it a big hug. Or a big bite, in Chef Gerald?s case.

Now, before you think we?re getting too carried away here, let me explain that until a few weeks ago, our kitchen gadget looked like this:

Don?t get me wrong, it?s done a perfectly good job many many times (hence the reason why it is still with us now), and we still love it but, after coming dangerously close to acquiring kitchen-induced hearing loss and developing continuous button pressing RSI, it was time for a change.

So, having made such a huge technological leap, we needed to allow some time for us to get fully used to it before we loudly proclaimed our love for the whole world to know and started writing love poems on the back of napkins. After all, Chef Gerald is very meticulous when it comes to offering his endorsement for any product. And the verdict is: we love it, we love it, we love it!!! J

And here are (some of) the reasons why:

-       it?s fast (to be expected)

-       it?s amazingly quiet for a beast of its size and engine power.

-       it comes with lots of tools and accessories, customised for many kitchen jobs you may have never envisaged yourself engaged in so far (such as grinding your own flour). But it?s never too late to try….

-       the induction cooking element is phenomenal and, while we?ve only ever used it twice so far, we can foresee that it will definitely take centre stage in the Bistro kitchen and become involved in lots of interesting experiments.

It?s true that above-mentioned accessories will take over most of your cupboard space, but I am a strong believer in the idea that you need the right tool for the job (i.e. you can?t really expect your dough kneading tool to grind nuts very well), so we couldn?t really compromise on those

Here is another recipe we put together with the help of our beloved Kitchen Monster:

Chilli Bean and Vegetable Soup with Corn Muffins

You can get the combined recipe for both soup and muffins here.

We made some minor adjustments to this, listed below:

Muffins:

1)     Baked this as muffins rather than a whole loaf to save on baking time

2)     Replaced the tinned creamed corn with kernels from two fresh ears of corn. We processed these together with the cheese and liquid ingredients in the food processor before incorporating the flour and polenta

3)     Didn?t have any buttermilk, so we used 175 ml milk and 2 tbsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice instead.

We made quite a few changes to the soup ingredients, so we?ve listed them below (our changes are marked in bold italics)

2 tbs olive oil

2 leeks, white part only, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, chopped

2 roasted capsicums*

2 small red chillies, seeded, chopped

500ml vegetable stock

700ml tomato puree

2 zucchini, chopped

3 sticks celery, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

300g red kidney beans, cooked

100 ml reduced fat  sour cream and coriander, to serve

The finished result:

Comments: this is a tasty and satisfying soup, which is easy to make and therefore the perfect candidate for a quick and healthy weeknight dinner. For the calorie-conscious, you can use reduced fat sour cream, and you will also find that a little goes a long way.

Chef Gerald was busy conducting a cheese degustation session during the preparation of this dish: