One of my walks the other day was to our local supermarket, carrefour. Have have a carrefour express that is only 5mins walk from the house but it's only tiny. The bigger one is about a half hour walk away but is a cross between a super iga, and target. I rugged up and set off at about 5.30 (i'm the dark). I was after a bunch of different flours, and some other strange things for gluten free vegan cooking. 50 mins and three complete pass overs of the shop I had most of what I was looking for, with in reason since I had to carry it all with me home again. The thing I had the most trouble with was flax seeds, I'm hind site it was probably the easiest thing to find (i'm an organic food section) but I had almost given but hope by the time I stumbled upon it.
I didn't manage to find brown rice syrup or almond meal but the first can be replaced with honey and the second lead to my discovery of Sara's Bimby as a thermomix (also I found farina di mandorle at the carrefour express). I decided that if I couldn't find almond flour I'd just have to make some myself, Google searching for instructions on how to make it with Sara's Bimby I found a recipe but didn't understand it fully so chucked it through google translate. Much to my surprise it spat out 'thermomix' where ever 'Bimby' had been! A quick google image search confirmed it did just have a different name in Italy and I quickly shot off emails of excitement to my mum and sister. A thermomix is one of those great things you hear everyone raving about as being fantastic, but never really get to try out/see in action. With a price tag around 2000aud it's not surprising that I only know of who people who own one, and both are friends of my parents. What amazes me more is that Sara has one and doesn't use it all the time. From what I gather they are a completly magical machine that you just /have/ to use multiple times a day and never /ever/ make anything without it. Okay so that's a bit if am exaggeration but still, I've only seen a couple things made in it the whole 8 months I was here last time.
So, the Bimby/thermomix and I are going to be great friends. It also explains why Sara doesn't have a a hand mixer, it can do basically everything.
My first little foray into the land of the Bimby was using to make cookies last night. Since the recipe wasn't thermomix specific I only used it to cream butter and sugar, then decanted the mix to fold in the flour by hand. But still, Sara was making jokes about our new found friendship. I had initially planned to make the cookies while everyone was still out but I had a couple of things to get from carrefour express. I forgot to bring money when I went to the gym (halfway between home and the shops) and then i decided it was cutting it a bit close to siesta to had off. I generally end up walking around for ages looking at everything until I find what I'm after.
So by the time I got into cooking mode Selene and her friend were I want the kitchen, Tancre got home from school and started harnessing them and Sara and Corrado where piping in and out with a couple of friends. I'm pretty sure 6 people in my kitchen quarrelling in a foreign language while I try to cook a new recipe on unknown equipment without measuring spoons/cups is my own personal type of he'll. But, i survived. Selene was sceptical the whole time, convinced that the biscuits would be weird, even when she tried the dough that tasted like basically any other type of cookie dough ever.
In the end I probably over cooked them slightly because the flour I was using don't brown and I was dubious of the recipe that said to hoik them after 10mins. I was also unsure of the consistency of the mix so added more flour despite it saying it's normal quite runny. In the end they came out a bit thicker and a bit harder than I was expecting but everyone who's tried them reckons they're delicious and can't tell how on earth they're vegan and gluten free.
They haven't lasted long either, there are only two little ones left 24 hours later...
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