meemalee

I don't know much about Ina Garten aka the Barefoot Contessa, but I caught a British-themed episode of her cookery show where she made "bangers and mash" using an electric blender to make her mashed potato.  As any fule kno, this will result in an abysmal, gluey slop similar to wallpaper paste, rather than the glorious mash that we know and love (although I have been assured that Americans of a certain generation prefer their mashed potatoes made that way). Testing, testing No, there's no substitute for a bit of old-fashioned elbow grease - or at least that's what I thought until I came across something called a Masha on Big Spud's excellent blog. As I'm weaning my baby daughter, I was up for anything that might make life a bit easier, so I was pleased to be sent one too. The Masha is the size of a stick blender but a little lighter. All the moving parts are made of plastic, which I like very much as blades seem to be drawn to me (or vic...

Magnum Chocolates and Cornetto Chocolates from Wall's Much as I hate to admit it, I'm a sucker for a gimmick, especially the type sitting at the checkout at your local supermarket (yes, I know they're aimed at children, but I'm a creature of childish impulse).  I saw these new chocolates from Wall's Ice Cream, and obviously I couldn't resist chucking a couple in my basket. The Magnum ones first - you get three in a packet and they really do look like tiny Magnum bars. Each one is a couple of centimetres long - about the size of a large lozenge. It's a Magnum, but tiny When you bite into the chocolate, there's fluffy vanilla cream inside (bit like creme patissiere). The taste and texture is about as close to ice cream as not -ice cream can get, though a little artificial. Pretty The Cornetto next. I like how there's a big warning at the top saying "No ice cream included".  When you unwrap the silv...

So you may remember that Morphy Richards asked me to be one of their Home of the Houseproud reviewers. The way it works is they ask me if I'm interested in the gadget of the month and I say yea or nay depending on caprice. Most recently, they offered to send me the One Cup . Now, I have the brain of a guttersnipe and clearly spend too much time on the internet, so of course I accepted this offer with glee. In fact, I was this close to getting my sister-in-law to pose with me and the machine, purely so I could post a photo with an appropriate caption, but then I thought that might be going too far for a family-friendly site. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's a good thing. In direct contrast to the beast they sent me last time , the Morphy Richards One Cup is relatively petite and rather curvaceous. Its concept is simple - it heats and dispenses one cup of water for you in about 30 seconds - so a bit like the long-lost Tefal Quick Cup which I nearly bought...

When I was growing up, I loved shopping almost as much as I do now. My dad (affectionately, I hope) called me the "ultimate consumer", and I had various brand prejudices which were probably based on very little evidence. For instance, I thought Sony was the best for tellies, Tefal was the kettle maker, Breville made the perfect sandwich toaster, and Hoover made the best, erm, hoover. Morphy Richards was familiar to me as a good all-rounder - far from super-exciting, but reliable and somehow comforting, the fluffy slippers of the appliance world. So I wasn't that surprised to hear that this year is the 75th Anniversary of Morphy Richards. As part of their celebrations which will include events and giveaways, Morphy Richards picked a group of bloggers (including me) to become Home of the House Proud Innovators , which basically means they would send us their products and ask us to put them through their paces and then share our thoughts. I warned them I'd be brutal...

Some "luxury" foods have always been a bit out of my reach for reasons of penury. Caviar is one of them - I think I've tried it twice in my life (once at a tasting at Selfridges and the second time at Bob Bob Ricard ). The other that springs to mind is the truffle - your average specimen costs about £80. I've bought truffle oil before, and even preserved ones in a jar, but the only time I'd had fresh truffles was at my birthday meal at Launceston Place last year (oh, and there was this one dish I had from Dolada , but let's not go into that). So when I found out about Mister Truffle , a business that imports the best seasonal truffles and sells them by the GRAM, I thought, "Oooooh". Because it meant I could even afford to cook with truffles myself - to make that silky truffled pasta, to shave wispy slices over my scrambled eggs, to pimp my steak sauce - bringing a taste of luxury to my home without having to mortgage my house in the process. But bef...

Short, slightly over-excited note to say that I've now seen my Bags for Japan in real life! They are brilliant (vain, I know), but they're also nice fabric and the print quality is great. If you've ordered one, hopefully they'll arrive soon - and if you haven't got one yet, why ever not? All proceeds go to the Japanese Red Cross as before. And look! now there are T-Shirts too (this time designed by my husband from photos he took) ... SHOP FOR BAGS AND T-SHIRTS FOR JAPAN HERE

You'll have seen from previous posts that I like a bit of kitchen whimsy. As well as bento bits and bobs, my house is rammed with culinary nonsense from Alessi (including that Phillipe Starck Juicy Salif lemon squeezer), Koziol , Guzzini and, last but not least, Fred and Friends , purely because the design tickled my fancy - functionality not necessarily a priority (see again Juicy Salif). It's an easy and not too expensive way of getting a little designer fun into your surroundings. Smallest M-Cup used for my Butterbean Dip My latest loves are the M-Cups and M-Spoons from Fred & Friends - a ridiculously adorable range of Russian doll kitchenware, which (obviously) stacks away for your convenience. The Matryoshka Measuring Cups aka M-Cups come in 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 and 1 full cup sizes, making them perfect for American recipes. The Matryoshka Measuring Spoons aka M-Spoons come in 1 tbsp, 1/2 tbsp, 1 tsp, 1/2 tsp, 1/4 tsp sizes. They're both available in P...

Growing up, the weekend for me meant the Sunday Times. I hung on every word of Craig Brown 's Table Talk, I longed to be Emma Forrest with my own column at the age of 14 (I long to be her less these days ). But my pride and joy was the Innovations Catalogue . Although not an official Sunday Times supplement, a fresh copy seemed to drop out of the pages every week, and made me laugh more than the Funday Times (also RIP), and fascinated me more than the Culture supplement. I wanted to own every single item on offer - from plasma globe to remote control can opener. Sadly the Innovations catalogue is now defunct, but Lakeland keeps me ticking over (I desperately want a Remoska and I kinda want a Toast 'N' Egg). Anyway, my endless lust for gadgets meant that a few years ago I asked my in-laws to get us the Tefal ActiFry for Christmas. Basically a big culinary hairdryer, the ActiFry promises to fry enough chips for a family of four with just a small scoopful of oil (and 3% fat)...