Forget the expensive Thermomix. What you have in your kitchen can do a lot more than you think. You can cook fish in the diswasher, bake meatloaf in your breadmaker and cheesecake in your rice cooker – if you are feeling brave.
Toaster
You can make grilled cheese sandwiches in toasters just by using a little reusable bag called a Toastabag. Pop the sandwich in the bag, and toast just like you would normal bread. Voila! A toasted cheese sandwich. The bag even leaves a grill pattern.
Dishwasher
Dishwashers can not only clean – they can cook as well. You can use them to cook salmon and even lasagne. All you have to do is assemble your lasagne on a piece of foil, wrap that foil up and place it flat on the bottom shelf of your dishwasher. Then just turn on your dishwasher for a normal cycle, select ‘heated dry’ and ‘sanitize’ settings for maximum heat - and there you have it - cooked lasagne.
Breadmaker
I don’t own a breadmaker but if I did I would probably only use it a couple of times and stuff it into a cupboard somewhere. If you’ve done the same then you probably should dust it off and use it to make jam (beware of making a sticky mess!) or meatloaf on the ‘quick bread/bake’ cycle.
Rice cooker
I recently purchased a rice cooker and discovered rice is probably the least interesting thing you could make in it. You can make a whole range of cakes including tarte tatin, banana cake and even cheesecake.
It’s so simple that this recipe basically involves pouring a cheesecake mixture into a rice-cooker bowl and switching it on– that’s all. You can also make chicken curry and soup. In fact according to BuzzFeed, you can pretty much make anything you like in a rice cooker.
Slow cooker
The queen of all multi-tasking appliances is the slow-cooker. It is used to make all manners of stews, soups, curries, and even risotto. But did you know you could use your slow-cooker to make brownies – including this recipe for triple-chocolate brownies. A friend of mine loves to make dulce de leche in her slow-cooker. It’s basically ‘candied milk’.
While some of these dishes look a bit too adventurous for me to try I did end up realising that we don’t need to clutter our kitchens with endless appliances – instead we can use just a couple to do the job of many.
What kitchen appliances have you used for unusual purposes? How have the dishes turned out? Let us know in the comments and maybe we can all start experimenting a little.
