Disapointed with my Thermo

[wapred]

Hi,

I am a mother of 2, who works full time.  I bought my Thermomix about 10mths ago, thinking this would save me lots of time and healthier cooking.

I find it is great for cakes, biscuits, smoothies and dips but not really happy with the meal cooking.  I find everything I do, does not turn out good and bland.  My family are beginning to dread what I am going to put in front of them and now I seem to be lost for ideas and I am becoming very negative.  I have been to the local cooking classes but find them the same all the time and don't really learn anything new.  I have just gong through the website again tonight to try and inspire myself, maybe I don't have the time that you need to experiment with the Thermo.   

[em]

hi wapred
wat a shame that you r feeling dissapointed with your tm.   my thoughts on things not turning out, could possibly be because of overprocessing or for the blandness part not enough seasoning. i have always found wen it comes to cooking, i cook things to my taste, by this i mean tasting it if it seems bland seasoning it accordingly. 
some of our favourite recipes from this website are the  cacciatore chicken risotto and the guinness stew.
from the everyday cookbook we love the lasagne recipe.  i also have the indian cookbook which have some really tasty recipes in it such as the butter chick or the chicken in yoghurt, this one especially quick and easy to prepare.  the meat on the menu cookbook is also full of really tasty meals and soups.
anyway sorry if i have rattled on abit, i hope i have given u some ideas of things to try if you havent already!
dont give up on ur tm, i also have 2 kids and my 3 yr old eats so much more now i have been cooking with my tm!  it might just be a case of trying completely different things to wat u have already been doing and seeing how they turn out.
  happy cooking

[CarolineW]

Hi Wapred,
sorry you're not getting on with your TMX yet.  I can understand what you mean, and also found many of the main meal recipes bland initially (as does my Mum).  Maybe because not so much water evaporates the flavours get diluted?? No idea.

I prefer to go with main meal recipes from this forum, or which were recommended by the forum, rather than from the main recipe books from Oz and UK (although some are lovely).

Why don't you give the meatballs a go, with the sauce.  They're great.  I also love to do rice, fish and veggies with the feta and lemon sauce which is in Full Steam Ahead.

Brazen's 'Creamy Chicken' is another nice, easy main meal (I may have the name slightly wrong on that, but close enough to find it, I hope  )

I find that if others on the forum have tried a main meal recipe and enjoyed it, then generally speaking so will I and my family.  We have a lot of discerning foodies here, plus busy Mums with a family to please 

My Mum says that the apricot chicken in the Oz recipe book is lovely, but I can't get the proper ingredients here.  That's another one to try.

The risottos (in the UK book at least, haven't tried the Oz recipes) are also very nice.  I always use a bit more wine than they say in the recipe for a bit more flavour.

Hope you get some success soon.  It must feel very disheartening.

[Zan]

Sorry you aren't finding main meals you like.
Have you tried converting your usual recipes?
I find the risottos too bland for my liking (think I've given up on risotto).
Going by recipe I like the chicken in yoghurt and the butter chicken, both mild but full of flavour.
The honey soy chicken wingettes are really yummy.
I do a chicken stir fry that is great.
The Beef in Beer was nice. You could always add whatever flavours you like ie more garlic, chili, whatever you usually use to add flavour.

What have you made? What do you normally eat?

Caroline - feta and lemon sauce - that sounds divine!

[thermie crew]

Sounds like you may just have to have dips and cake for dinner everynight!

It may be linked to the foods you ate prior to having your thermomix. If your food (knowingly or unknowingly) had lots of additives in, you'd be used to quite intense 'untrue' flavours. Most people are these days. We had to go additive free about 18 months ago due to my daughter's reactions to them and intially all of the food seemed tasteless and boring. Now though, our tastebuds are used to simpler flavours and our thermie to us, produces heavenly tasty food.

If you haven't read into it much, I can recommed the books 'additive alert' and 'fed up'. I think they both have websites with info too if you do a google search. At sue dengate's recent talk in adelaide she was saying that not only do they sneak msg into our foods under different names and numbers to trick the consumer, now they have another number (can't remember it I'm afraid) which more than triples the effect of msg! Frightening!

Give your tastebuds time to adjust and keep experimenting. I love the butter chicken-packed full of flavour

Let us know how you go down the track.

[judydawn]

I also was sorry to read this thread wapred but i can relate to your problems as I didn't like anything much when I first started out and the EDC had nothing that really turned my tastebuds on.  The first recipe I did from the forum that I actually liked was this one for rabbit stew (substituted chicken thighs for the rabbit though) http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=149.0.
There are heaps of delicious recipes on the forum, just browse in the mains section to start with and check out the reviews. You soon find out which are the most popular and with the tweaks that go on from our members, there are so many more flavours that can be added or ingredients altered to suit what you have or what you like to eat. 
Thermie crew is right in her posting - the TMX is a completely different way of cooking good, healthy food from scratch.  Often the casseroles taste even better the next day when flavours have had more of a chance to develop.
Keep at it, try the recipes with the most reviews and you will end up loving your TMX like the rest of us.
Try to convert your own favourite recipes, if you need a hand just put the recipe up here and someone will convert it for you. It all takes time but after a few conversions your confidence will be sky high.  Good luck.

[quirkycooking]

I think that's definitely the answer, JD - learn to convert your own recipes, since that's the kind of food your family likes and is used to eating.  That's what I mostly do, though I do use recipes from the cookbooks too, just tweaking them to add more flavour, or change the flavours to what we like.

Eg. For risotto: chop onion & garlic, add 200g cubed chicken & oil, cook 4 mins, then add everything else (but use 380g rice + 180g mushrooms so it doesn't overflow, plus 2 heaped tsps of vege stock concentrate to give more flavour)... and sprinkle with parmesan and freshly ground pepper.  Whenever I make this at a demo, everyone loves it, and says it's full of flavour. 

I usually add more tomato paste to dishes with tomato in them (eg. bolognaise/pasta sauces), as well as a splash of balsamic vinegar, a tsp of Rapadura (or brown sugar) and usually more vege stock concentrate than it says. I'll often add more herbs and spices too 

If you need help converting some of your family favourites to tmx, let us know 

[cookie1]

I agree with what everyone has said so far, so I won't add to it. (sorry I did add to it!)  Have you tried Baf's chicken dish?http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=1063.0
This is an all in one dish that your family may like. I've had my TMX for almost 2 years (wow we must have a party for him!) I still cook most of my main meat dishes out of the TMX. The family generally prefer this, but then I use the TMX for vegies, bread, biscuits, cakes, sweets, sauces, custards and of course all the chopping etc needed for the main meals.
eg if we're having a quiche I'll make the pastry in the TMX, chop and cook onion, bacon etc in the TMX, them combine the milk and eggs in the TMX before putting it into the pastry.
Keep trying and the best of luck.

[RoxyS]

Hi,
yes all suggestions so far have been spot on. I want to say that if you haven't made the TMX stock that is a good place to start and do add it to just about all the main meals you cook, it will certainly help to enhance the flavours. It makes a huge difference to the taste and then you know it is healthy and it should overcome some of the blandness factor.
Do let us know how you get on and hope that things start looking up soon.

[Jabba]

I also use my TMX more as an aid for preparing food rather than trying to cook up full meals in it.  For example, lasagne - I chop up my veges (and even meat sometimes) and then I'll fry them in a separate pan.  I'll grate up the cheeses in the TMX and then make up a bechamel.  It is a big time saver.

I've converted a few of my curry recipes - anything casseroley seems to work okay and I'll sometimes make up a quick pasta or rissottod in the TMX.  The Moroccan Lamb recipe on the forum was also a winner in my family.  But these full meals are more of an easy stand-by than a regular feature in our household.

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

It is so interesting to see how everyone uses their TMX.  I use mine every night for cooking our main meal, but will probably go back to using the stovetop once or twice a week when our boys are a little older and life gets easier (for things like bolognaise).

I also think the best advice is to try a few of the forum favourites and also try to convert a few of your own recipes.  If you can find a few staple thermomix recipes that you all enjoy it will save so much time and energy each week.  Perhaps let us know the types of meals that your family enjoys now and we can point you in the direction of some similar forum recipes.  We have just about everything on here - burritos, stews, bakes, soups, pasta meals, quiches, meat and three veg and heaps more. 

[CreamPuff63]

when you bought your TM wapred what sort of meals did you envisage yourself making in it?

[achookwoman]

wapred,  if you could tell us what you would like to cook as a main meal,  we could help you convert it to get you going.  Working and with kiddies you obviously don't have the time to play around.  Let us know what will help.

[Sharona]

LOL yeah I can totally see where you are coming from.  I am not a "cook" and my family are all "plain" eaters, meat and 3 veg type stuff.  So it is hard to find recipes to use every day in the Thermomix.   I am a newbie too and have very little time on my hands to experiment.  My first go at bread was a flop, it didn't rise.  I then tried converting one of my own recipes and this was a minor disaster, mainly because I put way to much ingredients in but I'm going to keep trying.  I love this website for inspiration http://cookdinner.com/ it has some fantastic recipes.  The recipe I tried to convert was Herb Cream Sage & Oregano Penne but I also tried adding chicken to it so it ended up a bit too thick.  Once I have got it right, I will post it.... unless someone beats me to it lol.  It is sooo full of flavour, even my pasta hating husband likes this one.  Good luck, willl be very interested to hear how you get on.

[brazen20au]

it took me a few months of using the tmx before i felt like i wasn't having disaster after disaster