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A New Gadget – Morphy Richards Soup Maker

June 12, 2014 by Michele Neylon 1 Comment

I’ve talked about soups several times in the past.

Problem with making soups at home? Time, energy and effort.

And while some of my friends, who happen to be very talented cooks, will probably laugh at me (I can practically hear them now), I like throwing technology at problems.

So when I came across the Morphy Richards Soup Maker for sale in a shop nearby I simply had to have one.

The soup maker takes a lot of the pain and hassle out of making soup. You simply chop up the ingredients, chuck them into the “kettle”, add seasoning, stock (if you’re using it) and water and switch it on. Depending on the settings you’ll have a nice freshly made soup about 20 minutes later.

Simple.

I like simple. Simple makes me happy!

Here’s a video from Morphy Richards which explains how it works:

Admittedly I haven’t had a chance to use the machine much yet. So far I’ve made one simple, yet tasty, vegetable soup with it.

The machine ships with an instruction booklet which includes a limited number of recipes. I suspect that most “normal” soup recipes will work out fine with it, but I’ll have to experiment to be sure.

Getting the quantity of liquid right I suspect is going to be a challenge. Personally I really don’t like watery soups!

Irish Cashel Blue Cheese

June 7, 2014 by Michele Neylon Leave a Comment

Ireland has plenty of high quality dairy produce. There are some fantastic Irish cheeses and Cashel Blue is one of them.

I picked up some earlier today and we shared some of it with some fresh bread.

Simple, yet oh so tasty

Standing Desk Time

May 15, 2014 by Michele Neylon 1 Comment

Standing desks and other types of desks that encourage office workers to be that bit more active during their day are becoming more and more popular. On a recent trip to Los Angeles I found that quite a few of my friends had switched to either standing desks or ones that could be switched between standing and sitting depending on the user’s mood / energy.

I’d been thinking about getting one for some time, as I was very conscious of how long I’m spending in the one place .. sitting. It’s not good.

So I ordered a Varidesk

I probably need to take better photos of it! Essentially it’s a monitor stand that sits on your desk which is big enough to take my 27″ monitor, keyboard, mouse and other bits and pieces. The stand can be adjusted quickly and quite easily to allow for either a sitting position or a standing one.

Conn, who works on technology.ie with me, did a video review which might explain it a little better:

I’ve only been using my Varidesk for about a week, so I haven’t reached any firm conclusions as yet ..

What I have noticed so far is that I enjoy standing at the desk and only sit for a fraction of the working day. The downside of this, however, is that my legs are quite tired, as I’m not used to spending that much time on my feet. However that will pass, as I become used to it.

Hopefully this will help – other friends have reported feeling a lot better once they’ve been using a standing desk for a few weeks.

Irish butter and porridge in Los Angeles

May 5, 2014 by Michele Neylon 1 Comment

Ireland produces a lot of high quality food products and a lot of them get exported to the US and elsewhere. However when I’m travelling in the US I don’t shop in specialty shops. If I do go to a US supermarket it’ll be a “normal” one. So I was pleasantly surprised to see a selection of Irish butter for sale in a supermarket a few miles outside Los Angeles: