This is a guest post from Mari of Mari’s World fame as I have a small kitchen and a disinclination towards cooking.

It’s not very often you get invited to guest post on somebody’s blog and then get to call them a doughnut, right? But that is what I am about to do and I am so very pleased that Slummy single mummy missed the trick on this one as I am now the very proud and excited owner of a Morphy Richards soup maker.

I have been longing for one since the summer time, dreaming of me quickly whipping up homemade soups for my lunch and being very nutritious and frugal but prices range from around £40.00 to £140.00 so that stopped me.

THEN I met Slummy single mummy at an event, funnily enough it was a cooking event and she is very forward in saying cooking is not one of her passions and she’ll take the easy life every time. She said she’d been offered a soup maker by Morphy Richards and didn’t want it as she didn’t have space and didn’t know how to use a soup maker, and was anyone interested. My hand shot in the air faster than the blenders spinning blades, ‘Me, me, me, I’ll have it… please’

It was a match made in heaven, I got the soup mixer and Slummy single mummy gets a post all about it.

The Morphy Richards soup maker takes up the same amount of space as a kettle on the worktop, it’s made in stainless steel and has a removable lid which contains the blade and heating element. It is so easy to use any fool could work it out and my first trial was to make one of Morphy Richards’ own recipes that intrigued me for the speed to make it, the frozen peas element and of course the delicious ingredients used. I tried

Really quick and easy pea, ham and mint soup

Preparation time : 5 minutes
Cooking time: 21 minutes
Setting: smooth
Serves 4

Ingredients

450g frozen peas
20g fresh mint, leaves only (I didn’t have this)
200g ham – chopped/shredded
800ml hot stock from cube or vegetable
4 tsps olive oil
75ml creme fraiche (I didn’t have any so used Philadelphia instead)

Now get this…

  1. Place the peas, hot stock, mint and ham in the soup maker and select the smooth setting (this will last 21 minutes)
  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste, add the olive oil (I didn’t) and the creme fraiche and using the blend button blend the soup again for 20 seconds
  3. Serve with crusty bread or sliced bread like I did. ;)

How easy is that? Chuck it all in and press a button. That is the moment I fell in love with my soup maker.

I was careful not to immerse the bits in water but it washed up very easily and now sits waiting for today’s trial of French Style Pistou but you’ll have to nip over to Mari’s World to see the outcome of that one and this time I’ll be using the chunky setting…isn’t it exciting?

 

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When you think of me, as I’m sure you often do, idling away those quiet moments at work or at home, I’m sure that one of the things you think of first is hoovering.

No?

OK, so maybe it’s not the first thing you thing of, but I did once write that post about housework you know. I think I suggested throwing crumbs behind the sofa.

Despite my domestic sluttery however, I was recently chosen to be one of 25 ‘Morphy Richards Innovators’, meaning that over the course of the year, Morphy Richards are going to send me some stuff, and I will tell them what I think. I’m guessing they are looking for more constructive criticism than ‘housework is pointless, you do it once and then you just have to do it all again later.’

The first thing they’ve sent me is this, the Lift Away Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner.

Here it is, for you to cast your expert vacuum cleaner eye over:

"Morphy Richards Lift Away"

Pretty snazzy isn’t it?

Morphy Richards say “The new Lift Away Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner features Never Loses Suction* technology with constant pick up performance.”

Sounds a bit like a Lynx advert doesn’t it? A lot of men would love to enhance their pick up performance. I reckon there’s something in it. A man does become a lot more attractive if they do the hoovering regularly. Especially if it’s all by themselves, without you having to say ‘darling, would you mind running the hoover round?’

I’m not sure though that men really appreciate just how much housework can increase their chances with women. My first bit of feedback for Morphy Richards would be this – reassess your target audience. Come up with an ad that shows a normal looking man pushing a vacuum cleaner around, followed by swarms of beautiful women. A bit like the Pied Piper. There are all kinds of puns you work around the concept of ‘suction power’.

What was I talking about?

Oh yes, vacuum cleaners.

Well, I can say, from experience now, that the Morphy Richards Lift Away does pick things up, which is a jolly good start. We’ve got a lot of floorboards, and I liked that it’s so simple to switch the set up from carpets to hard floors. It was perhaps a little more effective on the carpets, but then they’re the important bit to keep clean anyway aren’t they? Slightly dusty floorboards are fine. That’s just shabby chic.

I found the pivoting floorhead really easy to use, and also loved the ‘Lift Away Detachable Canister’, which means, as you may have guessed, that you can detach the canister as you clean, giving you more flexibility.

"Morphy Richards vacuum cleaner"

PIVOT! PIVOT!!

This was really handy on the stairs, especially as I’m a little on the clumsy side, and have a habit of bashing things against the walls (accidentally) if they’re too heavy or unwieldy.

Another great selling point? It’s purple! Funky.

I wouldn’t say it made housework fun exactly, but it certainly made it easy. We’ll just have to wait and see about the never-ending suction.

*cue those bikini clad babes*

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