Did you see the photo of the bowl of rosellas in yesterday’s post? This is the larger of 2 mixing bowls which I have inherited from my maternal grandmother. Although I have an assortment of other bowls – glass, ceramic, plastic and metal – none are quite as good as these. What makes them special? Is it the weight, the sense of history, the intrinsic link to my grandmother and her kitchen? I don’t know.
While you are unlikely to ever find me creaming butter and sugar by hand there is a certain pleasure in tucking this bowl on my hip and thoroughly combining the ingredients for a batch of muffins with a wooden spoon.
I have a wonderful Kitchen Aid stand mixer and a Kenwood food processor and they are fantastically useful but I can never imagine myself loving them like I love my mixing bowls. It is also gratifying to know that I can still create a wonderful array of wholesome food with nothing more sophisticated than a bowl and a wooden spoon.
Apart from the muffins, I also make zucchini quiche, banana cake, muesli slice, tuna patties and tuna roll using nothing more than my bowl and a wooden spoon. I am sure there are others that I cannot think of at the moment. What are yours?
organised castle 
Fairy, I love the bowl and spoon method. I make muffins, tuna pie, quiches, pastry, scones, muesli bars, cakes, all without the aid of a mixer. By the way I have a recipe for green tomato bread, similar to zucchini bread if you want it. Although I doubt you get many green tomatoes living where you do.
Well I have to show my ignorance and thought when reading about the rosellas in the bowls that you were feeding the local wildlife!! Rosellas are new to me as a fruit so I had better go and do some research!
Like Pat, I also use the bowl and spoon method for most of the items I make. Or for smaller quantities, I use my large 2L pyrex jug as a mixing bowl and it is great to have the handle to hold on to!