Everything for the garden party

When summer is here, it's always nice to spend time outdoors, and anyone thinking about taking the plunge and inviting friends to a garden party may find that they need to add some extra products. APPLiA lists a range of products that can come in handy.

Bottle cooler

Offering a drink before a meal is a given for most people, and then an easily placed and spacious bottle cooler is not such a bad idea. Cylinda offers a model called Partycooler, with wheels for easy movement and two wooden side tables. The cooler also has a bottle holder, stepless temperature adjustment and a removable bottom that makes cleaning easier.

The Partycooler holds 45 liters and is available in black or silver. More information is available on Cylinda's website. here.

As a side note, Cylinda at Elon Expo 2018 showed off a semi-commercial bottle cooler on wheels, called the Minicooler Sweden Rock 2018, which holds 65 liters and was launched in a limited edition, with a unique print. Can it be found used somewhere?

Grill

If you're having a garden party, grilling is almost mandatory, and if you want to avoid the hassle of charcoal or briquettes or the uncertainty of whether the gas will run out today, it's a good idea to choose an electric grill. If you also want greater flexibility and better control when cooking, it's smart to invest in a model with a lid, built-in meat thermometer and app control - then you're definitely in the game.

An example of such electric grills is Severin's models Sevo GT (tabletop model) and Sevo GTS (with grill trolley included), which, although they have Smart Control in the name, are also app-controlled. More information is available on Severin's website. here.

Airfryer

You can of course grill potatoes – in a number of different ways – as an accompaniment to grilled meat, fish, vegetables, etc., but if you want French fries, an Airfryer is hard to beat. An Airfryer, also called a hot air fryer, can be used to cook a variety of foods – with little or no oil – and when it comes to French fries, most people seem to think that they are best cooked in an Airfryer.

Hot air fryers are available in a variety of designs and sizes, for example: Philips, OBH Nordica, Tefal, Electrolux, Severin, Wilfa and De'Longhi. And an Airfryer is portable so it can easily be placed in the garden next to the grill if desired.

Hand blender

Various sauces and mixes are not a bad idea to have on hand when grilling, partly for use with the obligatory chips but also as something that can save the food if you happen to grill, for example, the chicken a little too long.

How you prepare these flavor enhancers is up to you, but in many cases a hand blender works just fine. And if you want to be extra mobile, you can purchase a cordless version, from, for example KitchenAid.

Since homemade pesto is both delicious and healthy, here's a recipe for how to make a mixture in just a few minutes that can be used for most things:

Roast a bag of pine nuts in a dry frying pan until they turn a light brown (stop frying just when it starts to smell good, so as not to burn them), pluck the leaves from a basil plant in a pot, grate a generous amount of parmesan and then mix everything with olive oil – pour in olive oil until the consistency is exactly how you want it. Done.

Ice cream machine

While you're eating, you can take the opportunity to make your own ice cream, with an ice cream machine from, for example, Wilfa, De'Longhi or Severin. Often a popular feature during garden parties, especially among children.

Coffee machine

Coffee after dinner is natural for most people who love this drink, and during the pandemic, one trend has been that sales of coffee machines have increased. The category that has increased the most is manual espresso machines. In 2021, 40 percent more were sold than in 2020, certainly from low volumes, but still.

Perhaps it is that when many people have had more time at home, they have realized that they do not need a machine where all you do is press a button, but rather want to be able to influence the end result to a greater extent by experimenting with the degree of grinding, amount of coffee, different beans, etc. - something that can be easily done on a manual machine. And since sales of coffee grinders fell slightly in 2021 compared to 2020, it can be concluded that it is likely that the semi-automatic models with a built-in grinder have accounted for the majority of sales, i.e. models such as De'Longhi's series. The Specialist, which recently grew from a duo to a trio with the launch of La Specialista Arte.

Ola Larsson

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