Mirabelle

People who want healthy, fresh home-cooked meals often lack the time to chop ingredients, time each addition correctly, and watch a pot as it cooks. The alternative is usually takeout, pre-made meals, or skipping cooking altogether, trading health and quality for convenience. Mirabelle's site frames this as a tradeoff between eating well and having time for other priorities, like one's passions and people.

Mirabelle is a countertop robot, about the size of a microwave turned on its side, that takes whole raw ingredients and turns them into a cooked one-pot meal. Users add ingredients whole and leave; the machine cuts them, adds spices, water, and oil, and sequences each addition at the right moment (for example onions before zucchini) so nothing overcooks. It is being developed to cook a varied menu including pastas, risottos, curries, soups, and stews with vegetables, legumes, meat, or fish. All food-contact parts unclip by hand without tools and go in the dishwasher for cleaning.