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Tefal Fresh Express
by Mayfair1985
When you move house and have a lovely, big new kitchen to play in, what better way to compliment it than with a new kitchen gadget. Over the last year I've started cooking more, and the husband, picking up on this, got me a Fresh Express for Christmas. They currently retail at around £30.00.
I've never had a kitchen gadget ... like this before. I was pretty excited to use it when I got it, so off we went to the supermarket to get food for a week with most of the meals involving some sort of sliced or shredded veg. Lucky husband.
So, 5 attachments that all claim to produce five different results. A plethora of veg ready, and here we go.
It's cute. It's small. The stack and store attachments are pretty. They are colour coded for ease of use, but I think it's a bit unnecessary, unless you're going to memorise which colour does what. But it does make it aesthetically pleasing.
Light Green - Thin Slicing
Lets start with something a bit different. A Potato! Thin sliced potato to make home made crisps. Only problem is you can't fit a whole potato into the chute. So a quartered potato went in. What came out was more mush than thin slices. No home made crisps for us then. Lets try a cucumber. Much better. Thin slices of cucumber worked.
Orange - Fine Shredding
Home made coleslaw. So we need fine shredded carrot and cabbage. In they went, out came mush.
Red - Coarse Shredding
Lets give the coleslaw another bash. It was better. Less mush. I'm nor sure you're meant to put cabbage in it but it did work (Just call me a rebel). Also grated some cathedral city. 10 points for the cheese. Was good stuff.
Dark Green - Thick Slicing
For this we tried an onion first. Not many slices, quite a lot of mush. Next was peppers. Not many slices, lots of mush. Mushrooms? Lovely. Mushrooms worked well.
Yellow - Fine Grating
Parmesan shavings worked a treat.
How it all comes together
It's only got a small opening for you to put food in. So you can't have big slices of anything. The blades are sharp, and when you find something that works with a particular attachment, it works well. Not everything works. We ended up with a lot of, you guessed it, mush. We also ended up with a lot of washing up. Is it worth the money? Honestly? I don't think it is. It takes longer to set it up, use it and clean it that it would to get a knife and chopping board out, cut and was up. It is a nice present for someone who enjoys a kitchen gadget, but if it wasn't a present, I'd have spent my money on some kitchen knives instead. So although it's fun to play with and does produce some good results, it's not something that I think is a must have for your kitchen.
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Kitchenaid Multi Function Mixer
by Lydsabug
I saw this being used on Nigella Lawsons cooking programme and thought how wonderful it looked, she seemed to be using it all the time and for so many things, what i wasnt aware of was the price! I had wanted one for so long and my wonderful husband bought me one 2 years ago when we redecorated our kitchen.
I had often pointed ... out the cream coloured one as this would sit nicely in the kitchen itself, it looks stunning to be fair and i have so many comments when people first see it. The initial problem was getting it to work, or should i say getting me to successfully use it! I read the manual and it was very straight forward, it has 10 speeds and mine came with a chrome mixing bowl as well as a glass one and 3 different hooks. One hook was a bread dough mixer, there was another which mashes potatoes wonderfully and there is the whisk.
There is a lid that goes on top of the bowl to stop food stuff flying all over the kitchen and although its somewhat noisy.....its fast and efficient.
My kithcenaid is the Artisan model and cost hubby over £300 at the time, its around 10 pound in weight and sits solidly on the worktop. The top has a catch that allows you to tip the motorized unit back to enable the food to be put into the bowl. There is a gap in the lid so you can add fluids or other items as the motor is going, saving time stopping and starting.
Cake mixes are wonderful and light, mine are always professional looking (until i try and decorate them that is!) and when i made batter for the Yorkshire puddings, they were amazing. I make a lot of mashed potato in the kitchenaid and this is lovely, you can also whick the spuds to make a whipped cream potato which can be piped into swirls.
I havent bought any attachments as i never really need them but i will be sourcing these as i now work from home.
I would recommend this unit if you feel you would make a lot of homemade food (cakes, pasta etc) but you may find its too expensive if you don't. Cleaning it is relatively easy but in find that some of the food gets up around the top of the catch where the attachments go and this can be a little fiddly to clean.
Great machine and looks the part in the kitchen
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