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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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Tefal VC101616 3 Tier Food Steamer
by reaboss
I recently purchased this steamer to replace an older tefal model, but was surprised to see that the design had been radically changed.The baskets are more of an oval shape, rather than the old round shape which wasted space. This new new design incorporated a larger capacity, therefore i was able to steam more food over a shorter period ... of time. Since i use this steamer almost everyday, i was happy that it was so easy to clean and use.This steamer has a keep warm function which automatically then keeps the food warm when the cooking time is over.
I was mostly pleased that it collapses into a third of it's size for easy storage since the baskets make it compact. If you are health conscious like me, you will love this model as it cooks vegetable quickly and it comes with a rice bowl which makes it slightly better than the entry level model.
Unfortunately it does have some design flaws like the black water bowl at the bottom make it difficult to see the water level. Another design flaw is that the trays can sometimes wobble which is a bit dangerous.
Some of the vegetables can come out soggy if you over cook them, so you have to constantly check up on them.
This model is ten times better than the previous model, even with a few design flaws it is still good value for money. i would recommend it
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Tefal VC101616 3 Tier Food Steamer
by mokinamolko
This device was a replacement of my old Tefal steamer/slow cooker (but I never liked the slow cooker, so didn't use it much). My old steamer took up so much space, but this one it all fits together and has given me much more space to fill! I just put it in the back of the cupboard and it fits fine. The steamer itself is great and easy to ... use. Just remember to check the numbers on the bowls - if you get them the wrong way around as I did the first time I used it, you may find that when you put the second bowl on top of the first it slots inside instead of sitting on top - oops! The removeable bases are a bit fiddly, just as others have said, but not enough to put anyone off buying it for that reason alone. I find that by gently pulling the sides apart the base is easier to slot in. There is a keep warm function, check the amendment to the instructions first and set this function AFTER the cooking has started. A great buy - and check out the book Steaming which has opened my eyes to steamer cooking!
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