Tried and tested - Tiscali Shopping

Need to update your good old kettle or washing machine? Then take a look at our tried and tested products for inspiration on what's new in the market. We help you make an informed choice.

"With over 50 years of carpet care experience, 1001 provides the most effective range of solutions for tackling everyday stains and spills, cleaning large carpeted areas and floors and everyday freshening of carpets and upholstery."

What we thought: We love this range! Formulated especially for carpet and upholstery, wood floor and spot stains. We particularly love the products brought out for households with pets as well as the No Vac foam range, which was so simple to use and instantly left our carpets smelling fresh and fragrant. One of our testers, mother of three small children and one labrador, swears by Troubleshooter Ultra to help remove ground-in carpet dirt and stains such as red wine, ink, coffee and mud. We'd recommend investing in at least one item from the 1001 range as it'll be sure to make your domestic life easier, not least for when you spill that glass of red wine on the sofa - we've all been there, and unless we have 1001, we've probably still got the stubborn stain to prove it!
Reviewed April 2008.
 

Claims to "dice and chop evenly and faster than ever before. Using 'Never dull' blade technology the Nicer Dicer is safe, hygienic and efficient - perfect for salads, salsa, fruit salad, and even chips!".

What we thought: This kitchen tool comes in a attractive box with lots of pictures and promises to dice, julienne and chop veggies, potatoes and carrots. It comes well packaged in a set of 8 pieces plus an instruction book with recipes. I decided to make a winter soup with it using various veggies from my fridge.
Assembling the tool was simple and it seems sturdy enough to do the job. I would say that it is quite important to carefully read the instructions and to see the type of vegetables that the machine can cope with. If they have a 'skin' like tomatoes or peppers they have to be placed skin side down. My soup consisted of the following chopped items put through the larger-sized dicer.
Onion - this was very well chopped and exactly the size I wanted
Carrots - again these were good
Celery - good
Red pepper - I had to use a lot of force to push the blades through it and the pepper skin was left unchopped
Parsley - this did not go through well
Peeled garlic cloves - went through well on the smaller blades
Leeks - these did not go through flat side down and the tool would have broken if I had persisted
Potatoes - very successful
Tomatoes - skin side down and these were good
Courgettes - very good

Basically it's a "one step precision cutting" tool, and the end result of whether the vegetable is diced or in long pieces depends upon whether the vegetable is placed flat or upright on the chopping disc.

Apart from the soup I also made a snack for myself of julienned carrots and apples which came out very well. The apples have to be quartered and cored and did come out in long strips when placed upright to be chopped and the carrots, the same.

My opinion is that it is a fun gadget to use and the chopped vegetables collect magically in the clear plastic container. If you stick to using it for the recommended vegetables such as onions, carrots, potatoes, courgettes, tomatoes, celery etc, it is precise and useful. It is easy to rinse afterwards. I usually quickly clumsily chop my own vegetables, but the Nicer Dicer gives a precise look to the finished dish.

I also think that the full price of £30 is rather a lot but I would expect it could be found cheaper. However, there is pre-cutting preparation to make the vegetables fit the base disc and I would be worried however that the blades could easily be damaged by using it too forcefully for tougher vegetables. Again I would say it is important to read the instructions and note which vegetables are better chopped or julienned.

Reviewed by Ellen March 2008.
  £29.99

Fed up with so-called 'eco-friendly' products that may be good for the environment but do nothing for your fashion credentials?

Well now you can have both with the RSPB's 'Bag for Good' from January 2008.

For just £4.99 you can help Europe's largest wildlife conservation charity whilst carrying your belongings in style.

Green celebrities like Autumnwatch presenter Kate Humble are already carrying the cotton bag, and helping to reduce the millions of plastic carrier bags that go to landfill sites every year.

100% of the profits from bag sales go directly back into the RSPB's range of conservation work, from creating habitats on UK nature reserves to saving the albatross in the southern ocean.

  £4.99

"The unique Aqua Optima five-step, fast flow filtration system inside the kettle removes up to 95% of lead, 80% of chlorine and also reduces high levels of herbicides and pesticides, which can remain in water even after boiling."

What we thought: The kettle was really simple to set up and at full capacity, the water boiled in just over 3 minutes. The 1.7L capacity of this kettle is a good standard size and the transparency of the water tank means you can see at a glance how much water remains in the kettle.

The say "one Double Life filter lasts for up to 60 days or the equivalent of 200 litres" - fitting it works in a similar way to a cartridge in a water filter jug. What I thought was nifty was the cartridge life indicator to remind you when the cartridge needs replacing.

A couple of small observations: Whilst the dual handles were very comfortable to use, they seemed to rattle slightly against the aluminium as the water approached boiling point. I found the lid a little awkward to lift up each time the kettle had boiled, and I did almost burn my hand from both the steam coming up through the middle of the kettle (as the lid is removed completely during re-filling) as well as on the aluminium shell whilst trying to re-fill the kettle.

The design of the kettle may not be to everyone's taste but there's no denying that it is rather eye-catching in brushed stainless steel and wouldn't look out of place in a modern kitchen. And if you're looking for a good quality solid kettle that produced clean filtered water at the click of a button then this could be the answer to the perfect cuppa!

Reviewed December 2007.
 

OXO do a fantastic range of kitchen items, especially designed to make Christmas Day cooking as stress-free as possible.

What we thought: We tried the turkey baster, gravy separator and meat thermometer in our bid to create the perfect pre-Christmas meal!

The baster is long enough to suck up as much juice as possible from the tray and worked well to ensure the turkey was regularly fully basted. However, the bulb (and it's collar) did continually come away from the tube making this a rather tricky task. We also felt that suction control wasn't great as the baster wasn't able to hold the juice for very long.

The fat separating measuring jug was impressive. It performed as expected and the 4-cup capacity easily handled all the juice from one bird. Pouring wasn't messy and the jug was very comfortable to hold. More an observation rather than a negative but the holes at the top are quite large, which meant little bits were able to get through, gicing the gravy a non-smooth texture that some might/might not prefer.

We found the meat thermometer a really useful tool in our quest to ensure the bird was cooked to a safe temperature. With the recent turkey scares in the news this part of the cookery process is vital. The great thing about this tool is that it's so simple to use (insert, wait a little while, then take the reading) and you can use it all year round to ensure a variety of different meats are cooked to perfection.
 

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