Today, 5 February 2017, my wee blog turns O N E  Y E A R  O L D 🎉

Coincidentally, the kind people at Steamer Trading Cookshop sent me the Gefu Spirelli Spiral Slicer to review this week* so it kinda feels like a birthday present 🎁

Spiralising really kicked off over the last year, with packets of ready spiralised vegetables popping up in supermarkets and ‘clean eating’ sweeping the food scene. Despite clean eating taking a bit of a beating in the media recently, there’s a lot to be said for eating more vegetables and so it’s always something I can get behind.

As kitchen gadgets go, it’s nice and compact and won’t take up too much space in the cupboards.

It’s pretty much like a double sided pencil sharpener with two thickness settings and a spiked ‘lid’ to attach your vegetable of choice to.

To test it out, I enrolled the help of my little sister (who is 11) to see how adult and kid friendly it is.

We set out to make lunch with butternut squash, carrot and sweet potato.

Starting with the carrot (it seemed the easiest due to its shape) we both had a go; it takes a little bit of time to get into a rhythm with it and I would never advise trying to actually do it whilst also taking photos for a blog post – it’s a bloody nightmare!

Once we managed to get in the swing of it, it went quite well and we got some nice long strands. One carrot got us roughly a handful of caretti (I may have just made that up).

The sweet potato wasn’t quite so smooth to spiralise but it was still relatively easy.

Next up was the butternut squash. Now, let me be clear: it’s M E S S Y. We tried it several different ways but couldn’t quite get into a rhythm with it in the same way we did with the carrot and sweet potato. That said, once we’d made a lot of mess, it yielded quite good results but with a lot of waste.

How easy was it to use? 

The million dollar question. As mentioned above, it was easier with some vegetables than others. My little sister got involved too and we both enjoyed using it.

How much is it? 

It currently retails at £19.99.

Is it worth it? 

For the novelty factor and getting kids involved with eating vegetables in a fun way it’s great. Sadly with the, very cheap, arrival of pre-made packets in supermarkets it does seem like quite a lot of effort to make a meal. It also leaves quite a lot of waste. They do, however, sell another which is currently the same price and which looks like it would waste less.

Will I use it again? 

Yes, definitely. We made a delicious healthy lunch which we both enjoyed and the novelty of making the whole thing from scratch together was fun.

Recipe 

We threw together one carrot, one sweet potato and one butternut squash into a hot pan with a teaspoon of olive oil and kept stirring to keep it from sticking to the pan and to get a burnished finish to all of it. After frying for a few minutes, throw in a spoonful of pesto, stir through and serve.

Where can I get one? 

Interested in getting yourself one? Check out Steamer Trade Cookshop’s range here.

* Steamer Trading Cookshop sent me this product free of charge for the purpose of this review but, as ever, all thoughts and opinions remain my own.