Review - New Joseph Joseph Spring/Summer

One of my favourite kitchen gadgets is my pink Joseph Joseph 'Pie' timer. I use timers a lot because of cooking and baking, and this is the only one which hasn't bit the dust after a couple of months. A year on and we're still going strong. When they asked me to review some of their new collection, I was rather excited, and I had an idea.

What I really like about Joseph Joseph is that their products are brilliant functionally, without looking like they should be in an operating theatre. I have a peeler from (let's say) 'a reputable competitor' which has nearly emancipated the skin from my knuckles several times because of the shiny handle, whilst their zester has twice almost made a cake unsuitable for vegetarians. Close one.

Cue the clever little folk at Joseph Joseph. Grippy handles and space saving ideas. Your peelers come with a friend; in this case a scraping tool, zester, potato eye remover or a channel knife for flourishes. All come with a blade guard too, which is handy for cack-handed people like me. A chopping board with built in knife sharpener? That's clever.

My friend Lee loves nothing more than to stick on a bit of country music, don a pinny and cook up a feast. Ok, so I made the pinny bit up, but I found the mental image mildly amusing. Since she was planning an Easter roast-fest (not a euphemism), I asked her to put these products through their paces for me. Here's what she had to say...

So when Dolly asked if I would like to try some new Joseph Joseph products I literally snatched her hand right off. Where Dolly is the Queen of sweet treats I am more of a savoury fiend and love nothing more than locking myself in the kitchen with some good music and a new recipe to create a feast!

I am already a huge fan of Joseph Joseph products and my most treasured kitchen item is my Index Advance with knives set (when I asked my mum for this as a Christmas present she looked at me quite strangely, but it was something I had lusted after for so long!).

From the new products I have tried three of the new multi peel tools; Serrated peeler with zesting tool, Julienne peeler with channel knife and Straight peeler with scraping tool. I also tried the wooden Slice and Sharpen board.

I found all the peelers very easy to use, with comfortable handles (especially important when spending thankless hours peeling potatoes for a large family roast dinner, which seemed such a good idea when I invited everyone....). The scraping tool on the straight peeler came in very handy for dealing with potatoes and was much less dangerous than my usual scraping method of hacking away with a sharp knife. The Julienne peeler helped me to easily deal with a mountain of carrots and the serrated peeler dealt with some very rough parsnips with ease! All the peelers have lovely super sharp blades and the different colours on the heads of each of them makes them easy to spot in my menagerie of utensils! At £8 each these peelers are a bargain and the blade guards that come with each of them are a great idea (my cutlery utensil drawer is an accident waiting to happen when I go rifling for something).

The Slice and Sharpen wooden board is an item of beauty, I LOVE a wooden chopping board on my sideboard. The non slip feet are a great idea and meant I could get really stuck in without worrying about flinging my lovingly prepared food all over the floor! he built in sharpener is really handy and sharpened up my existing Joseph Joseph knives a treat. It is easy to clean and care for, and will retain it's lovely colouring with regular oiling.

Overall I loved all these products and they have made themselves very at home in my little kitchen. The only downside is they have reignited my desire to purchase everything on the website... there goes my bank balance!