Kitchen Essentials from Home-Complete

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial. 

I received free product to facilitate this review.  All opinions expressed are my own.

I love creating fun food in my kitchen so I was thrilled to be asked by Home-Complete to try and review a few of their products!  I was excited to put them to work in my kitchen and am glad to have added them to my collection of gadgets.

Spiral Slicer
This is a product I was really excited about trying!  This is a tool that you basically use like a pencil or crayon sharpener and it easily slices your hard vegetables.  I have an obsession with cucumber salad and thought this might be a fun way to cut my cucumbers so I gave it a try for that.  I didn't initially realize that the slices would be quite as thin as they were.  They really come out like noodles!  It wasn't really what I was looking for in my cucumber salad recipe so I only used it for half of my cucumbers but it actually created a nice touch.  I was a little bit nervous about cleaning this product given the blades and the fact that there was quite a bit of juicy cucumber stuck inside the blades.  The product comes with a little cleaning brush so you don't slice your fingers, but even better than that, it's dishwasher safe.  I placed it on the top rack of my dishwasher and was convinced it was not going to come out clean.  I was wrong!  It came out perfectly clean!  I'm now on the hunt for yummy recipes that use noodle-like veggies.  It is great that when you register your tool with Home-Complete online, they will give you access to a recipe booklet for free!

Ice Ball Maker
Okay.  So I was like, "What?!  What is an ice ball maker?"  I've never heard of ice ball makers and had no clue why I would need to use one.  Regardless, I followed the instructions on the packaging of my Ice Ball Maker and froze up some ice balls.  While waiting for them to freeze, I jumped on the computer and googled the benefits of ice balls.  Apparently, because of their spherical shape, ice balls melt more slowly than ice cubes, keeping your drink colder longer, and keeping it from being diluted!  Who knew?!  This is great for someone like me, often distracted by parenting, blogging, or social media-ing who ends up drinking very slowly and letting my cold drinks get warm and my warm drinks get cold!  This ice ball maker is a silicone mold that makes four ice balls at a time, each 2 inches in diameter.  The mold is BPA free and made from safe, FDA approved, food grade material.  The instructions for use are a little bit unclear in that they state that you need to fill with water to the line, but I could not find a line.  Regardless, it was pretty foolproof and they turned out just fine anyway.  If you fill it too much, the little holes in the top will let the water spill over.  I'm hooked on our new ice ball maker!

















Digital Meat Thermometer
This was the product that I was the most skeptical of.  I have been using a different brand meat thermometer for many years and I trust it.  It's not digital which I thought was maybe it's only downfall, except that I was a little skeptical of trusting a digital thermometer anyway so I wasn't really in the market for one.  I was shocked when this meat thermometer arrived.  It's long!  Very long compared to my current meat thermometer.  It has an 8 inch stainless steel probe.  This length in a meat thermometer is a great safety and convenience feature!  This thermometer was very easy to use, with easy to follow directions, battery included, and a clear and easy to read high definition LCD display.  I got the reading quickly and accurately.  I used it to check my chicken but given that I was unfamiliar with it, I was skeptical of believing it was accurate so I pulled out my old trusty meat thermometer and tested with both.  They both read the same temperature but the digital one obviously gave me a more specific temperature reading which I loved!  The thermometer is BPA, Lead and Phthalate free and is easy to clean by rinsing the tip under hot water.  It comes with a sturdy, protective, probe case.

If you're in the market for some new kitchen gadgets, give these a try!  They each offer a 100% lifetime money back guarantee so there's nothing to lose!

 

 I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.