Ideal Home show

Saturday we went to the Ideal Home Show. We got our tickets in advance as they were offering £3 discount and a free show guide which also entitled you to a free goodie bag. Thinking we would beat the crowds queuing to get tickets we got there just after 10am. There was NO queue to buy tickets and the queue for the pre-paid ticket entry went around the block! Still it didn’t take us too long to get in and we headed straight off to the kitchen department to see if they had any foodie free samples! The first exhibition that caught our eye was a guy with a health grill – endorsed by the British Heart Foundation. Basically the bottom round the edge fills with water and then there is a curved hot plate over the top and you put the whole thing on your hob. The water keeps the food moist and you can put other flavourings in if you wish. Then all the fat runs out and into the water around the edge. The samples were really nice and the first 50 people also got one to put in the oven for roasts free. The bottom of this bit can also be used as a lid to convert the hob one into a steamer. So we took the plunge and bought one. I’ve used it a couple of times already and I think it’s brilliant. My lamb chops have never been so moist and tender. I also did a ‘healthy’ fry up and there was no greasy food smell at all. The water seems to absorb all the smells as well.

The only other thing we got were replacements for our paint rollers. We have the ones that you put paint inside and we think that they are fab – the only problem was that we got another make at the Kent home show last year and the foam outside was more like fleece fabric, which doesn’t wash as easily and has bobbled really badly. As we are planning on doing the outside of the house with them we think this will pretty much finish them off. Plus we got the edge roller as well.