Gadget: Kenwood SB266 Smoothie Maker

Green gunge is my favourite fruit smoothie. Otherwise known as Innocent’s kiwis, apples and limes – this thick putrid-looking, but zesty blend of nature’s finest is a minor obsession.

Kenwood SB266 Smoothie Maker

£36, www.amazon.co.uk, for more information see www.kenwoodworld.com

Although there’s a world of a difference between an OCD-like commitment to consuming my five-a-day and a crack cocaine habit, the one thing they both have in common is the exorbitant cost of another fix. In a quest to shave at least one fold from the toilet roll of a receipt handed to me after every supermarket visit, I knew the smoothies had to go.

The Kenwood SB266 was an impulse Amazon purchase. I’d been in John Lewis the day before, but was a little dissatisfied by their range of juicers – none of which were much below £60. The Kenwood’s shiny chrome body is sadly a mere imitation of its more industrial brethren, and the 1.5 litre goblet is a glass wannabe, but at least the plastic is good and sturdy. There is the rather nifty Patented 360° spatula stir-stick though. A bit like a fencer’s sabre, the stir-stick slots into the top of the Smoothie Maker and helps to agitate the ingredients with and against the flow of the fruit vortex. It works rather well, and can be used to prod and poke obstreperous apples that refuse to succumb to the spinning teeth of death.

The 500w motor with slow, fast and pulse modes stood up to the ice-cube crushing challenge – the standard litmus test of any decent fruit frolicker. Sixteen grapes, three apples, two kiwis, one lime and half a pineapple later – I had recreated Innocent’s finest. I hadn’t saved much money, and my thick beige creation didn’t look very appetising, but it tasted great.