Victorio Model 250 Food Strainer Review

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Last year I read a blog post from Rachel over at Grafix Muse's Garden Spot about her tomato harvest and how she loved her food strainer.  At the time I didn't even know what a food strainer was or why I would use it.  We didn't really grow a lot of tomatoes last year so I didn't really care, but I could tell from her post that this thing sounded cool.

Fast forward to this year and I have an abundance of tomatoes and a new found love for eating them.  I decided a few months ago to look up her post and find out which strainer she had.  It was the Victorio Model 250, so a quick amazon purchase later, and now I am the proud owner of one.

For those that don't know what a food strainer is, it is a device that allows you to make tomato sauce or apple sauce by dropping in whole fruits and it automatically discards the skin, seeds, and pulp.  You are left with pristine 100% pure tomato or apple sauce that is ready to be cooked.  You can also use it with other fruits like strawberries and blackberries by purchasing different sized screens.

The reviews of this tool on Amazon were mixed so I was a little skeptical, but this thing is freaking awesome!  I used it once last week to do a small batch to make home made spaghetti sauce.  Today I did a huge batch to make enough sauce to freeze, and both times it worked great!

The way this thing works is you drop whole tomatoes into this hopper.  They only need to be cut in half or quartered, you can leave skin and all on it.  You turn this hand crank and it feeds the tomato through a chamber and screen mesh.  Out of one end of the screen comes all the skin, seeds, and pulp, and out of the screen itself comes the pure tomato sauce.  I figured out it is better to only drop in a few tomatoes at a time and turn, instead of trying to fill up the hopper.  Cleanup and assembly is pretty easy too, the only thing that is a pain is cleaning the screen because the holes are so tiny.

This strainer costs around $50 dollars on amazon.com, and to me that seems like a deal.  My time is worth the cost, and today it only took me 25 minutes to produce enough sauce to fill up a huge sauce pan.  I don't know what the alternative would be if you didn't have one of these strainers, but this is the only way for me. 

Thanks Rachel for posting about it, otherwise I would have never known.

Here are my tomatoes ready to be processed.

Here is the food strainer.  It has a vise on the bottom that allows you to mount it to a table or counter top.  The pulp comes out of the glass tube where the brown bowl is, and the tomato sauce is extracted through the screen and down that white chute into the clear bowl.  You feed the tomatoes into that top hopper and just turn the handle.

 

This was the pulp I was left with after using it today.  It leaves no waste.

Here is my huge pot of pure sauce ready to be cooked.

Earthway Precision Garden Seeder Review - Model 1001 B

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When I decided to expand my upper garden area I knew I wanted to buy a precision garden seeder to make planting less labor intensive.  After checking out seeders and reading reviews on Amazon.com, I decided to buy the Earthway Model 1001 B Precision Garden Seeder.

I used it this past weekend to plant corn and white acre peas, and I am very pleased with the results.  You can click the link above to find detailed information about it, but I will try to explain how it works.

It is basically a two wheeled device that you push through the soil.  As you push it, it automatically makes a trench for the seed, picks up and drops the seed in the trench, and then covers it up.  It also makes a mark for the next row.  Everything on it is adjustable.  You can adjust the depth of the trench for your seed depth, you can adjust your row marker, and you can adjust how far apart you want your seeds planted.

It comes with six different seed discs that rotate in the seed hopper and grabs the seed and deposits it in the trench.  You can adjust how far you want your seed planted by covering holes in the discs with tape.  I just planted using all the holes, and will go back and thin if I need to.  I have read complaints that it only works in finely tilled soil, and I could see where that might be true.  I had no problems at all and it was worth the $90 bucks. 

I planted 125 feet of peaches and cream corn and 125 feet of white acres in less than 20 minutes.  That included having to switch out seed plates when I changed from corn to pea seeds.  It would have taken me 2-3 hours on my hands and knees to do it the hard way.

I am so happy with it, and I wish I had more area to plant.  I could easily plant a football field worth or corn in a couple of hours with this thing.  I will post an update on what kind of germination rates I get, but so far I am impressed.

Here is the seeder, very easy to use.

Here is the wedge plate below the seeder that makes the trench in the ground for the seed to fall into. I set the depth to 1.25 inches for my corn.  The chain drags the ground behind the wedge plate and covers the seed.

Here is the long extension rod that marks the ground for the next row.

Here is a picture inside the hopper and the disc plate.

Here was a picture after my first two rows of corn were planted.  You can see the first line on the left is already marked for me.  All I had to do was place the front wheel of the seeder in that mark and go.

Here is everything all finished.

Five rows of corn and five rows of peas.

My New Toy

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For some people it is a brand new iPad or iPhone. For others it is a new flat screen TV with surround sound. For some it is new jewelry or new clothes.....but for me, being the gardening geek that I am. What do I splurge for?  I get a $250 dollar electric pea sheller of course.

I have been looking at different pea shellers and finally after a lot of research I got the Mr. Pea Electric Pea sheller. THIS THING IS AWESOME! It is made out of all aluminum which will last forever and will be easy to clean. It is fully electric with an on/off switch. I can plug this bad boy in on my kitchen counter and go to town on it. It even has a cutout designed for a standard bread pan to fit, so all the shelled peas fall right into it. Obviously at $250 it was not cheap, but that was the best price I saw for this model.  I spent a lot of time shelling purple hull peas last year and for me it was worth the investment to save time on shelling.

I purchased it from the website below and their service was superb. The shipping was free, and lightning fast. I ordered this thing at 10pm last night and it was on my door step at 5pm the next day. The company is based in Dothan, Alabama which is only a few hours away but still that is crazy fast. I read the reviews on their site and they seem to have excellent customer service. Check out this site, they have great information on it. There are also alot of youtube videos of it in action too.
http://www.lawn-gardening-tools.com/pea-sheller-and-bean-shellers/electric-mr-pea-sheller-and-bean-sheller---electric-pea-sheller.html

Man I can't wait to use this thing. It will do any kind of cowpeas, lima beans, early peas, you name it and I plan to use it for all. I hope I get to use it around April when my English peas are ready. I will post how it works in a few months. Can you tell I am excited! :)

It is all aluminum and has a very small profile

This is the little cutout for your bread pan to slide in

Corn Cob Cutter Tool Review

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I bought some gadgets last month, one of which was this Corn Cob Cutter.  It is called Lee's Corn Cutter and Creamer.  I tried to use it last weekend and I was extremely disappointed in this tool.  I should have known something was up when I read this warning on the packaging, and I quote exactly:

Warning!  Remember, even scissors or a kitchen knife can be injurious if not used properly.  KEEP FINGERS HIGH ON VEGETABLE  and away from blades and cutting elements.  This product has been used safely by millions for generations.

I was thinking the only reason to put something like that on there is a lot of people have probably gotten injured using this thing.  The way this is supposed to work is you lay the tool horizontally flat on top of a bowl.  You then take your corn and run it "in a quick motion" towards the cutting blades and push the cob past them.  If you look at the pic below, notice where the person's thumb and fore fingers are pushing toward the blade.  I tried this a few times and your hand gets so slippery because the corn and juices run down the tool and your hand.  After 2 minutes, I thought, it isn't a matter of will I cut my finger off, it was a matter of when will I cut my finger off.  I decided to just use a knife and I felt much safer.

I think this product would work great for cream style corn because the instructions tell you to set the blade depth to barely pierce the tip of the kernels.  Thus making it easy to push the cob through the blades and for the serrated blades to cream the ear.

I don't like cream style corn and this product said you can just set the depth of the blade accordingly to cut the kernels clean.  Easier said than done, the blade wants to dig in to the cob while cutting and thus your hands want to slip.

If you have used this tool to cut whole kernel corn and it worked great for you, please tell me what I am doing wrong.  I have seen several videos on youtube of people using it successfully but they were always using it to make cream style corn.

I am going to do more research and maybe I will have better luck with another corn gadget.

Here is a pic from their website.