You BRIEFLY parboil the tomatoes whole just to peel them, that is, to separate the peel from the pulp before putting them into the strainer, which will then easily strip off the peels without the loss of any juice or pulp and without a splattery mess.

[I just did this a couple of hours ago, which reminds me how well it works]

Is it really necessary? I just looked at the manual again (after picking more tomatoes, getting rained on, and taking a shower to warm up and unkink my back!) and I noticed the asterisk - only things like potatoes are to be parbolied, tomatoes don't have that footnote.

I don't know if I'm going to get to these today - doing laundry now, DH is picking DS up from a XC meet, after he showers we'll probably go for Chinese since DH doesn't want spaghetti again (where did the day go?) - I made meat sauce (from jar I canned last year plus some fresh tomatoes I cooked and put through Foley) last night and have 2 pints left in fridge. DS had 3 servings so he probably doesn't want it again tonight either LOL.

Maybe I'll stay up late tonight and do it when I won't be disturbed since I already have the base clamped to the counter and space cleared off for the 2 bowls.

Oh, what about coring before putting the tomatoes through?

I have a Roma but I think they are almost the same. My instructions say that the strainer & sauce maker will "easily puree fresh tomatoes, remove the seeds, core and skin with no precooking whatsoever. Wash and quarter the tomatoes, then load in the hopper." That is what I did and it was a snap.

Answer to your first question - yes, but it takes more effort to crank them thru raw. Parboiling softens them and so it is easier to crank but you do not have to parboil them to get the skins off - that is what the Victorio and Squeezo do for a living.

To make salsa for DH without the extra knife work and without the skins, dip in boiling water 1 min, then ice bath, then peel back to the top, chop off those tops, cut off the bad parts, and put toms in an onion chopper. Food processor makes mush, Victorio's or Squeezo's make puree, onion chopper makes small pieces but not mush.

If you want sauce then forget about peeling, but do heat up the toms to make it easier to turn them in the Victorio or Squeezo. It only takes a few minutes on the burner.

Nancy

Maybe I'll make salsa some other day - we just finished 2012 salsa and started on 2013 jars so it's not a necessity. We eat a lot more sauce. I don't have an onion chopper so it's all knife work.

I probably won't do the sauce tonight, just got home from Chinese and started another load of laundry - have 2 more to do and tomorrow will be sheets.

I have 18 qt Nesco - should I bring that out in the AM, heat the tomatoes in that, then put through Victorio? Can they go in hot or must they be room temp for the plastic parts?

I have about 10 gal of tomatoes to do if the 5 gal bucket of paste tomatoes in the garage hasn't gone bad on the bottom.

I roast mine in the oven. Nice and soft and adds great flavor. I run them through hot, but you can definitely cool a bit for easier handling.

You can drain off some of the watery juice and have less cooking down time.

Deanna

I've been working on this for 2 hours now - got through probably 20 lbs of tomatoes (mostly slicers) and now going to wash and mill the paste tomatoes. The pulp is coming out dry, I'm straining off liquid to can as tomato juice but only have 2 qts so far. Pumpkin screen let a lot of seeds through so I put the screen that came with it on and lots of liquid, practically juice. We'll see how Grandma Mary's turns out but I may switch screens again (hard to do when they're slippery and gunky), I want a thick sauce but not that many seeds.

Poor DS was working the Victorio while I cut up tomatoes, he's tall enough to see into the hopper LOL when it's clamped to kitchen counter but he HATES raw tomatoes and the smell was driving him crazy. He likes cooked sauce/salsa though.

Why are you cutting up the tomatoes to use the Victorio? The machine is supposed to do all that work.

The hole that the tomatoes go down is not big enough for a whole tomato (depending on the size) to go down. So you have to cut them in half or quarters to get them to go down thru the hole.

Done! Well, except for canning the sauce, it's still reducing. I don't know how many lbs of tomatoes we did, maybe 40-50 and I canned 4 quarts of strained juice, we'll get maybe 6 quarts of sauce depending on how much I reduce it down in the Nesco.

But another question on the Victorio/Villaware strainer, and one on canning tomato juice:

1. DS must have pushed down hard when he was using the plunger, the adapter part that goes between the metal base and the plastic hopper/funnel is stuck inside the metal part. I tried running hot water over the metal to get it to expand but it's still stuck. Any tips?

2. I was using the Ball Complete book for instructions, I strained the tomatoes first then boiled the juice, they have the other way around but it calls for 1" HS so that's what I used. I just checked NCHFP and they call for 1/2" (and 1/4" for sauce whereas Ball says 1" again). Is the juice OK? Which HS should I use for Basic Tomato Sauce? Processing times are the same.

I am certainly no authority but I would never process raw tomatoes with my Victorio. One attempt at that was enough!

It is four times the work and time and much of the tomato is wasted. Damage to it is more likely too. Even a brief heating of the tomatoes first makes all the difference.

I got the strainer to avoid having to dip anything in hot water and save time. This year I put through 4 bushes, about 200 pounds, with only washing them and then quartering them. This year I had the motor for the first time, but last year I did the same thing by hand (which is why I ended up getting the motor).

Out of all of those tomatoes I only got about 1 quart of very dry pulp/skin (we ran it through a second time).

Sauce is in the canner - I compromised and did 3/4" HS so it's wrong either way but hope it turns out OK. I got 5 3/4 quarts (had to scramble for pint and half jar, I'd prepped RM lid and band so used old Classico jar from tomatoes we used the other night, I don't remember if that was a PC batch or BWB but here's hoping it withstands 10 psi).

Adapter still stuck on the metal base - try ice cubes in it to get plastic to contract? It's really jammed on.

I'm not sure this was faster than blanching and peeling, cooking and then using Foley but it was neater and I didn't have to handle hot tomatoes. Of course I probably wouldn't have done so many at a time either if I'd had to peel them.

The crank turned easily, but both kids ended up pulling it off a couple of times. It would help to have a set screw on that. I'm not sure which screen I like for tomato sauce, but if I want seedless it has to be the tomato (original) screen.

I did get the adapter off - I don't know if holding ice inside it helped, or using a jar gripper (I didn't want to ask DH - he breaks things) and some elbow grease. The SS tomato screen didn't exactly come clean in the DW even though I tried to clear the holes before putting it in, but the pumpkin screen did. I don't see anything in the manual saying the plastic pieces can go in the DW, so I have to do those by hand (NOW, they were only rinsed last night).

And I have to mop the floor - I thought we got the splatters but found some on the bottom of the fridge and on the floor there - and I was standing in between the mill and the fridge! Must have happened when I was over to the side cutting tomatoes and 1 of the kids was milling. DS got splattered - even got some on his suede LL Bean slippers. I think he was cranking too fast.

I know when using my squeezo, I've learned to just move a mobile kitchen island outside and not worry about the cleanup.

Not sure how the victorio compares to squeezo, but I find that I use the back of a paring knife, or small metal spatula to scrape my screens off inside and out in order to clean them. I can then use a brush to help clean holes out, though I need a pin for the berry screen many times.

I put the tomatoes through raw and then take the discarded skins and seeds and heat them up briefly on the stove. This is a much smaller amount of hot material to work with and it allows you to get more juice and pulp out. Just be sure to let it cool down a little if you've got plastic parts.

We don't have a motor for the Victorio but my husband made a piece for it in the machine shop that would enable us to power it with an electric drill. We did that for many years. It does require 2 people. My husband died last summer and all the kids have moved out so I gave it to my daughter. I bought the Kitchenaid fruit and vegetable strainer for me because I can use it by myself. I am pleased with how it works.

Parboiling the tomatoes softens them just enough that even the largest whole fruits will go down the chute with no effort. I've never felt the need for the motor.

I did also try the KitchenAid strainer and found it a terrible pain to use. And I'm a stone KitchenAId fan.

Nothing beats the Victorio.

I told DS that there was a motor you could get for it, but I'm afraid I'd leave the motor running while the hopper was empty and the manual says not to turn the crank w/o food in the hopper so that would probably not be a good thing. As long as I have child labor, I'll go manual ;-)

I might move the whole canning operation outside since I have the camp stove - but not today in the rain. Today is just BWBing jam anyway.

Rose - my condolences on your DH's passing.