How looks like a great toy for you since you grow so much. I waited forever to fall for the hype on the vacuum sealer, but my friends thought they were wonderful. I finally bought one, used it about twice, and put it back in the box where it has been for a year or so. I was not impressed.

Dawn sounds great. One of my next purchases is going to be a vacuum sealer. My BIL bought one and uses it all the time. I will use it for the meat I buy that they don't vacuum seal also. May have to look at one of these in the future also. Let us know how it works. Of course when you don't grow anymore than I have the last few years you don't have to worry about processing anything. LOL. Jay

I have a vacuum sealer and I use it all the time. I bought the large jar sealer and when I buy fruit or anything else that rots fast -- I put it in a large mouth jar and use the sealer and the fruit will last for 3 weeks (at least - we usually eat it before it goes bad) -- I also have some of the green food bowls that keeps fruitand veggies fresher longer and they work too.

Carol,

What was it you didn't like about the vacuum sealer?

Jay,

I don't put up as much most years as I have this year. In a very bad drought year, I might get corn and green beans in the freezer in vast quantities before the worst of the drought hits, and then only tomatoes and peppers after that.

In an amazing year (and the last really, really amazing year was 2005....and drought hit that fall but our garden did well prior to that), I either give away tons of stuff or put up tons or both.

In 2005, all the fruit trees and berries did well, all the tomatoes and peppers and green beans and corn did well. I watered nonstop but it paid off and I did get a lot put up. We struggled with low rainfall all summer, but one big rainfall in July and one big rainfall in August kept hope (and the garden) alive. Then....an early freeze, a wildfire season that began in our part of Love County in October....and didn't end for months and months....and we've never had that kind of garden production since then. I keep hoping for another 2005.

This year has been close to 2005 in terms of production except that the fruit trees bloomed too early and lost their baby fruit to a late freeze, the onions and potatoes nearly drowned, and I didn't even plant beans in the spring because by the time it was dry enough, it was too hot. So, if the fall beans and corn produce well and finish filling up the freezer, I'll call this the second best year since we moved here. It seems like about one year in three is a really great year in terms of garden production....so 1999 was good for our first garden here, 2001 was fine, 2005 was excellent, and 2009 has been very good. We don't even talk about the other years.

It worries Tim when I have a great garden year because a great garden year in the spring and summer invariably means a bad fire year in the winter. My theory is that the summer moisture makes everything grow too much and once all the vegetative growth is dormant, fires happen. That is what happened here in 2005. I truly believe this year will be different. El Nino should be back and should keep us wet enough that winter fires don't follow our great summer.

So, while Tim and Jesse and Andy are shaking their heads and talking about too much vegetative growth and what that means for them in winter, I'm thinking they are being worrywarts and need to chill, relax and enjoy the cool, wetter weather. We've had so many bad winters that I think the firefighters cannot even relax and enjoy a good one.

I bet you'll see similar patterns for your garden....that the occasional good year when you do have to process a lot does roll around every now and then. Whatever is causing your persistent drought conditions cannot last forever.

I picked about 5 gallons of peppers this evening, so I'll be busy playing in the kitchen all weekend long.

Dawn

I have a very similar machine called Squeezo Strainer that I have used to make hundreds of jars of apple and pear butter over the years. Instead of the suction bottom mine clamps over the edge of the bar. Only have two screens, the one for applesauce and one for berries.

I have thought about buying one of the strainers for years. I will be waiting to hear how you like using yours. I am still using my trusty old Foley's Food Mill.

I am thinking about the Food Saver too. I have a friend who swears by hers. She bought it at Wal Mart and just loves it.
I do know the meat processor now uses vacuum seal and the meat definitely keeps longer with zero freezer burn. I end up with lots of freezer burn on some things that I keep too long.

Dawn
This looks like more than a toy, but a real workhorse in the kitchen. Anything that saves time and labor is a godsend. Let us know how it works out.

Barb

I have a Squeezo that I bought at a garage sale many years ago for $20. It has three screens. I use it for applesauce mostly, but one year we went out and picked sand plums and I don't know how I would've processed them without it! I use a cone-shaped sieve with a wooden thingy that you roll around the inside walls for small tomato processing jobs, as the seeds are flat and will mash down on the inside. Where there are hard seeds involved, a food mill of some kind is the only way to go.

I also have one of those vacuum food sealers and I have not used it in a long time. It's just easier to use a zip-lock bag and squeeze the extra air out of it with my hands. My problem with the food sealer is that, if you want to use a little out of the bag and put the rest back you have to get your machine out to re-seal the bag and that's just inconvenient for me. I can see though that it would be handy to use when packaging meat and I might get it out and try it for that.

My sis in law learned when using her vacuum sealer that it's best to freeze chickens first in the cheap bags and then when frozen vacuum them. She ruined her machine because the raw chickens were too moist and the machine sucked moisture into the works. So now we use the cheap bags with a twist tie and the next day or next week, vacuum them.

Dorothy,

Thanks for that tip on the chicken. I'll have to remember that!

Dawn

I need several things to help me in the kitchen and my garden.
1)a cook's helper
2)a gardener's helper
3)Cowdiddly to teach me how to be more frugal

Seems like I've spent a small fortune this year on the garden. Of course-when you go to the store and price even the canned organic stuff, well, you know how that goes. Maybe after this years start up expenses, next year won't be so expensive.

Barb

Dawn, On the vacuum sealer

(1) It is much more convenient to use a ziplock freezer bag and you can continue using it after opening the bag, as Ilene said.

(2) I don't have a large enough kitchen to leave it out all of the time and it's a lot of trouble to get it out unless you are doing a really big job.

(3) It bother my back to have to press down and hold it there for the time it takes to vacuum and seal.

(4) Bags are VERY expensive.

(5) Anything that I have tried to seal that is wet doesn't work well. It tries to pull out the water along with the air and then it doesn't seal the wet bag.

I decided to get it out again yesterday and try again before I answered on this thread. All of the above still apply. I got a good seal on the bottom of the bag I made, but when I tried to seal the top, it got wet and didn't seal. I sealed a bag of fish, and it still had air in it, but I gave up because I had tried several times before I (almost) got a seal. I did some green bean bags and after trying many times, I gave up and got out the zip bags. By this time, the tray had pulled in water and the heat sealer had shut itself off I guess because I could touch it with my finger and it wasn't hot.

I had thought I would use it for pecans, but I didn't want to make a lot of little bags and I would have to reseal after each use if I didn't. I suppose it would be OK for meat, or for dry things, or things you freeze first and then seal, but I just found it to be more trouble than it is worth. I like gadgets, but I should have skipped this one.

One of my favorite kitchen appliances is my egg cooker, and most people have never heard of one. LOL

Ok Carol, I'll bite. What's an egg cooker? In my kitchen, it's me.
The new kitchen necessity for me is going to be a new All American pressure canner. The gauge went out the other day on my Presto, and I'm ready to move up to a non scary canner anyway. Also, I guess I'm going to have to buy even a more huge water bath canner than I have, since I found that half gallon containers are a tad too tall for the one I have. Lord, I hope I don't have to ever move again! All the canning jars, canners, gadjets, bread machines, etc, etc.
And Dawn, I guess you know by now that we're all going to have to get one of your new deallys.

Barbara

I have an egg cooker from Lowes right now, and it looks snazzy, but I liked my old one a little better. I would have bought this one if I had seen it before I had Lowes order one for me.

After they cook, and while they are still very hot, I throw them in a glass bowl hard enough to break the shell, then cover them with cold water. After they cool they peel very easily.

Here is a link that might be useful: Egg Cooker

What a nifty item. This could be a perfect gift for the 'chef' who has everything, (or thinks he does, like my DS), the gourmet cook, lol! And one for me, who doesn't!

Barbara

Hi Y'all,

I used my new toy today. Earlier in the day, I made 16 pints of salsa (clearly two separate batches, and both too hot for me, but should be perfect for our DIL) and it was a breeze using the salsa screen. I loved it.

This afternoon, I put the sauce screen on and processed the rest of the tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce. It also was wonderful.

Now, I'm wondering why I waited so long to buy one of these things.

I want a new pressure cooker because mine is very old and small, but that's probably on the list for next year.

I don't need an egg cooker....at least I don't think I need an egg cooker. LOL

Dawn

Dawn
I checked out the All American pressure canners on Amazon, and read lots of the reviews, and think I'll wait til I see a good price on one and go that route. They seem to be an amazingly good and safe product with no risk of blowing up, which is always a nice feature don't you think?
Your new kitchen gadget sounds awesome. I'm glad it's working out the way you hoped, and now that you've kitchen tested it for us all, I wouldn't hesitate to buy one-next year, if not sooner, lol~
Barbara

I just bought a new Presto canner at Wal-Mart and it worked like a charm. I was amazed. NO pressure gauge at all. I got the small one since it was all they had. Cost around $60. I am very pleased with it. It holds 7 pints. I got it to do the winter squash I had to pick.

I have two old ones inherited from Mom. I told DH I might order parts this winter and rehabilitate one of them. They are pretty large, old fashioned, era 1965 and I might not. The new one worked so well.

Have y'all noticed that we all apparently have all the "garden tools" we need so now we're busy aquiring kitchen "harvest tools"? LOL

After so many drought years in which I had to give up all hope of keeping the garden well-watered and producing well, this year has been so wonderful. It has been years since I was able to put up so much of the produce for winter. I get some stuff, especially tomatoes, onions, corn and beans put up every year, but this year there's just lots and lots of almost everything.

Dawn

I have one of the original Squeezo Strainers--I love it, and have used it for years.
Its all metal, clamps on a edge, has 3 extra screens. The reason I say its a original, one forum had a discussion on these-the original will leak slightly where the handle goes in the body--but I love it--had it probably 20--30 years.

Hi Ceresone,

I don't know why I haven't bought one of these before. I've used it twice and just love it.

I have the extra screens too, and used the salsa one earlier this week.

Is yours made of all metal? I am assuming so, since it has lasted so long.

Did you have a good tomato year so you got to use the Squeezo a lot?

Dawn

Congrats on the toy! I use a hand-cranked food mill similar to the one linked below and a Chinaman's hat. One of these days, I'll win the lottery and get a fancy pants gadget but, for now, these work well.

I have a FoodSaver vacuum sealer and love it. We use that thing to death since we butcher most of our own meat.

Here is a link that might be useful: Similar food mill

OK, tell my why this is better than just the plain old Foley's Food Mill. I have looked at them for years (back when they were all metal!) but haven't bought one. Maybe I need to add this to the list:

Grain Mill, Bosch Mixer (for bread making), Squeezo Strainer,
Food Saver. That's a lot of money!

I will probably just keep on using Mom's old Kitchen aid until it dies, the food mill, and the freezer bags.

I can dream though.

Glenda,

I haven't used a Foley's Food Mill in years so I don't know that I can compare the performance of the two. And, come to think of it, I wonder what happened to my food mill? I had it when we moved here. Anyway....

I chose this particular tomato strainer because it was highly recommended over and over and over again by quite a few of the hard-core food processors at the Harvest Forum. I especially wanted it because of the set of extra screens, which if my memory is correct are for salsa (I've used that one and it is great), pumpkin/winter squash and berries.

I used the salsa screen to make two different batches of salsa and both turned out perfectly. I then used the sauce screen to make plain tomato sauce which I then used to make pasta sauce for dinner. The sauce screen gives you perfect sauce with not one little piece of peel or seed or core. The sauce was just gorgeous to look at. I haven't tried the other two screens yet.

Turning the hand crank was easy, the machine didn't leak, the suction cup adhered to the counnter, etc. When I get old and frail, LOL, I can buy the optional engine and use it instead of the handcrank. Or, if I should develop carpal tunnel syndrome or arthritis or something that makes manual operation difficult, it is nice to know there is a little motor available to turn the handle for you.

I do have a Kitchen Aid mixer and it is only about 5 years old and probably will last forever. So, for me, it is likely that the best grain mill option would be to get the Grain Mill accessory for the Kitchen Aid.

As for the Food Saver, I remain undecided about that, but I really do want one and bet I go ahead and get one before next spring. We buy a lot of meat in bulk at Sam's and CostCo and repackage it, and I keep 3 freezers pretty full of home-grown veggies and fruits, so having the food saver to vacuum seal bags and cannisters would be quite useful.

All the kitchen gear does add up to a lot of money over time, but I think I'll use them enough to make it worthwhile. For years I wanted these 'harvest helpers' and couldn't/wouldn't spend the money for them because we were putting our son through college.

In a good year when it rains, I can put up enough veggies from the garden and fruit from the fruit trees to make a huge dent in a grocery bill. In a drought year, though, the harvest is not as heavy and I don't put up as much stuff. So, in a good year, I need all the equipment in order to put up as much of the harvest as possible as quickly as possible.

I've gotten a lot more serious about raising more and more of our food supply the last few years. Homegrown is just so much tastier, and it is better for the environment because the food we're raising isn't having to travel to our home from grocery stores that get it from South America or even from California. Since reading "Animal Vegetable Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, I've tried to become more serious about eating locally-raised food--and not just locally raised, but home-grown as much as possible.

I'd like to think that if I am serious and work a little harder on getting great yields, I could raise most of our food in future years and all those 'harvest helper' type kitchen gadgets will get a good workout.

Dawn

Dawn, yes, its completely metal, my DIL has the plastic type so I borrowed it to compare--mine, hands down!!

Glenda, I'm looking at mixers too. Be awhile before I can afford my "want's". From other forums, I've found the new Kitchen Aids, even the 600 wt. has plastic gears, many were complaining about stripping them making large batches of anything. What I'm thinking of is the Viking, saw it in Bakers catalog-has all metal construction, comes in 1000 wt, and will handle flour for 6 loaves of bread. About same as the pricey kinds.
I have 2 Foley, dont think I've used them in years.
And -oh--this was a flop of a year for my tomatoes!!

What I like about raising our own food, including the milk cow, and processing the harvest is that I know that it is basically chemical free. Unless we are paying extrememly high prices for organically grown stuff, we are eating lots of chemicals from factory raised foods. Just because the FDA says it is safe no longer comforts me! Also I know we don't have enough inspectors to check all food coming in from other countries or even our factory farms in Ca.

I have decided to not buy out-of-season produce any more! The lettuce is like leather and I know they must use chemicals. An internet friend from Portugal remarked that Americans were the only people who expected to eat any food they wanted any time of the year......got me thinking.

I know my grandparents did not have lettuce salads in winter and they survived to a ripe old age. My Grandfather wouldn't eat store bread. My grandmother made biscuits for every meal. She canned all vegetables. What I can't remember is where she stored her potatoes and turnips and neither can my 86-year old aunt! Why do we think of these qestions when it is too late to ask?

Ceresone, I am impressed that your daughter owns a strainer....that would be the last thing you would find in my kids kitchen! I am stressing that they should look for farmer's markets in their areas and buy fresh, locally when possible.

Ceresone,

I understand that a lot of the folks in the Ozarks, and in some parts of OK, had a bad tomato year---too much rain and clouds and not enough sunshine. Hopefully next year will be better.

Glenda,

We are just beginning to try to eat more locally and in season. DH is a salad maniac, though, so I'm going to try to grow winter lettuce and greens under low hoops covered with floating row-cover type frost blankets. I don't know how successful that will be, but I am going to try.

I no longer want to support a commercial agricultural system that flies strawberries in from South America in the dead of winter or whatever. In terms of the environment, that just doesn't make sense to me. How much fossil fuel do we spend flying food from various parts of the world to the USA, or transporting food from, say, the West Coast to the East Coast? I am sure if we knew the amount of fossil fuels used to transport food items long distances in just one year, it would be mind-boggling. You have to wonder, too, how long the peoples of the world can afford to burn fossil fuel to transport food hundreds and thousands of miles? And, what about local farmers and local market growers who struggle to survive because they almost have to sell at cost (or at a loss) to compete with cheap imported food grown in lands where farmworkers do not make a fair living wage? Barbara Kingsolver's book has made me think hard about these issues.

I remember that my grandparents raised their own food and ate 'in season' and didn't seem like they ever felt deprived or were malnourished. To them, of course, it was not so much a deliberate choice to eat locally and raise their own---that's just the way you did it back then. I remember when I was a really small child I thought that my grandfather was the most amazing grandfather in America because he grew his own popcorn!

My grandparents didn't have a root cellar, but my grandfather built a small lean-to behind his garage. He deliberately left the dirt floor and always laid his potatoes down in rows on the dirt floor--he didn't stack them on top of each other. Sometimes, when it was really hot, he laid a burlap bag or two on top of them. His onions hung from nails in his lean-to. I always loved the lean-to because it smelled like potatoes, onions and dirt!

The lean-to was partially shaded by a tree and by the taller garage building and I am sure that helped his potatoes and onions stay a little cooler too.

Dawn