Tomato Dicer?

[MarciMellow]

I need some help everyone!

I am somewhat handicapped and it makes cooking/cutting/chopping very difficult. I can't use my right hand and am trying to find something that will make it easier.

I have seen a couple products on the As Seen On TV page... and I found something on Target.com as well. However, I am a little unsure if these will help me with what I want to accomplish....

Have any of you used one of these chopper things or have any ideas on something that I could get?

Thanks!!!

 

[lindatooo]

Pampered Chef has a dicer/chopper that's pretty easy to use one-handed. It's at their website: www.pamperedchef.com and you can throw it into the dishwasher.

 

[Corinne]

The choppers that Tupperware & Pampered Chef sell are pretty worthless, in my opinion - I'm talking about the ones where you pound on the top of them.

Tupperware does have something that is well worth the money, tho'. It's called a "Quick Chef". I use it all the time for onions, celery, peppers, etc. I don't know how well it would work on tomatoes.

I chop a bunch of onions at one time, put them in ice cube trays, freeze them until they are solid, then put the cubes in freezer bags. Any time a recipe calls for chopped onions, I use a cube or 2.

 

[MarciMellow]

Pampered Chef has a dicer/chopper that's pretty easy to use one-handed. It's at their website: www.pamperedchef.com and you can throw it into the dishwasher.

will it dice tomatos? that seems to be the big problem that i have... being able to hold a tomato and cut at the same time..... nearly impossible! but i'll check them out

 

[Miss Bridget]

Based on my friends who have bought them, tomato dicers don't dice, they crush. A sharp knife is the best, but apparently won't work for you. How about buying small tomatoes, roma or other, and cutting them multiple directions with an egg slicer? They typically have a small indent to keep the egg from rolling around, and then you could pull the lever with one hand. Also, I really like cans of Hunt's Petite Diced - you wouldn't have to cut at all.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I believe a well constructed jig is what you need. Do you know anyone that's handy with wood. If so, have them make for you to round wooden disks, glued to the jaws of a c-clamp. Have the exposed surface roughend like the testured surface of a meat mallet. As you close the c-clamp jaws, it will grip the tomatoe, allowing you to slice from top to bottom as needed. If you want to die it, just cut eighth-inch slices half way through in one direction, turn the tommato in the jig 90 degrees and repeat. The turn the tomato on its side and slice accross the original cuts and you have perfectly diced tomato.

With just a bit of imagination, a someone with wood-working skills could probably come up with something even better.

Another possibility, Purchase a solid piece of white oak, about an inch thick by 4 inches square. Drive some stainless-steel finnishing nails into the board so that the points stick out about an eighth inch through the other side. When you go to slice your tomato, cut a flat side to set on the nail boints, to hold it in place while you complete the remaining slicing chores.

The problem with tomatoes is that the skin is fairly tough with relation to its flesh. They require a very sharp smooth knife, or sharp serated knife drawn accross the skin in order to cut the skin. Simply pushing down on the skin only serves to crush the flesh before the skin cuts. And thus is the problem with veggie choppers. They push through rather than slice.

These are untried ideas. But from such come tools that help us to complete otherwise impossible tasks. Hope it helps.

Whoa, wait a minutes. Here's the definitive answer. Purchase a quality mandolin or v-slicer. Slice the tomato into the thickness you desire. Then lay out the slices and they will have enough sticking power that you can easily dice them with a sharp chef's knife.



Seeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[mudbug]

I like your ingenious solution with the piece of wood and the protruding nails, GW. I was trying to think of a gizmo that would hold the tomato still for Marci so she could chop one-handed and you came up with a way to describe it.

However, the mandoline is probably a better idea.