This is the current version of the one I've had for a few years now. I'm linking the webpage of the company from whom I purchased it. You might find it cheaper on Amazon or someplace similar.Roma Food Strainer/Sauce Maker

*Edited to add that I strain my tomatoes in the kitchen and not out in the yard with the chickens. Why they used a photo like that is simply beyond me.

Thanks, I'm thinking about getting one for this year.

I have the same one, bought from the same company.

We just had to order a new gasket (that fits between the machine and the screen) because mine tore. (I use this machine a lot every summer so I'm surprised the gasket had lasted all these years anyway.) I had placed the torn gasket on top of the microwave so I'd see it sitting there and remember to order one. When Tim saw that gasket, he went and got online and ordered the gasket replacement kit and then walked into the kitchen and said he'd ordered it. I guess he was afraid I'd stop making salsa when he saw the torn gasket. A day or two later he reminded me to watch for the gasket to come via the USPS and told me that he couldn't order just one gasket, he had to order a 'kit' with three parts, though he didn't remember which three parts. When a very flat padded envelope arrived on Friday, I couldn't imagine what 3 machine parts would fit into that envelope, other than the gasket and maybe the O-ring. It turned out the three parts he had to order were just 3 gaskets. Based on how long the first gasket lasted, these three should last for the rest of my life. And, I had used the machine without the gasket earlier in the week and ran four canning batches of tomatoes through it, and really didn't even notice any difference in operating it with or without the gasket. It still worked just as well. I do love this machine. It is a major time saver.

Amazon dropped the price $23 from yesterday. It was $54 when I last looked, now $31

Tomato machine

54.99 with screen attachment set, plus free shipping from Weston. 31.88 WITHOUT the extra screens on Amazon, that is an extra 23.92. So total of 55.78. Free shipping if you have Prime.

Well, crap, I read it wrong, it comes with only one extra screen.

Sooo, all we have to do, is quarter the tomatoes, then run them through this machine, and it separates the skin, core, and seed ?

That sounds too good ..... to be true .

But I hope it is, cause I got one ordered :)

I bought one my first year canning and I can't imagine doing anything without it. Jams sauces and salsa. It makes it a breeze. We've done a lot of apple and pear sauce too

I love this machine! Today I made the final (I hope!) five batches of Annie's Salsa and tomorrow I'm going to run my most recent big tomato harvest through the machine and make a few batches of pasta sauce and chili base. That should be about it for this year. I'm tired of canning tomatoes. To ensure I don't have to keep canning them, I've been yanking out tomato plants right and left. That's one way to stop more tomatoes from piling up in the kitchen.

And, here's a quick tip. After I run a batch of tomatoes through the machine, I run the "waste" matter through the machine again. You get a lot from the second pressing of the crushed tomatoes. Then I put the waste matter on the compost pile, but it doesn't get to break down into compost because chickens follow me straight to the compost pile and gobble it right up. I guess we recapture it eventually when we clean out the coop and take chicken manure/bedding to a compost pile.

I will never, ever, ever again do things the old way where I have to heat water, drop the tomatoes in to loosen the skin, remove the tomatoes from the hot water, remove the skin, etc. I can't believe I ever did that with tomatoes, and with peaches and apricots too. This machine really changed my life in terms of making canning more efficient and, therefore, more enjoyable.

I have an old-fashioned "Squeezo". It's stainless steel parts as opposed to the plastic. A former forum member, IleneinNEOK aka just Ilene, found it for me at a garage sale. I had to come up with gaskets but heck, it's a 1984 model! Yes, it came with the paperwork from John Deere. For. REAL! Anyway - yes, it does what it says it does. I've used it for blackberries as well. I once suffered from diverticulitis and couldn't handle anything with seeds. This was a LIFE-SAVER in processing tomatoes and berries. I"m sure I'll be using it again, and again, and again. And I'll buy a plastic one when this one wears out if I can't find a steel replacement.

Paula

Ok, Dawn, you have made me crave one of these machines now. All I need are tomatoes!!!

I saw it on Amazon and am seriously thinking about ordering it since it's on sale and just storing it back for next year. Unless of course I go to a farmer's market around here and get me some tomatoes. But I'm wondering, and hopefully someone has used one, if the kitchenaid attachment is as good. I don't think it strains the fruits like the tomato machine does though. I can't tell.

Melissa

Paula, You're so lucky to have a Squeezo and I'm glad it is an old one. I've heard that the new ones are not nearly the same quality as the old ones.

Melissa, No kidding, at the peak of the harvest season, I do use my machine for one thing or another almost every day. It isn't just for canning, you know. I can whip up a batch of homemade pasta sauce in the blink of an eye with it using the sauce screen. You just run the tomatoes through the machine, pour them into a saucepan on the stove, and add the other veggies, seasoning and meat (if you put meat in your pasta sauce) and you have homemade pasta sauce in no time at all. I also use tomatoes run though it using the salsa screen to make homemade chicken tortilla soup, a family favorite and a staple of our menus even in hot summer weather. I haven't used it as much for fruit, but as Paula pointed out, the fruit screens can be a lifesaver for anyone needing to get the seeds out of their fruit.

There are very few machines that I think I cannot live without, but this is on that list. If mine broke and was beyond repair, or if I thought it was about to break, I'd buy another one in a heartbeat. For anyone who gardens and/or who cooks a lot with tomatoes, it is a kitchen essential. The amount of time and work it saves is mind-boggling.

I have a Kitchen Aid mixer and considered getting the attachment for it before I bought my tomato machine, but decided I would like the tomato strainer better, largely because it seemed like it would be very lightweight compared to the KA mixer (and it is) and easier to move around and use.

Dawn

It's here! Ha ha, English on the back side.

We got ours too !

I like it. A pain to put together the first time, but way easier to do the processing than the mill I've been using. I think I got more pulp from it than the mill. I will of course have to have a salsa screen, just because I think DH would like "chunkier" sauce. I had some stuff stuck between the handle and the red plastic screw, not sure if I had it set up right.

We are going to break ours in tomorrow. My Wife had eye surgery today , for cataracts ... but she will be ready to can some salsa tomorrow. And will see better than ever :)

We did get it assembled, it was sort've confusing till I studied the diagram that told me the names of all the parts.

It is a pain to put together but once you're used to doing it, you can do it in your sleep with one hand tied behind your back. Some stuff does just stuck in there between the red screw thing and the screen and inside the metal cylinder where the red screw turns. I just clean it out periodially

lcdollar, You're going to put her to work the day after cataract surgery? You are a hard taskmaster.

I hope y'all find your machines as useful for you as mine has been for me.

I was thrilled after my cataract sugeries. I had no idea how bad my vision had gotten. Good to know I didn't have it put together wrong then. Need some more tomatoes. People will be sad if I have none to give away. I dehydrated some cherries the other day, if they don't get lost in the freezer.

Dawn, I offered the Wife my computer so she could respond, but she declined :)

She said " just tell Dawn that I'm willing and able " ;)..... really , she can't wait to make some more salsa :)

But she's more thrilled with being able to see again :)

And I am too, I'm happy for her . There's sooo much more work she can do now , hehehe.

YEA for the advances in medicine! LCDollar - happy, happy happy Wife can SEE again. I went thru this with a friend a few years ago although she was really young. Then it started happening with more of my circle....now....DH is having it done starting one the 16th of August. Finishing on the last eye the 30th. It's gonna be interesting to see how youngest grandgirl Adelyn likes "Papaw" without glasses!

But back to the machine. I'm so blessed/lucky to have an older model but - I also have a KitchenAid. Old School 90's version. Trust me...it does NOT work the tomatoes the same way one of these others do. If you have the attachments - the meat chopper one is perfect for making various relish's with cukes, peppers, cabbage, onions and that sort. But for processing tomatoes's...one of these others are hand's down better. Just my 2 cents.

Paula

LCDollar, As long as she is doing the canning today willingly, I am happy for her! In fact, I am thrilled. There is nothing like looking at those beautiful glowing jars of salsa at the end of a canning session and thinking about how much you'll enjoy them in the coming weeks and months. For me, it also provides a real sense of accomplishment. I just didn't want her to be overworked on the day after cataract surgery. Now that her vision is better, just remember that she can keep more of an eye on what you are doing too, so no slacking allowed now! : )

I'm so glad y'all are happy with the salsa. Remember, if you want to make it hotter, you can substitute in a hotter pepper for some or all of the jalapenos in the recipe. Sometimes I make ours hotter by subbing some serrano peppers for some of the jalapenos. Once I substituted one habanero for one jalapeno and we got salsa that was too hot to eat. To make it mild enough for young children, y'all can substitute some sweet peppers for some or almost all of the jalapenos. My family likes it just fine the way it is in the original recipe, with a little heat but not too much. We also like it better with ReaLemon and ReaLime substituted for some of the vinegar as it cuts the vinegar flavor. I normally use 1/3 cup vinegar, 1/3 cup ReaLemon and 1/3 cup ReaLime.

Paula, I'm so happy you threw in your 2 cents about the Kitchen Aid as I'd always wondered if the attachments were useful. Thanks for letting us know what your experience has taught you.

I hope Ken's surgery goes well. Be sure to let us know. Isn't it sad that the surgeries and things that once were the domain of our parents and grandparents now have somehow become common in our own age group? How does that happen? It surely cannot be that we are getting older. I refuse to accept that. Inside I feel like I am still 25 years old and capable of doing anything I choose. My body, however, disagrees, and regularly subjects me to the indigities of getting older. Whichever ad agency coined the phrase "You're not getting older, you're getting better" was half-right. We're getting older, at least.

I hope Adelyn isn't too shocked by the change in her PaPaw's appearance. I know sometimes young children are really thrown for a loop when a familiar face changes somehow....adding a beard or mustache, cutting one off, starting to wear glasses full-time, or removing the glasses. When our grandmother, long ago (I am guessing the in 1980s) got cataract surgery and could stop wearing her Coke-bottle thick glasses, the grandkids and great-grandkids might have had a bit of trouble adjusting to her new look, as I recall.

Dawn

Paula, I have attachments for my Kitchenaid that have never been out of the box. In my defence, I got it before my surgeries and there were years when I was not in the kitchen. I wonder what I have. Can you elaborate a little on the meat chopper? Is that like a meat grinder? Like making sausage? I wonder what else I have. DH has it stored under a counter I still don't think I could get to.

I went and looked, I have a grinder and a shredder. I have 2 food processors that will shred, so that is probably why I haven't used them.

Yes, Amy - it's the meat grinder attachment that I was referencing. When making relishes - we don't like the veggies "shredded" like a food processor does. The stuff turns to mush once it's been thru a water-bath. I use the meat grinder (and I think it's the one with the biggest holes) to "chop" green tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, zuchinni and even cabbage. Basically - anythng that needs chopped up small which is pretty much a time sponge can be done this way. I love, love, love my Kitchenaid. I use it for any and everything I can. I love it so much that I dedicated half of a pantry cabinet for a spring loaded shelf where is stays permanently. It pulls up and out of the cabinet to countertop level. When I'm done - it gets wiped down and tucked back out of sight. It also stays plugged in. That cord is hidden by all the chip bags that are stored on the pantry shelf above it.

Dawn - I know EXACTLY what you mean about this aging thing. I myself had an angiogram this week. THAT is an experience. Good news - only one 55% blockage and it's all totally reversible. After today I can go back to my "normal"! However, last night while I'm still on lifting restrictions, my wonderful Hubby carried the 8 lb bag of Tomatoe Tone so I could hurry and fertilize during this brief "cool-down" and rain! Not much stops a gardener! I have a friend that said she thinks someone got it wrong about these so called golden years.....rusty is a better description. Heh!

Paula

Amy, I think we're reaching the age when we need to redesign our kitchens for easier use for our more mature selves. Or, we could just give up cooking altogether.

Paula, I'm glad the blockage is reversible and that it wasn't worse.

You're right that not much stops a gardener. I think it will be gardening that keeps all of us active well into our golden years, or our rust years....which does seem more accurate, doesn't it?

So, this is what we children of the 1950s and 1960s have come to? From bronzed baby shoes to rust.....sigh. Growing older is not for sissies, and, to get us back into a better frame of mind: old gardeners never die, they just spade away. That's what we'll be doing. Spading away with our new and repaired body parts, rusty joints, etc but with minds as sharp as a....um....what was I saying? I think I lost my train of thought., but y'all know what I meant. In the 1960s they told us to turn on, tune in and drop out. Why didn't they mention that the day was coming 50 years down the line when we wouldn't remember if we are supposed to be turning, tuning or dropping.

Dawn

Dawn - AMEN.

Paula, I am so laughing at us now. I suppose deep in our hearts we knew we wouldn't look or feel like we were 25 years old forever, but it still is such a shock to look in a mirror and see an older woman staring back at me. Who is she? Why is she in my house? Who is that old guy sleeping in the bed beside her? And, when, by the way, did my young husband start looking exactly like his father looked in his later years? I don't understand how this happened!

My aging, ever-more-creaky body is grateful we have appliances like food processors, tomato straining machines and high-speed mixers because, as the years go by, we need all the help we can get, whether in the garden or in the kitchen. I don't know how our grandparents and great-grandparents did all the work they did, indoors and out, without the modern conveniences that make our lives easier.

Dawn

My old body has been suffering from a sinus infection combined with an ear infection. After shots and meds, I feel worse but should feel better soon. Al set up the Roma machine and has been running tomatoes through it this morning. So far we have 3 1/2 gallons to process and we aren't finished. He is having to do most of the work, because I am being a true slacker today.

Well, it isn't fun to be sick. I hope your meds help you feel better soon.

Good for Al! Keep him hard at work. Hard work builds character, and (lol) he is a character if ever I met one!

Seriously, that's the nice thing about the tomato machine. Anyone can operate it, and that takes some of the workload off the person who usually does all/most of the canning.

Ok, now I'm jealous of all the new Roma machines;) Although my Sauce Master machine is almost identical, it doesn't have that plastic cone to scoot the waste farther away, and the "screens" are NOT stainless steel like the Victorio and Roma machines. I'm already seeing slight rusting on the sauce screen. For next season, I'm gonna have to catch up to all you Roma owners! lol

We broke ours in yesterday, used the salsa screen I bought with it, and it worked well. We think it reduced our time by at least an hour. And we can probably go faster as we refine.

We canned 10 pint jars of salsa.

Mary, Ooops. We did not mean at all to make you feel dissatisfied with your Sauce Master. However, I am not one to stand in the way of a canner who feels that a new machine is needed. Go for it! Maybe they'll be on sale in the off-season!

lcdollar, I do love the timesaving aspect of it. I don't burn out on canning salsa nearly as quickly thanks to this machine. I do get burnout eventually, but it is because I can too much of it in too short of a time span. If I properly kept track of the amount of salsa I canned this year, it was 213 pints. It could have been more if I forgot to write down a batch in my canning log, but I don't think I forget to log any. I might have forgotten to log some sauce or chili base or something, but I know I canned enough of them even if I didn't write it all day.

231 pints sounds like a lot of salsa, but we give away tons of it at Christmas, and some of it well before Christmas. A couple of weeks ago, I gave away 16 pints in one day. Making too much of it enables us to share it freely with our friends. Well, from my point of view, we share it freely. Some of them may not think we share it frequently enough, but I cannot give it all away. Gotta save some for us!

Dawn

Dawn, by ANYONE'S measurements, 231 pints of salsa is a LOT of salsa. I did 8 batches and divided them between pints and half pints (I usually get about 7 pints per batch), so I guess that comes out to about 80 jars all divided up. That was enough for me for awhile. One thing I haven't done this year is dragged out my monster All-American Pressure Canner. It's a beast, and I dreaded having to haul it from the shed to the kitchen. I like most of my veggies frozen, and only use it for things that just have to be pressure canned. I am plotting and plotting this fall garden, and I just can't quite make up my mind how much of this, and how much of that, etc. I do know I want a good bit of broccoli, and that is something I've actually not grown in years. Every time I've ever tried to grow it, the rabbits decimated it. I might have to try row cover over it this time, and see if that helps both with the rabbits, and pests. I got my seeds started this evening, so we'll see how well they germinate.

Will this machine work for making sand plum jelly? It would be nice not to boil all those little plums.

rjfletcher1962 - (and I was sorely tempted to shorten it to RJF...lol!) Do you have crock[pots? I'm a working gal...but love my country/garden life. We have "chickasaw plums" which are a close relative to the sand plums. I load up my 2 large oval crockpots (and use the liner thingys...they help A LOT!) and cook them all day long while I'm at work. Actually, it ends up being like 12 hours. Then I first strain the juice through the strainer bags. Next - I mash up anything left with a potatoe masher. MIne's not the "grid-like" - it's more of an S-upon S shaped masher. I've also used my cone-shaped sieve with the wooden pestal. Then I strain that thru the bags. I've found this method makes pretty short work of what was otherwise a very long and labor intense method to make Wild Plum Jelly. I've not ever used these referenced "tomatoe machines" for the processing of Wild Plums. Too many un-neccessary steps. Hope this helps!

Mary, I agree about the All American Pressure Canners being heavy beasts. Those things should come with wheels so you can move them around, and with some sort of lift that puts them up on the counter or stovetop for you. I'd never dare to try to put a loaded one on my smooth-top range for fear it would destroy it. You're definitely buying quality when you buy an All-American. They're made to last about 10,000 years, aren't they? We prefer most veggies frozen too, so I haven't pressure canned in ages and I don't miss it either.

Maybe this is your year for broccoli, if only the rabbits will leave it alone. Where we live, the coyotes usually wipe out the rabbits by the end of August, which likely helps fall gardeners with unfenced gardens.

rjfletcher1962, I haven't tried sand plums with the machine, but based on my experience with it, I think the stones would clog it up. I just boil my plums for half an hour or an hour and strain the juice through a colander lined with several layers of cheesecloth or a jelly bag. Sometimes the traditional, old-fashioned way of doing something like this simply is the best way for me. Paula's crockpot method sounds great but I've never tried it. Usually when I'm doing plums, I'm doing other canning batches of other things on the same day, so I boil them first, and let the juice drip through the strainer while I'm doing other canning projects. Then I come back at the end of the other canning projects and make/can the jelly.

Dawn

I forgot to put the cover/chute on it at first today. Couldn't figure out why the juice wasn't going in the pan. Still ended up with tomato juice all down my front. But then, all my shirts look like that lately. Whether I juice the toms or eat them. The chickens got a feast. Maybe I should have saved half of it for tomorrow.

lol. The kitchen and I end up wearing tomato juice more often than not. I don't even notice it until the end of the day, and then I just put on a clean shirt and clean the tomato juice off the cabinets, counter, walls, floor, etc. That's only on a big day when I'm running 5 to 8 batches through the machine. On a simple day with just a batch or two I usually can manage to stay clean. I've been doing better, clothing-wise, since I bought an oilcloth apron from Lehman's. On the days that I actually remember to wear it while working with tomatoes, my clothes stay spotless.

Dawn, when you compost the tomato skins, etc ...... is that considered a brown or a green ?

I have trouble finding enough browns for my compost.

They are greens.

My compost pile leans more heavily towards greens in the growing season, but gets lots of browns in the autumn and winter. It all evens out over time. To ensure the compost pile gets some browns in summer, I let my cornstalks stand until they are brown and dry and then add them to the pile. Then are slow to break down, but will break down more quickly if you chop them into pieces with a machete or something similar before putting them on the pile. Other summer sources of browns are cardboard, newspaper, shredded junk mail, twigs and small limbs that the trees (especially pecan trees) shed in summer, corn cobs, hay or straw, used paper towels, tea bags and egg shells. Hope this list helps a little!

So some how I put the o-ring thingie on wrong and it got ground up through the machine. A piece is missing. I used the machine without it, but I need to replace it. I have know idea how I managed to do that. ::shaking head::