Pampered Chief makes two products for this. First is The Hold'N Slice (looks like a fro pick)
http://www.pamperedchef.com/or.....letSubCat=
The second is the Food Chopper
http://www.pamperedchef.com/or.....letSubCat=
These should help.
We have a food chopper that is just a simple jar with the chopper attached, very inexpensive as compared to Pampered Chef. We also have a couple slicers that you adjust to the thickness you desire and run the potatoe over it and it slices it. I think they all came from yard sales or Salvation Army/Goodwill stores.
I'm not a professional, but have to put my 2 cents in - sharpened knives make all the difference between trying to manipulate the food and having full control of it. Dicing a pepp or onion with a sharp knife is a much more pleasant experience than trying to cut it up with a dull one. IMHO, a person could spend a little more and buy knives that respond to sharpening and a manual sharpener, or buy knives that don't take to sharpening and keep buying stuff like choppers. I mean, a knife blade gets dull with use, it stands to reason that a relatively inexpensive un-replaceable chopper/mandoline blade gets dull also. In my personal situation, knives and a sharpener are a lot easier to store and afford to maintain. I'm not saying that's best for everyone (and sharpening knives is certainly not my idea of a good time) just a thought to consider.
Also, it's my experience that, if you happen to cut yourself, a wound from an extremely sharp blade will heal much more quickly and be at less risk for infection; my personal experience backs up my doctor's statement. My particular accident prompts me to warn those musicians out there about listening to music (that you love to play) while cooking, because what your hands instinctively do while playing music and instinctively do while preparing food doesn't always precisely coordinate.
As far as buying inexpensive stuff at thrift/resale shops, though, I'm all for it; I wrote my original post in reference to stuff that's bought new and unused.
Be careful and hope you find a system to suit your needs!
In relation to what Bird said
A saying that I have heard many times in the kitchen and in the woods.....You will cut yourself more often with a dull knife than with a sharp knife.
I have heard two explainations for this. 1- You will respect a sharp object and therefore be careful around it. 2- If you are working with a dull knife you will get fustrated and hurry or not use it properly leaving you open to moments where you will cust yourself.
Matt O 2006 Skyline Nomad 27' travel trailer. Previously owned 1986 Coleman Columbia / 1992 Coleman Senecca / 1989 Born Free Class C RV.
Most of the cuts that I have heard about or witnessed have been from some dumba$$ putting knives in a sink filled with water. I had to take a course where we ran a restaurant called THE BERGEN ROOM in school 1 day a week for my Degree in Hospitality (I wanted to work in hotels, not a kitchen but it was a required course). The teacher was telling us how he had been teaching this class for 8 years and there had never been an accident. Wouldn't you know it, someone was washing the dishes at the sink picked up a knife that they didn't expect to be there and sliced their hand open. The following week I hung up a sign in the kitchen that said "This kitchen has gone 2,920 days without an accident. It has been 7 days since our last accident". At first the teacher was pissed. Then he started laughing hysterically :lmao:
I worked in the kitchen at my Scout camp for 2 summers and on various weekends. Someone donated a roll of plastic wrap. But we had no dispenser. So we built one out of wood but we still had no way to cut the plastic. It was a PIA. Then we got some new bow saw blades (remember it was a scout camp :ranger: in the woods) so I snagged a blade and attached it to our wooden dispenser. Talk about a serrated edge that would give you a bad cut.....
Matt O 2006 Skyline Nomad 27' travel trailer. Previously owned 1986 Coleman Columbia / 1992 Coleman Senecca / 1989 Born Free Class C RV.
Taking this off topic for a moment.
In my kitchens cooks were expected to have their knives. This tends to keep problems at bay. No cook is going to let THEIR knife lay around in water.
When house knives were used, the person who used it was responsible for it from the moment it left the rack to the moment it was returned. That entailed hand washing, air drying and back to the magnetic strip.
All I've ever used was a serrated knife for bread and tomatoes, a paring knife, and a good french(chef's) knife. However, I've picked up a Santoku knife, but I always go back to my trusty french knife for chopping and dicing. It's so easy to rock the blade over the food to be chopped, it doesn't really require oodles of knife skills. I'm sure you could google it or something to see it demonstrated. 🙂
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