Maxam Vegetable Chopper

     Although I’m a huge advocate for scratch cooking and preparing all of your food yourself, even I will admit that the prep work can be daunting.  Preparing fresh foods means lots of chopping, slicing, shredding, and grating.  I think that was probably the biggest shock to me when I decided to stop purchasing pre-packaged foods.  It’s easy to say that we should buy bags of potatoes from the produce section (or, better yet, grow them ourselves), but once you get them home, you have to turn them into French fries, potato chips, hashbrowns, and potato pancakes.  

     I don’t have Food Network level knife skills, so I find the prospect of chopping pounds and pounds of vegetables to be downright frightening.  So, I look for shortcuts.  Hey!  Just because we don’t want to buy things that are pre-cut, pre-processed and pre-packaged doesn’t mean that we can’t look for a way to make our work a little easier, right?

     My newest kitchen appliance is The Maxam Vegetable Chopper – KTVC7.  This handy little piece of equipment can almost entirely replace my electric food processor, while it offers more cutting options and eliminates the need for electricity.  And I haven’t even mentioned the beautiful slices, shreds and French fries that I literally crank out of this machine.

     The assembly is a breeze.  It sits on the counter with three solid suction cup feet that prevent it from moving anywhere.  There are 5 cutting cones included that shred both standard and fine sized shred, plain and waffle slices, as well as French fry cut.  The cones lock in place by simply lining them up with the clutch plate and turning the handle.  When you are ready to change the cutting cone, simply hold it steady while you turn the handle in the opposite direction. 

     Clean up is equally simple.  You don’t want to put anything in the dishwasher, but there’s no reason for it.  Just rinse away the vegetable bits and then either wash with warm, soapy water or give them a brief soak in disinfectant water.  Hand dry and store away in the cabinet.  I wish my food processor was half this easy to clean.  There are too many pieces and parts to fuss over.   I definitely prefer the simplicity of my Maxam Vegetable Chopper.

     I think my favorite feature might be the fact that it doesn’t use electricity.  Since moving to North Carolina I have come to realize that I can be without electricity not only because of summer hurricanes, but also because of winter storms as well.  Let’s face facts.  Not only are there natural threats in the world, but we also must consider the possibility of terrorism.  The truth is that there are countless reasons why we could lose power and it’s smart to be prepared to function without electricity.  This handy little appliance just added one more convenience to my home that I wouldn’t lose in the event of a power outage.