As seen on TV

Hello my friends! It’s almost the weekend and I am happy to see it approaching! Anything fun planned?

So I always wonder about the “as seen on TV” stuff – you know, the slicers and dicers and curlers and magic doodads that fix everything? Back in the day I wanted to start a blog about just those products, but I figured that would get expensive fast. I don’t even buy many of them, but I love hearing how things work out for people.

And then the other day I thought…I have a blog – why not do it? (Occasionally.) So this is my first review, and I threw in a simple recipe to go with it. :)

I asked for this one for Christmas and my parents got it (and one for themselves!) cause it seemed like it worked and was easy to use:

 

They ALL look like they work and are easy to use on the commercials though, that’s how they get ya!

It’s real name is Chop Magic and I decided to test it out on one of my favorite recipes – homemade salsa:

My late father-in-law taught me how to make a great salsa and it’s so easy. I add two things that are a must (in my opinion) – cilantro and a bit of garlic.

You’ll need:

Tomatoes (I like roma)
Red onion
Garlic
Lime
Cilantro
Serrano pepper
Jalapeño pepper

Notice I didn’t say amounts – you just kind of add each one till it tastes the way you want it. I like a lot of cilantro and a little bit of pepper, but it will depend on how hot you can take it.

I do have to say quickly that my father-in-law (who was from Mexico) would be cursing me right now for using this tool, but I think he secretly would have liked it. ;)

So the pictures promise big things, like a whole (photoshopped) onion that appears to be easily chopped:

I didn’t quite believe it but I decided to use the larger chop grate and tried one of the whole tomatoes, which would surely be easier to chop than a whole onion:

Uhhh, no. Do not try a whole vegetable. :)

DO slice it up (I did thick slices because I like mine chunky) and then do it:

That worked like a charm and I was on a roll. It really does slice the slices quite easily.

Because I like the onion chunks a bit smaller, I sliced those thin and then used the smaller chop grate:

So one small slice of red onion was really hard to get through there and I may or may not have put it on the floor and stepped on it to get it through. :) It’s the only way I could get it to cut.

I’m thinking a whole onion is NOT going to go through there, even with the larger grate. Just a guess. But the smaller stuff was great! I sliced the jalapeño and serrano and placed them on there as well to chop them even smaller and it worked great for those too.

After all the chopping was done I added a good amount of cilantro (just torn into pieces), juice from a half a lime and then some salt:

DELISH. It is so chunky and fresh and so good. I went a little heavier on the peppers this time and wowza, it is hotter than usual. My father-in-law would be VERY proud of me for that one.

Here’s what I ended up using:

Five roma tomatoes
Half of a small red onion
One clove garlic
Juice from half of a lime
Cilantro to taste (I like a lot)
Less than half of serrano pepper
Less than half of jalapeño pepper (and it was hot!)
Salt to taste

You could use just a bit of one type of pepper if you don’t like it hot at all. Sometimes I just use some of a serrano and that’s it.

Overall I actually quite liked this little chopper – it worked really well for the most part. I made the process go much faster for sure and I liked that I could just mix everything in the container.

Do you have one of these choppers? It came with the Perfect Tortilla Bowl so that may have to be the next review. ;)