Eat the produce, leave the dirt
Produce draining net helps users clean all of their fruits and vegetables at the same time in one big water bath
Today I came home from the farmers market with a full bag of produce for my impending Fourth of July barbecue, and by the time I got everything into the fridge, my hands were covered in dirt.
The beautiful thing about buying local organic foods is that they're free of all of the pesticides and hormones found in the frankenfruit that usually shows up on the shelves in the store down the street. The downside is that, since they travel directly from the mud to the market, I have to spend twice the time cleaning, cutting, and peeling as I would have to otherwise. But whether it's from the ground or the grocery, all of that produce needs a good scrub-down before it's table-ready.
That's where the Solutions produce cleaning net comes in. Using the net, you can soak all of your fruits and vegetables at the same time, saving you time and water. All you have to do is drop your food into the bag and submerge the whole thing into a sink full of water. When your produce is finished soaking, you lift the bag out of the water and let it drain.
If you use ice, you can get your soaking water to do double duty on your greens: if you bring them back from the market and they've gotten warm and limp, a bath in ice water both cleans the dirt off and crisps up the leaves.
The bag is 14 inches in diameter and 17 inches long, big enough to fit all the apples you could possibly bob for, and the rim of the ring floats on top of the water, so you don't have to worry about your fruit staying put. It's also supercheap at $4.90 on the Solutions Web site.
OK, so maybe it's not the most technologically advanced kitchen toy you could buy this summer, but it would be a nice addition to your green kitchen and may lengthen the life of your new Arwa faucet.