Pears are usually only done in a syrup but if you want to use the foodsaver first freeze them in a plastic freezer container and then remove the block from the ontainer and put it in the food saver bag.

As you know trying to freeze liquids with the food saver is difficult so just freeze the things first and then vacuum seal them.

Hope this helps.

Dave

What I do is place the alternate container in the freezer for just a couple of hours, just until any liquid is solid enough to vacuum seal without sucking all the liquid out too.

The freezer storage life of something vacuum sealed and the same thing in just a freezer container or a ziplock bag is 2-3x longer.

Dave

Costco has the manual one on sale this month for $50, and it sounds like most people prefer that one to the fancy $180 jobbby.

Btw, NCHFP is National Center for Home Food Preservation

I have an Amazon discount code that I need to use before it expires. But there are so many choices!

I want to be able to use it for vacuuming jars also.

I'm willing to spend up to $150,

Which one would y'all recommend?

So to store tomatoes, I'm back to a large pot of boiling water, blanching about a dozen large tomatoes at a time, peeling the skins off, core the stem area, slice in half, squeeze each half in my hands to remove seeds and juice, turning them 90 degrees to get out more seeds, then chop into 1/4" chunks. Approx 6 large tomatoes will fill up a regular quart freezer bag. I use the great value cheap ones. I fill up all the bags to 3/4 to 4/5ths full, let sit upright until I've processed all the tomatoes, then zip the bags closed except for a small opening and squeeze with the bag upright until much of the juice comes out, and close up the bag while juice is coming out to make it as air tight as possible. Dry the bag, lay flat. I cut off about 12" from the 11" wide foodsaver roll bags. Two of the great value quart bags will fit in sideways on top of each other into the foodsaver bag. With a 12" length, I should be able to reuse it next year, and maybe once more after that. Haven't mastered that part.

I just baked a couple of large spaghetti squash casseroles in a 9 x 12 pyrex casserole dish (with fresh tomatoes and my garden squash, kale, spinach, onion, mozzarella, parmesean, etc). After baked, I cut in half and froze in the dish. Once frozen, put each half in a plastic grocery produce bag, cut to bag to length, slipped into 11" foodsaver bag with closed end of produce bag going in first. Foodsaver sucked out the air from both bags, and no liquid issue with casserole already being frozen.